In Support of the K-12 Academic AI Officer

Empowering the convergence of human intellect and AI technologies as complementary forces to elevate teaching, learning, and school-wide collaboration.

TLDR

*Head of Academic AI as an integration facilitator
*Integrating the Design Sprint process for human-led AI integration
*Building an understanding of AI
*AI Bootcamp
*AI Guidance Document
*Institute for Youth-Centered-AI (YCAI).

Stefan Bauschard & Dr. Sabba Quidwai, Designing Schools

Designing Schools partnership with the Santa Ana Unified School District has been pivotal in aligning our education framework with AI integration. Their work, particularly in leading Design Sprints, has brought a refreshing and dynamic shift in our approach to AI policy and guidelines development, staff development, and problem-solving. They are thought leaders and strategists, whose insights have been invaluable to our district.

Jerry Almendarez, Superintendent, Santa Ana Unified School District

In the Spring of 2023, Bauschard wrote a blog post calling for schools and school districts (“schools”) to establish a “Head of Academic AI.”  

Many companies, and some universities, have begun to appoint individuals to similar roles.  Recently, The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has issued a directive requiring every agency to appoint a Head of AI.  On April 9th, Dr. Radha Plumb, a former debater, was officially sworn in as the Department of Defense Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer. 

The case for doing so in government, business, and higher education is strong, but such a position is also needed in K-12 education. In education, the Head of Academic AI (HOAI) would act as an expert advisor to school leadership, working across departments to develop a school-wide AI strategy, including ethical AI use policies and guidelines that are focused on human development. They would also provide regular updates on AI trends and their impact on education, develop teacher training on AI literacy and tools, evaluate and recommend beneficial AI-powered educational technologies, and ultimately help to future-proof education by embedding AI skills across the learning experience to prepare students for an AI-driven world.

Specifically, during the last year we’ve been working with schools, we found schools face multiple challenges related to the growth of AI that we believe such a position can help overcome.

• Uncertainty about where to begin when developing a school-wide initiative.

• Understanding of different AI technologies, current capabilities, and likely future capacities, both generally and within education. 

• Understanding of potential positive use cases in the classroom, academic administration, and across responsibilities for classified employees.

• Feeling overwhelmed by the rate of technological progress, which is now exponential. Over the next few months, we can expect to see the release of Llama3 (Meta), ChatGPT5, and other models that have far greater capabilities. Students will have access to these models while at school both in their glasses and through applications such as WhatsApp. They can also build autonomous agents to complete their work.

• Understanding that successfully adapting to AI and preparing students for an AI World likely requires at least some curriculum redesign and a much greater emphasis on metacognition.

• Uncertainty as to how to integrate instruction with and related to AI into existing courses such as history and economics.

• Uncertainty as to how to respond to student and staff use of AI, as well as growing decentralization pressures created by the arrival of AI-supported instructional opportunities.

• Awareness of the current level of student and staff AI readiness.

• Coordination across departments, which can sometimes be fragmented, related to developing a positive district-wide response to AI.

Over the past year, we’ve worked with schools to tackle all of these challenges, essentially functioning as external Heads of Academic AI and supporting different educational organizations in different parts of this process.

Thinking about where to begin. We believe it is essential that schools intentionally choose how to integrate AI into their schools based on knowledge about AI and their goals and values. 

In August, we started working with the Orange County Department of Education (OCDE) to develop an AI strategy.  Our approach was centered around Design Thinking (DT) and AI, building AI literacy and facilitating DT workshops to help lead them to make their own choices about the use of AI, and helping prepare students for an AI World.

After the session, OCDE chose to focus on strengthening staff AI literacy and building student AI literacy while involving them in the process of AI decision-making.

OCDE then hired two individuals full-time – Wes Kriesel and Kunal Dalal – to support the efforts of the schools in Orange County to take full advantage of AI.

One of their projects has been focused on listening to students. The student focus is culminating in a 700+ student event about AI where students will be the speakers and leaders.

Similarly, we have been working with the Santa Ana Unified School District (SAUSD), they started with the design sprint process and used goals and values established in their graduate profile to guide their decision-making.

At the forefront of AI research, scientists often stress the necessity of harmonizing AI systems with human values to control any detrimental effects they may have. We contend that educators must similarly align their usage of AI with the educational values and ethos of their schools, ensuring that AI serves to uphold and reinforce those guiding principles.

Support understanding of the technology. Over the last year, we’ve been working with faculty and faculty and staff in many school districts and the Learning & Development team in the Santa Ana School District through their knowledge of AI. We’ve focused on common tools such as Claude, Perplexity, building GPTs in ChatGPT4, image generation through Bing, and many other tools. We demonstrated how administrators, classified staff, and teachers can use these technologies in the classroom. As Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said, we need to “start asking what we want AI to do for US.”

We also identify where the leading thinkers in the field think the technology is going so that educators are not caught off guard by its development.

Faculty and staff AI literacy is also essential not only for helping students in the classroom but also to be able to effectively implement any AI guidance that schools issue.

Support alternative assessment strategies. In a recent article, some professors from MIT explained that AI is an arrival technology that we do not have total control over. AI is in schools and students and teachers are using it.

We all know this arrival has complicated one of the most common forms of assessment – writing, but it has really complicated the assessment of every product that we previously assume was at least mostly completed by a student. As noted recently, 

Whether you are evaluating writing, STEM outputs, coding, or anything else, you are now looking at some combination of student/AI work. This will get even more confounding as AI tools become more powerful and are integrated into our existing production platforms like Microsoft Office and Google Workspace.

How will this be evaluated and what changes do we need to make to assessment? We have been working with schools to develop alternative forms of assessment such as debate and student portfolios as part of a wider effort of instructional redesign that not only makes it more likely that individual student work can be accurately assessed but that students are developing meta-cognitive skills needed for the AI world.  

Facilitate curriculum integration. Often compared to energy or electricity, specifically, AI is a general-purpose technology that will impact everything we do in society. We are already starting to see some workers being replaced by AIs, AIs that function as mental health care providers, deep fakes in political campaigns, and the integration of AI into the military, including the use of autonomous weapons. There are lessons related to AI that can be infused into every element of the curriculum, from economics to psychology, to politics/social studies. We’ve been working with learning and development teams to provide lessons for teachers in those areas.  Bauschard outlines this in more detail in his Case for the Innovation Academy.

Support student learning. A few days ago, the New York Times ran a story about chronic absenteeism in schools and how despite many best and even heroic efforts, many students were choosing to stay home. We all know that AI presents many challenges to schools, but as Ethan Mollick recently noted, AI presents an opportunity where “students who were left behind can find new paths forward.” Education is changing, and it’s not just because of AI; AI could be an academic lifeline for some students.

Lead the development of district guidance. We’ve worked with the Santa Ana school district and others to develop comprehensive AI guidance. This is expected to be finalized in April 2024.

Our work included working with their executive cabinet and coordinating efforts across students, teachers, administrators, and classified staff to develop district-level guidance that could establish a path toward the future. All of those involved in our listening and decision-making sessions made critical contributions; one of the most valuable ideas came from the purchasing department.

It began by drafting a guidance document based on our review of eleven AI in education guidance documents from the US and around the world plus what we learned about the district’s values and goals. This document was then reviewed by the district’s superintendent and executive cabinet before we began working with the entire district to obtain feedback and develop ideas.

Intentionally integrating AI into a school requires an “all-hands-on-deck” approach; AI is an active and general-purpose technology that can learn on its own and will impact every aspect of a school.  Information technology support is needed to vet new applications for safety and security. Instructional technology support is needed to facilitate proper adoption.  Internal and sometimes outside legal counsel is needed to ensure that application use is consistent with current law. Teaching & Learning department support is essential to align the use of AI in education with curriculum goals, ensure that pedagogical strategies are optimized, assessment methods are developed, and the impact of AI integration is continuously evaluated for ongoing improvement. District leadership is essential to build the vision and create alignment across the entire district.

In each instance, we worked with departments to establish use cases for the AI technology. We do not favor any particular applications, but first work with departments to identify challenges they are facing and then discuss with them how to use the technology. 

In establishing the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI, one of its co-founders, Chris Manning, noted: 

“We saw that AI would be a technology that would affect all areas…It would affect medicine, law, business, and economics. There are lots of ethical and other philosophical issues. We needed a ‘whole of the university’ approach. Stanford HAI has really enabled a lot of those broader collaborations across the university.” 

Similarly, schools need a “whole of school” approach. This is why we held meetings with student groups, teachers, and leaders from all of the district’s departments to receive feedback on the original document. We then incorporated changes to the original document, sharing our progress with the superintendent and executive leadership team.  What was a “whole of district” approach enabled community-wide buy-in for the guidance.

You can check out our 63-page overview of district guidance recommendations (Canva & PDF). 

Offer continued and iterative support. Developing school-wide approaches to AI will require interactive and continued support not only to scale but also to adapt to any material changes in AI development such as Agents and advances in AR/VR technologies and tutoring systems. As a result, our program provides year-round support in all of the above both live and in-person through our AI Bootcamp.

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The bootcamp was so much more than just prompts, it was how to redesign your work with having AI tools as members of your team. These technologies are not just improving how we work, we're redefining the balance between our professional responsibilities and personal joys.
Zandra Jo Galvan | Superintendent | Greenfield Union School District

Before taking the AI Bootcamp, I was very very hesitant about AI. After the bootcamp, I can't imagine my personal or professional life without it. This doesn't take away that, like anything, there are precautions to take with AI, but I now clearly see when used properly AI actually allows us to be MORE human, not less. The boot camp thoroughly showed that AI does far more than mundane tasks and data. AI is not Google. AI can help identify themes, collaborate, and dig much deeper than question answers. The entire experience helped remove the fear of AI and moved me from "no way" to "how did I live life without it?
Jennifer Meeter-Linko | EdTech Director | Huntington Beach Elementary

Thinking big.  While we believe that all districts should provide support for a HOAI we do not think things should stop there. Ongoing developments in AI and its impact on society generally and education demand more.

Ultimately, we believe, K-12 needs to build its own Institute for Youth-Centered-AI (YCAI). Led by educators and modeled after the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI, such a program would prioritize ethical considerations and foster critical thinking skills among students, faculty, and staff by engaging them in discussions about the societal impacts of AI, including how to best adapt our K-12 educational system. Collaborative opportunities facilitated by the institute would allow educators, researchers, industry professionals, and policymakers to develop innovative AI education initiatives tailored to the needs of K-12 students, leveraging diverse expertise and perspectives to create a more comprehensive and effective educational experience. By engaging stakeholders in the curriculum development process and advocating for the importance of AI education, the institute can address challenges related to resource constraints and curriculum integration.

Please consider joining us and becoming a part of our journey. 

2024-5. As schools begin to prepare for the 2024-5 academic year, we are planning to work with 12 schools and/or districts to provide all of the support that would be provided by a HOAI. If you are interested in working with us, please visit our website and/or contact sabba@designingschools.org.

Want to learn about AI, about education, and about us?

Bauschard, S  Quidwai, S. (April 5, 2024). Humanity Amplified: The Fusion of Deep Learning and Human Insight to Shape the Future of Innovation.

Additional “Head of AI” Job Description Details

Goal:  Empower the convergence of human intellect and AI technologies as complementary forces to elevate teaching, learning, and collaboration district wide.

*Maintain overall responsibility for coordinating a school’s AI strategy

*Work with the Head of School/Superintendent to maintain literacy related to AI & other technologies (e.g., neurotechnology), prepare any presentations, and work with the board on related technology issues

*Coordinate AI-related strategy and implementation across departments

*Follow developments in AI and report on material changes and events that are likely to provide significant additional disruption to assessment and/or the school environment and keep relevant parties abreast of the changes

*Organize quarterly meetings related to district AI guidance and implementation

*Ensure implementation of district AI guidance and directives

*Develop district AI-related PR strategy and integrate it with community events

*Be a general sounding board on AI for all parties and provide support to those who are struggling with the technology

*Create unprecedented opportunities for students to gain practical experience applying AI tools and concepts through partnerships with AI industry leaders

*Work with teaching and learning to facilitate using AI to strengthen the use of AI to support teachers’ efforts to integrate and evaluate the 5Cs and create portfolios

*Work with teaching and learning to develop a curriculum aligned with state and national standards using computational thinking and AI literacy across all grade levels and subjects, empowering students to understand and effectively utilize AI tools and concepts.

*Promote ethical and responsible use of AI technologies, fostering discussions and guidelines around data privacy, algorithmic bias, and the societal implications of AI

*Work with instructional technology to support updated lists and research on potential applications

*Provide support for VR/XR, adaptive, and gamification technologies as needed

*Work with legal to ensure legal compliance

*Work with IT to ensure safety and implementation

*Support investigation into opportunities for providing a bot for all students and students learning on DAOs to facilitation non-traditional learning, gamification, homework support, and individualized instruction. 

*Develop plans for bot-based instructional support

Before the Bootcamp I didn’t know much about AI, now I’m presenting to people at my school and at conferences. The bootcamp is so much more than just AI, it’s about learning the history and how to live in a world that is changing so quickly. I was new to prompting and the SPARK framework gave me so much confidence using ChatGPT. 

Tara Menghini | Educator | Knox Gifted Academy