AI tool being tested by New York City teachers to create lesson plans

Metro

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by Deirdre Bardolph

An artificial intelligence program from South America that creates lesson plans for teachers is now being piloted at some Brooklyn high schools, The Post has learned.

Teachers in north Brooklyn are being trained in how to use YourWai, an AI “teaching assistant” developed by Columbia developers for Learning Innovation Catalyst, Janice said at Wednesday’s parent council meeting.・Superintendent Ross made the announcement.

“Teachers spend hours creating lesson plans. They shouldn’t be doing that anymore,” said Ross, who oversees high schools in Sunset Park, Park Slope, Williamsburg, Bed-Stuy, Brownsville and East New York. said.

Ross explained at Wednesday’s Citywide High School Council meeting that teachers input their students’ needs and desired standards into the app, which generates lesson plans. She called it a “game changer” that would give teachers more time to “think creatively” and less time creating curriculum.

“Does it take time, do I have to make adjustments if I want more of this, more of that? Yeah,” Ross added. “We can never replace humans.”

But some educators and observers warn that AI lesson planning is concerning on a number of levels. Fledgling AI systems have been shown to be left-leaning and exhibit absurd historical inaccuracies, and lesson planning itself is an essential and creative educational activity.

“The mistake is to think of lesson planning as a tedious task that can be left to a machine,” David Bloomfield, a professor at Brooklyn College and the State University of New York Center for Graduate Education, told the Post.

“The use of AI, like commercial and free educational materials that have been available for a long time, should not be a means to create sterile, impersonal work; to be effective, teachers must teach them how to use it. “It should be a tool that needs to be developed,” he added.

Google’s Gemini recently came under fire for creating “diverse” images that are not historically or factually accurate, including images of female popes and Native American founding fathers.

Adobe’s Firefly recently produced a depiction of a black Nazi.

A study conducted last year by New Zealand professor David Rosado for the Manhattan Institute found “instances of political and demographic bias” and “leftist” overtones in ChatGPT responses.

Rosado told the Post this week that most AI algorithms exhibit bias depending on political topics.

Aligning AI to specific values ​​requires “human-driven fine-tuning,” he said.

“Another potential problem with AI creating lesson plans for students is the relatively high frequency with which they exhibit hallucinations and essays,” he said. “So they’re making up something that’s not true at all.”

Rosado laid out potential scenarios that could happen. AI could reinforce human biases, and humans could correct or learn from the technology, or, in a more disturbing scenario, a biased system could present false content in a convincing way. “convince users of its veracity,” he said.

“We know that AI can sometimes be wrong, and we must use it with caution,” Queens Councilman Bob Holden, a member of the City Council’s technology committee, told the Post.

But it’s the future, and it’s “hitting us at warp speed,” the former educator noted.

“As we incorporate this technology into our daily lives, educators and students must use it responsibly and with careful supervision in schools,” Holden said.

New York City Schools Superintendent David Banks moved to adopt OpenAI’s ChatGPT last May after the DOE banned the technology earlier this year.

Chalkbeat reported in January that the city’s Metropolitan Council Schools Network has introduced AI to teacher instruction.

DOE spokeswoman Jenna Lyle told the newspaper that the district-led pilot will allow teachers more time to interact with students.

“To prepare young people for a lifetime of success and prepare them today to lead tomorrow, students and educators must take full advantage of technological advances at their fingertips,” she said. Stated.