CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (WVIR) – A University of Virginia research study is examining where artificial intelligence can help special education teachers, from writing learning goals to tracking student progress, according to researcher Danielle Waterfield, Ph.D.
“Chat GPT was able to do comparable quality in terms of creating IEP goals,” said Danielle Waterfield, a scientific researcher with the UVA School of Education and Human Development.
Waterfield points to individualized education programs, or IEPs, as a lengthy process special education teachers have to complete. Before becoming a researcher, Waterfield spent time as a special education teacher and an administrator overseeing the process used to identify students for special education services.
An IEP is a yearlong plan between a student, their family and school laying out the student’s learning goals, how their progress will be measured and what services or accommodations they will receive.
The study found ChatGPT could improve the quality of learning goals written by teachers. Waterfield said she wanted to know what would happen when AI was compared with teachers who already had more experience.
Using data collected in 2023, the study found no statistically significant difference in the quality of goals written by ChatGPT and those written by the more experienced teachers.
The finding also opened the door to further questions about where AI could actually be most useful.
“How can I effectively prompt a generative AI and how do I go through and critically evaluate and analyze the output that’s coming from the AI?” Waterfield said.
The idea isn’t limited to research. Waterfield pointed to AI for Education, an organization that provides resources for schools and educators, as a useful resource. It has a prompt library specifically for special education, including examples for breaking goals into objectives, creating different levels of assignments, modifying lessons and developing materials used in speech therapy, according to AI for Education.
As those tools become more available, Waterfield said schools also have to think about how they’re used.
“Schools need to cultivate and continue to life that expertise of teachers and realize even if AI is able to make things a little bit more efficient and faster, the teacher is still the expert,” Waterfield said.
That conversation is already happening in Albemarle County classrooms. The school division has guidance for how staff can use AI, including helping draft lesson materials, analyzing data and monitoring student progress. The division also says AI should support, rather than replace, human thinking and connection, according to Albemarle County School District.
Waterfield said schools are already starting to use AI in different ways. This research could help shape how special education teachers use it in the future, with the goal of giving them more time with their students.
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