With cellphone policies and screentime limits, educators around the Tennessee Valley are trying to balance the use of technology in the classroom, including artificial intelligence.
Hamilton County Schools developed its AI usage policy for teachers and students two years ago and continues to update it for each school year.
The Hamilton County School District says teachers need to disclose AI usage and check the output of data received from AI.
President of the Hamilton County Education Association, Jeanette Omarkhail, says AI is a tool for teachers and can help them tackle the day-to-day workload.
“…lesson plans take a lot of time to type in and write in, and this makes us take less time. So, we’re not, teachers aren’t, sitting up for 10 hours writing 20 lesson plans, but they still have to read over and check it,” she said.
Teachers are still responsible for the information they are teaching with AI and the assignments they may use it to help grade.
“But bottom line, it’s the person’s responsibility. We’re not replacing the person, even when you use AI, and you put things together, whether it’s Chat GPT or Clot or whatever, whatever you’re using, you have to check the work,” Jeanette said.
Omarkhail says teachers can’t fully rely on AI to gather information or build lessons, but says it’s also not the first technology introduced to the classroom.
“If it’s being allowed to grade papers, I mean, we use scantrons; those were new, and they can make mistakes too,” she said.
A new law passed in the state of Tennessee further informs teachers on best practices when teaching with AI.
It requires teachers to complete at least one professional development course on the use of AI in the classroom.
This must be completed by August 1, 2027, or within two years of becoming a licensed teacher in Tennessee.