Last year, the rapid advancement of Artificial Intelligence created momentous uncertainty among educators nationwide. In response, San Domenico staff developed a structured color-coding system to clarify when AI can be used on assignments, aiming to eliminate the confusion that marked the previous year. Each assignment on Canvas is labeled with green, yellow, or red indicators; green signals that AI is required or highly encouraged, yellow permits its use but does not mandate it and red prohibits AI altogether.
Green
Students, have some of your teachers utilized AI yet? Matt Bristley, an Upper School Social Studies Teacher, has already implemented the “green” policy into his curriculum. Examples from his Global History Honors class are when students are required to debate with ChatGPT.
“You put in your arguments and it argues against you. And then you’re basically sparring with somebody like a partner,” Bristley said. “You can test out your arguments and learn what the other side might think before you actually go into real life.”
Another activity involves breaking students into groups to gather information with ChatGPT on specific topics, then discussing.
The AI “green light” in classrooms will help prepare students for the workplace. Justin Fredrickson, a parent of a senior at San Domenico, works with AI daily. He sells high performance storage for companies building language models, such as ChatGPT or Llama.
“It’s important for students to learn about AI because it is the single largest invention to allow us to gain efficiency in our work,” Fredrickson said. “It makes every employee that uses it potentially many times more productive and efficient than someone who doesn’t use AI to augment their job.”
AI can create business models or generate software code, tasks that could take days if done manually but can be completed in minutes with AI, Fredrickson comments.
As a San Domenico parent, Fredrickson was excited to learn his daughter is being encouraged to work with the new technology, not against it. As with many elements of his job, he believes AI will slowly be incorporated into many aspects of our lives.
Bristley comments on how AI has become incorporated into the lives of teachers, ultimately saving precious time. For example, AI can be used when writing mundane email chains with basic information, summarizing long emails and giving more efficient grading feedback. If AI can aid with time consuming activities, teachers can spend more time preparing engaging lessons.
Furthermore, some students also see the benefit of the new AI policy, helping students use the technology efficiently and responsibly. Cameron Gearhart, a senior at San Domenico, sees AI as a “valuable tool we should learn to use.”
Much like Bristley’s classes, Gearhart’s STEAM class (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics) is also implementing the “green policy,” readying students to use AI in the workplace.
“In STEAM, we use AI everyday, [such as] Generative video makers, image generators and ChatGPT a bunch,” Gearhart said. “I think AI is going to become used a lot in the workplace.”
Another circumstance where Artificial Intelligence is used in the workplace, is a UX designer. Bristley’s wife, Haley, puts visual elements together and makes sure that when users use a website or an app, they can easily navigate through it.
“She uses it as a fantastic tool to quickly generate an image and refine it,” Bristley said.
The new AI “green light” policy will aid students in navigating the new technology by implementing it into the classroom environment; however, this policy is not intended to replace student thinking or ideas. It is essential for students to engage critically with AI, instead of relying on it entirely, Bristley comments.
“AI is actually much more powerful when you use it in a smart way. But if you never get smart in the first place because you’re using it as a crutch, then you actually can’t even use AI well,” Bristley said.
Yellow
Different from requiring AI on green assignments, students can have the choice of utilizing the tool on assignments labeled yellow.
Many of Bristley’s reading assignments in Contemporary Global History Honors are yellow because he allows and encourages students to use AI while reading.
“AI is a great companion to when you’re reading something, because it can help you to quickly get explanations for things that you might be confused about,” Bristley said.
Using AI to explain words you do not know, researching extra information for context, or helping to explain a difficult sentence construction can be extremely helpful when reading.
Gearhart agrees that AI can be a great tool for students to understand topics better, acting as a tutor.
“AI opens up the ability for a lot of students to teach themselves better,” Gearhart said. “ChatGPT is so good at explaining things that if students get confused, they can get help on stuff so much easier.”
According to Gearhart, Artificial Intelligence can not only aid students with understanding literature, but it can also help with learning math.
AI is helpful on math homework “especially if I do my work pretty late at night, and don’t have anybody to ask for help,” Gearhart said.
AI can give step by step explanations of how to work through math problems and give extra practice problems with answer keys.
Green and yellow assignments have been used for history classes, STEAM and more; however, the English department continues to have a no AI policy with little exceptions.
Red
“In AP lit, AI will NEVER be allowed for any work in or out of class except specifically indicated,” according to the AP lit Artificial Intelligence policy written on Canvas. This policy is similarly stated across most English classes at San Domenico; therefore, “red” assignments are the default on all assignments.
Kaitlyn Gallagher, an English teacher and 6-12 English Department Lead at San Domenico, explains the worries teachers have about students relying on AI. Gallagher believes that “there’s no question [that] it is harmful in the educational context.”
Gallagher stresses that students who use AI will become reliant on it, and therefore will not understand their true potential.
“I think [copying from AI] is the same as performance enhancing drugs,” Gallagher said. “There is no way for you to know what your actual ability is, independent of this substance.”
The fear that students will become reliant on AI, using it to replace their original thinking is a concern many teachers share.
“An important understanding is that AI should be a helpful supplement to our thinking, not replacing our thinking,” Bristley said.
To prevent students from cheating with AI, the English department has changed aspects of all San Domenico classes, to Gallagher’s dismay. She explains the difficulties that AI has brought, such as limiting take-home essays and instead, writing most essays in class and on paper.
“We spent last year just handwriting, and it really altered the sort of direction of what we could accomplish in terms of composition within a class,” Gallagher said. “There were no process papers in which we could do revisions, get feedback, apply that feedback and revise, and that’s really how you learned it, right?”
Students also agree that solely writing in class essays prohibits the learning process in English class, losing valuable time to workshop and revise.
“If you just have a chance to write it once, then you’re just practicing how to write decently on your first draft, not how to write really well,” Gearhart said.
Furthermore, AI also affects the relationship between students and teachers. When students use AI instead of their authentic work, it gives the teacher a false narrative for what the students understand, Gallagher comments.
“If you use AI for an assignment, even if you don’t get caught, I don’t understand how much you know or what your skills are, so I can’t help you,” Galleger said. “It stops the learning process when you misrepresent yourself academically.”
Overall, the new green, yellow, and red color coding system at San Domenico gives students a clear path for how to use Artificial Intelligence in an appropriate manner within an academic setting. AI is going to be an integral part of our lives, therefore it is important that San Domenico is equipping students with the tools they need to navigate the new technology.
