DENVER — The Colorado Education Initiative (CEI), a statewide nonprofit, formed a steering committee to come up with best practices on using artificial intelligence in classrooms.
Much of the talk surrounding AI has focused on the negative consequences of the new tool, but CEI President and CEO Rebecca Holmes hopes the committee will find ways to do some good for the tool. The committee hopes to finalize its recommendations and best practices sometime in June.
Holmes sat down with 9NEWS to talk about the committee and its goals.
(Editor’s note: Answers may have been lightly edited for clarity.)
9News: What is the Colorado Education Initiative?
CEI President and CEO Rebecca Holmes: “CEI is a statewide nonprofit focused on K-12 education throughout Colorado. We’ve been around for 16 years. We have an important relationship with the state Department of Education and we serve nearly 100 Colorado schools. working in the districts of
9News: What does CEI do for these school districts?
Homes: “We work on school improvement efforts. We work on big change and we’ve spent a lot of time with districts that are rethinking the high school, the high school experience for today’s youth. Rethinking to make it more relevant and more rigorous.”
9News: How did the idea of the steering committee come about?
Homes: “We want Colorado to be at the forefront of smart use of AI in K-12 and we’ve seen only a handful of other states come forward saying maybe we need a state plan. Good tools, and good Policies so that our youth are not left behind in terms of truly technology-driven industries that can not only work but thrive.”
9News: So is CEI the driving force in this committee?
Homes: “Yes, that’s a role that we’ve played a lot in the state on different issues that can disrupt K-12 education. Usually we work together, so in this case our There are educators along with pass-tech entrepreneurs as well as policy makers who are coming together to say, ‘What’s the best way to make sure that AI comes to our school in Colorado in ways that are fair, that Make sure every child is prepared and that really drives the future of teaching and learning in positive and productive ways for children and teachers?”
9News: Why is it important to talk about best practices?
Homes:Young people in our high schools right now are really smart and they’re more focused on the world of work than I think previous generations were, so they know. Young people will tell us, ‘Every job I go into is influenced by technology and especially AI.’ They want to be prepared for that future, and if we say ‘don’t use this tool until you’re in the workforce’, and schools can be out of touch with their young people. So there’s an urgent need for high school students to say, ‘I want to be ready for this, I want to know how to use this tool responsibly and smartly because my employer and my This is what life will demand of me.’
9News: What is an example of better use of AI in the classroom?
Homes:So one of the ways we’re looking at it, and it’s one of the three priorities for the steering committee, is to think about how AI makes the teacher’s job easier. So as an educator, years ago, I would spend my Saturday afternoons taking a text and trying to make that text accessible to kids who were reading at a 4th grade level and kids who were in 10th grade. Read at grade level—you can. That’s in seconds for an AI tool. So for younger students, it’s less about AI in the classroom with young people and more about taking more laborious tasks off the teacher’s plate so that the teacher is freer to work on the truly human-based things we want our teachers to do. want to do
In the high school space we are seeing leaps and bounds in our ability to teach young people about media literacy. I would say, as educators, we’ve kind of fallen behind in teaching people about media literacy, and now they know more than adults because they’re seeing deeper fakes, they’re using computers in their social media. are looking at generated images and they honestly know more than most adults about how to be a savvy consumer of AI-generated media.”
9News: After the steering committee shared its recommendations, what do you hope to happen next?
Homes:What we want to ensure most is that Colorado remains on the cutting edge. In many respects, from an employment standpoint, Colorado is a bit of a technology hub and we want young people who are ready to work and lead in those industries. We also want our policy to be smart. We want policy that is informed by young people and their experiences, policy that is created in part by teachers who have lived experience with these new tools in the classroom, and policy that we “I’ve never seen a policy that is iterative and moves as fast as technology changes.”
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