The voice ai demo

Resources for building guidelines

Redefining Assessment Workshop

Dwight's prompt-a-thon

American School of Quito: Guidelines | Student Presentation | Ethical Use | Acceptable Use Scale

Parent Guide

FREE student AI literacy course

GenAI Literacy Trainer Essentials course

Amanda Bickerstaff

Amanda is the Founder and CEO of AI for Education. A former high school science teacher and EdTech executive with over 20 years of experience in the education sector, she has a deep understanding of the challenges and opportunities that AI can offer. She is a frequent consultant, speaker, and writer on the topic of AI in education, leading workshops and professional learning across both K12 and Higher Ed. Amanda is committed to helping schools and teachers maximize their potential through the ethical and equitable adoption of AI.

Lyana Azan

Lyana Fernandez Azan received her B.A. in English Literature from the University of Miami in 1993 and her M.S. from Barry University in 2003. She is the Dean of Teaching and Learning at Carrollton School of the Sacred Heart in Miami, Florida, where she continues teaching the seniors International Baccalaureate English II HL. A strong advocate of teaching the whole child through inquiry-based learning, she tries to involve students in social justice issues through critical thinking and problem-solving activities. Her professional interests include the de-grading of the classroom, the connection among the mind, brain, and educational pedagogy, the promotion of independent learning, the creation of a community of scholars, – in and out of the classroom - and the role of metacognition and feedback in learning. In addition, during her twenty-six years at Carrollton, she has served as the M-12 English Department Chair, the National English Honor Society Advisor, the High School Community Read and Poetry Night Coordinator, and the Co-Chair of the Janet Erskine Stuart Teaching Fellows Program (JESTFP). Finally, she and another colleague created an Educators of the Sacred Heart (ESCJ) group whose goal is to educate faculty and staff - personally and professionally - to a deeper understanding of the Goals and Criteria, furthering our mission as ESCJ.

Estela Proaño

Estela Proaño is an international educator and school leader with nearly 30 years in education and over 20 years in leadership roles across the IB continuum. She is currently working as the IB Diploma Program Coordinator in Quito, Ecuador.

Estela focuses on helping her team move beyond reactive AI use toward informed and explicit integration. She has led the development of practical AI guidelines and professional learning experiences that support teachers, students and parents in using AI to deepen learning and maintain ethical clarity.

Estela is especially interested in how AI can be used to strengthen students’ critical thinking while also optimizing teacher time, allowing educators to focus more on feedback, relationships, and high-impact instructional decisions. She brings a grounded, classroom-connected perspective to AI implementation, consistently asking how new tools can genuinely improve instructional quality and impact while remaining aligned with IB values.

‍ 00:00
Amanda Bickerstaff
Hi, everyone. We're so excited to have you here today. I get to hang out with lovely educators and leaders all over the world pretty much every week. But to be able to highlight these three leaders and these three organizations who have been doing such remarkable AI literacy work is really a pleasure today. This is pretty cool. When we started AI for Education, we did 25 webinars in 26 weeks, which is still one of the craziest things ever happened. But we've been really good, everybody. This is actually, I think, our fourth webinar and like four weeks or three webinars in three weeks. So it's exciting to be back here. This is a part of our new series, AI Adoption in Action. So we are planning to have a series of webinars that are really situated in the work on the ground, you know.

00:46
Amanda Bickerstaff
And so for today, we're focusing on three independent schools that are so committed to AI literacy. I'm joined by Shelby, Liana and Estella from three pretty remarkable schools themselves, but also, like, really unique situations. We've got Miami represented New York, and then we also have Quito in Ecuador. So very excited to have them all. As always, we'd love people to say hello. We'll be probably about 200 people today, so say hello in the chat. Get involved. If you have a great resource, please share it. If you have a question specifically from the panel, you can drop that into the Q and A. As always, I'll be looking at the chat. But also if there's something really specific you'd love to have shared with, we're happy to do that and we are going to get started.

01:29
Amanda Bickerstaff
So one of the things that is really a fascinating part of our work is that I started AI for Education. Guys, we're almost at three years, so the website will be three years old next month. And it was just literally, it was a prompt library. It was five somewhat AI generated blogs, because I don't like writing, and a fake services page. And on the fake services page, meaning that we hadn't done any services yet. The first thing on there was AI literacy. So AI literacy workshops. And I think I manifested that because the first time we ever worked with a school was in June 2023 in Queens, New York. And then what's been so amazing is that part of our work has been the centerpiece of everything that we've done.

02:16
Amanda Bickerstaff
In fact, our commitment to a million, you know, literacy for a million educators and now students comes from the work with our partners. And I will say we have, like Shelby and Dwight, we now are in, I think, year three, essentially. Like, I mean, which is kind of crazy that we are in that process and we've been able to do work all over the world. But really the purpose of today is digging into AI literacy specifically. So we will talk about guidelines and responsible use. But I think one of the things that unites these three organizations is their commitment to AI literacy for their communities. So what we're going to do is we're going to start. We're going to have our start, and we're going to actually go to Liana first.

02:52
Amanda Bickerstaff
And so I'd love you to introduce yourself and Carrollton School of Sacred Heart. But then what brought you on this AI literacy journey? Like, who was involved? How did you start it? I'd love to hear that.

03:02
Lyana Azan
Sure. So my name is Liana Zahn. As Amanda said, I'm here from Miami, Florida. I work at Carrollton School of the Sacred Heart, which is part of a network of 25 schools in the United States and Canada and over 45 schools international that are part of a Sacred Heart network that was founded over 200 years ago in France by a religious order of nuns. And their mission was to educate women to bring God's love to the world. And that's still our mission today. So AI literacy just is part of that educational mission. Right. We believe that education is a process of humanization in thought and critical consciousness. And it is our institutional moral responsibility to engage with AI intentionally and ethically. So I oversee our discipline chairs, our 10 discipline chairs, and we're part of an academic team. So our process really began there.

03:59
Lyana Azan
And talking about how are we going to have our students, you know, be innovative and collaborative and ensure that critical thinking and problem solving are going on. And we're exploring these emerging technologies, but doing so critically and acknowledging the inherent risks like information and accuracy, lack of inclusion, threats to privacy, all of those kind of risks. But then how do we take these complexities and these technologies and adapt them for the future for our students? So they are making wise decisions. And that's really where I guess I should have said, we're in Montessori, 3, 4 and 5 school through 18 year olds, so through seniors. And so how do we engage at each of those developmental ages with literacy? With AI, literacy has really become an important topic of conversation in our academic meetings.

04:55
Amanda Bickerstaff
Absolutely. And I think that idea of wise decision making, I think that is like. And also that it feels like something that to not do is something that would not be serving your students and their future readiness. But also their safety. So I really appreciate that. And one of the great things is that we've actually gotten to do some student work, and so we'll definitely be focusing on that. We've had some fun experiences as well. I have to say. I got to do some of the work as well, but just appreciate you being here. And then Estella. So Stella is one of our newer partners, but they have gone all in on AI literacy. And we're even having a conversation, I think, later today about some other work coming up with parents.

05:31
Amanda Bickerstaff
But can you tell us a little bit about your school yourself, but also what started you on this journey and then even potentially what's kind of brought you to this moment time where you're really putting a lot of resources into this.

05:42
Estela Proano
Thank you. Amanda. Yeah, My name is Estella. I work at the American School of Quito, and right now I'm the diploma coordinator and I also work with the curriculum for the teaching and learning team. And our school has been around for a while. It's 85 years old. It's not as old as Shelby. You'll see that Shelby's school is way older, but our school is pretty old and pretty traditional and renowned in our community in Ecuador. And our mission has always been about educating young citizens of the world. And now being a citizen of the world obviously includes being a responsible cyber citizen. However, our journey began somewhat unexpectedly. Our former general director asked me to participate in what I. I originally thought it was a workshop for. For a Misa. It's our. Our one of the groups of. Of brothers and sisters schools.

06:53
Estela Proano
But it turned out to be a collaborative initiative to draft a common AI use guideline. And it was really amazing. It was a really good work. We were a team, like, I think more or less eight members, and we ended up writing these guidelines for AMISA schools. And we obviously adapted these guidelines for our. For my school and these guidelines. Being a Misa, like this big international school team, the one who started this initiative, it really gave the whole project a lot of credibility and momentum.

07:43
Amanda Bickerstaff
Absolutely. And I. One of the earlier types of conferences we did was actually at a Mesa. And so it was. It was really interesting for me especially Saleh, because it felt. It felt very similar to everything we'd been doing. Even though we're talking about, you know, international schools, which really are quite different. Right. You have a lot of international students, you have different needs around, even keeping staff and workforce, it's quite different. You have a lot of, like, bilingual and multilingual students. It's a very interesting space, but it was interesting, Asela to see how similar. It just, it just feels the same almost everywhere. And so I really appreciate that.

08:22
Amanda Bickerstaff
And I think that, you know, one of the cool things about this is that you started off with guardrails and guidelines, but it really brought you to the need for AI literacy, which we'll talk about in a further question. And then finally Shelby. So Shelby is one of. I think it's so fascinating because we got connected. I got connected to the Dwight School through a family friend. This is what happens when you're an entrepreneur. Someone's like, oh, AI literacy. Like. And so Blake were. And we got connected and then were on a panel in October of 2023 which brought me to meeting you and Deanne and it's been, I would say that we've actually done more quality and like Quantity PD with Dwight New York than any other organization. We did a 10 part series last year. We've done work with students and families.

09:08
Amanda Bickerstaff
So I'd love to understand kind of that journey that brought us together, but also more about like what Dwight is doing internationally as well.

09:18
Shelby Berry
Sure, absolutely. So I do, because everyone's made it sound so wonderful. I have the privilege of working at the Dwight School. We have eight campuses around the world and one online school. So we really collaborate together as a network for the network. I am our global curriculum director. So I help to see the, you know, oversee the curriculum. I help with our accreditation processes to start up new schools. So that's very much my role within the network. But then in addition to that, I have the privilege of working at the Deloitte School New York and in Manhattan. It's located on the Upper west side and I'm the associate head of the middle school there. So I oversee grades five through eight and then in addition as well the curriculum here in New York.

10:06
Shelby Berry
So we really have had quite the privilege to work with Amanda, you know, on bringing us through this like AI journey that we're still on. And I think very similar, you know, to other schools. We are an International Baccalaureate school. We really look at innovation, the latest trends in education. We saw AI coming I think from our students were mentioning it, our faculty. But I think one of the important things to point out is that we actually didn't have a lot of support. We had the quite opposite. Our faculty were very resistant to it. In some ways I was surprised that some of them were so resistant that some of those faculty members that every time that we adopt change have really been the leaders in it.

10:56
Shelby Berry
I know that I've been at the Dwight School of New York for 19 years, so I was part of us taking on a one to one device program. And some of those faculty members that were a part of that were actually resistant to this AI literacy. I think through the support of professional development with AI for education and our partnership, we did a lot of summer work. We did a lot of even just summer reading. And faculty could choose what book they wanted to read about AI, providing them with time to share ideas with one another. I think over the last few years their view has changed when they've been able to see the impact. And I do see what was the main reason for that resistance.

11:44
Shelby Berry
I think that teachers were concerned that it would kind of one take away their role as a teacher, but then feeling like, what kind of work are students producing? Like they're not producing their own work or as a teacher, I'm not producing my own work if I'm not fully creating something myself. So.

12:03
Amanda Bickerstaff
Absolutely. And I think that it was interesting, and we'll talk a little bit more about this in the next question, but we kind of saw that journey too, where, you know, it took a lot of like, different touch points and opportunities and ways in for the staff to really come to a place where now, I mean, there's changes in curriculum people are doing at the classroom level. But it wasn't something, I think sometimes because there's no budget line necessarily for AI literacy, you think like one good session and that's going to be enough. But there is so much more complexity here that really having this be a change management process is really important. And so the next question I have is like the actual implementation strategy because all of you have done multi pronged approaches, right?

12:45
Amanda Bickerstaff
You have like multiple stakeholders that you're trying to work with. You're expanding the focus. You've done a lot of really thoughtful work around what people need. So, Liana, can you talk a little bit about what AI literacy work you've done and for what stakeholders and what you think has really like, been the most impactful? Sure.

13:04
Lyana Azan
So we started our AI literacy. I think like Shelby, we did have resistance from faculty in November of 2023 when we started having these conversations around AI. There were two camps. Some camps were like, well, we're a very process oriented school already in our curriculum, so this is not going to be a problem. And then others that were concerned about like the authentication of students, work and integrity and cheating. So I think the first thing that we did was we Contacted our local university, which is the University of Miami, and had their dean of Innov come out and talk to us about AI and mission alignment. And so we have a very strong mission that centered around five goals.

13:51
Lyana Azan
And she was able to create a morning session for us where she really talked about how trying to move people from the cautious, pessimistically cautious, to perhaps the more cautiously optimistic end of a continuum. So that was really the first one that did get a lot of buy in for the faculty. And then from there we moved on with administration. And I spent a couple of sessions using what a lot of the information from AI for Education, kind of doing a workshop where were creating our own guidelines and our own policies, using a lot of your prompts. And I did that with the academic team, which for us is our heads of school and our department chairs. So that was kind of like a mega workshop that we did.

14:41
Lyana Azan
And then we shared that with the faculty, these guidelines that would be for both faculty use and student use. So we shared that with faculty, we shared it with students, and were able to get feedback, vetting. Right. To make changes. And so we did all of those changes and then instituted the following year. So currently you also came out and spoke to our students, which was amazing. And you also came out and spoke to our faculty. So I think that all of those things have led to a greater comfort level in our school with a literacy in particular. I think that when you came and spoke to our faculty, one of the things that they kept on talking, and the students as well, they kept on talking about was just stop and question the AI, like, don't accept the AI's response.

15:31
Lyana Azan
So I think that's a term that we still like. It's in our guidelines. I hear the students say it, I hear teachers say it. So I think that was a real kind of like, you're either the professional or the learner in this situation and you're the one that's in charge. So I think it really empowered our students, faculty to be like, we're in charge of this. This thing isn't in charge of us. Right. Like, we can stop and question it. So I think that's just a little bit about how we kind of rolled it out.

15:58
Amanda Bickerstaff
Yeah. And you know, it's fun because, like, I would say that coming down, you know, I'm driving through Miami, get to your beautiful campus. You can kind of tell when you walk into a room where everyone is. And I will say, Liana, I remember walking in and the level of excitement of your Staff, they were ready. I think there were big questions and they were not super optimistic, but they were like, okay, we want to do. And then when we started the level of deep down drive and try it out and questions and then when we had the break so we did our keynote and then we did the pd, there was like so much like vibration in the room.

16:38
Amanda Bickerstaff
And then when we did the hands on component, I think it was really like pretty present that people were ready to figure it out, which I thought was really meaningful.

16:46
Lyana Azan
I think it was really the important piece was the pre piece the year before. Right. Like how does this connect to who we are, our mission?

16:53
Amanda Bickerstaff
So yeah, but you did that work first and I think that sometimes it feels like that comes later. But if you can kind of build that buy in and then do the more intentional work, it's really nice. I will say also I want to tell anecdote that Corey was supporting your students and we do this voice AI demo with everybody. So sesame voice, if you've not heard of that before, we'll drop it in the chat. And the girls were like Corey couldn't even move on because they were like there's bias in this. And like what? Like is it real? Like I could, like they were like ready to like attack this and like ask good questions and like just like something like that. To see just how quickly these small moments can lead to these big ideas and big thoughts.

17:38
Amanda Bickerstaff
I just thought that was very cool. I mean I tell that story a lot. We love to bring students into these conversations, but the fact that they were like, no, we're not moving on. We want to dig into this because it could have major impacts in our lives. I think it was such a great way to see how bringing students along with this can be really impactful. So we appreciate the work. And then Estella, I mean you guys are, you're doing this work right now and you're in a unique position because like we haven't unfort. Would love to come to Keto but haven't been able to come in. But can you talk about how you're thinking about your stakeholders implementation plan and like what your goals are for this work?

18:12
Estela Proano
Sure. And like Shelby mentioned, the same happened to us. The, the. The greatest resistant came from the faculty, but now they're our biggest advocates.

18:25
Amanda Bickerstaff
Right.

18:25
Estela Proano
So it all depends on how you frame it. And, and it also depends on their personalities or their what they teach or their teaching style. Because I felt like looking from Far away. And I don't know if you felt the same, Amanda, when you guys visited us, because they are also. You were also working with our school. Is that because you gave us a whole school workshop? We were split up in different groups and I felt that. And I've seen that some of my teachers, for example, the most traditional ones, likely that the locals were a little bit more resistant to it or primary teachers are a little more resistant to it because the reasons are different. My teachers, the local teachers, it's because they're more traditional and they felt like the teaching they were going to be replaced by AI.

19:34
Estela Proano
And as soon as we made it clear that this is a tool like a calculator, that everybody needs a calculator, but it does not replace mathematics or the Internet. Or the Internet, they understood that this was a matter of working together. And for the primary teachers, the approach, I don't work with them anymore, but the approach would be different if they understand that it's not that we want the students to be with a screen all the time. It's more that we want teachers to save time so they can have more quality time with their students. That's going to really get a lot of buy in. So our process going beyond the sphere of the unknown, the precocation of academic dishonesty and how we also had another situation that is.

20:34
Estela Proano
And it's still going on with our secondary teachers where high school teachers, they're very focused on how we prevent the cheating instead of the tools. And we are still working on that. And so any suggestions we will be having.

20:51
Amanda Bickerstaff
I'm sure it's a very funny thing because this is almost like we're literally going to talk to your team about next steps. We have a PD coming up on the 13th and one of the things that we found to be really effective is to do we have a redefining assessment pd which we've done with Dwight as well. But like coming at like traditional assessment, like one of the things that is like we also just joke like did any teacher go into teaching because they want to be an AI detector? Like no one did. But it feels so strongly like we need to stop this. Even though like it's like and wanting tools like GBT0 are turned in to fix it. Instead of just thinking like if you're an IB school, the kids are supposed to be metacognitive and reflective.

21:35
Amanda Bickerstaff
If you ask a kid about their paper, what was your like, what did you learn? What was your favorite like, let's walk me through your favorite paragraph, how did you build it? Or your thesis statement, that is the fastest way to detect than anything. And it will be more accurate because if you see a deer in headlights moment, that kids did not write that paper, whether it's AI or a friend or a parent or a tutor.

21:57
Amanda Bickerstaff
So I do think that is like a big thing that we find is that you kind of have to move past there is a negative conception that AI is for cheating and that AI itself is a cheating tool instead of the ways in which the students learn to use those tools and the ways in which we design assessment practices that drive kids to want to learn, to want to show, to be supported in meaningful ways. But I will say one of the cool things is that we actually really loved. We like a virtual session. Sometimes I feel like, weirdly, I mean, I personally like everything, but sometimes you can dig deeper into what people are really feeling because of the chat and the interaction.

22:39
Amanda Bickerstaff
And so I think when we worked with you all, it was so clear that people had these questions and they were grappling, but they were also willing to kind of bring them out. And it was productive. It wasn't like, oh no, everyone needs to stop. It's, you know, it's the devil. It was more like, what does this mean and how we do it? And I think that those types of pieces, while the in person's great, sometimes those bigger pieces of giving people a little bit of safety to talk about that is actually really good. And I think that as we go on, the ongoing work we're going to do will help us kind of dig into those big, meaty problems that literally are happening everywhere. So going to Shelby. So Shelby's.

23:16
Amanda Bickerstaff
I want to do a couple of things, but we did like a huge PD series and continue to. But also I'd love for you to highlight your student work because I know that's been a big part of like, you started with your leaders, teachers, then parents and students. Can you talk a little bit about that journey and all the stakeholders and how you've tried to support them?

23:35
Shelby Berry
Sure, absolutely. So similar to what Estelle was saying, I think that our lot of. And still something we're working through, as most schools are, of this academic, you know, honesty around AI. And so that is definitely something we're working through. But as Amanda said, you know, we've really provided a lot of professional development after went through, you know, some of those initial stages on. Okay, now what is this going to look like for our students? How are you as a teacher Redesigning your assessments so that students see in an age appropriate way, this is a good tool for them. So one of, like, a fantastic example that I've seen from one of our science teachers in eighth grade, we have our students design an egg drop experiment. I'm sure you've seen it.

24:21
Shelby Berry
It's a very common experiment, and students have to create their own design, so they have to draw it first before they actually go and build, you know, their egg drop whole apparatus. And what they did, what the teacher had them do, was take their design and put it into an AI tool. But he gave them the prompts that they had to use. So it wasn't redesign it for me so that it works. It was, you know, can you give me feedback? Can you tell me what's really great about this? Can you tell me some areas I should consider to improve my design? So I think that was that, like, moment there for me. I think I was really proud as administrator to see students using AI appropriately and to see a teacher really embrace it.

25:07
Shelby Berry
So I think we're just looking and sharing more ways that we can redesign our assessments. We've had, as we said, opportunities for students have participated in helping us with our policies. We also hosted our first ever promptathon in collaboration with, you know, Amanda and the AI for Education team. And just very much in addition to it just being a fantastic opportunity for students to utilize AI tools. For me, as an IB educator, it was great to see all of their IB values come to life. So students had to, you know, explore an issue, and they had to use Gen AI tools to create an app through Play Lab. Right, Amanda? Okay. I wanted to make sure I said the right. Yeah, through Play Lab and really create a solution to it.

25:59
Shelby Berry
And it was just fantastic to see students from 8th grade through 12th grade, even just different grade levels of students working together, working with faculty and I mean, I think some cool stuff. Yeah.

26:15
Amanda Bickerstaff
I want to give two anecdotes. I want to give anecdote about this is how, you know, that we love our work. Because I'm like, I have so many anecdotes for all you guys, but the one I have about the promptathon was that it actually made us change our promptathon approach. Actually, Shelby. Because what we realized is that there was, like, this want for even more than building of knowing, of figuring it out of, like, what does this mean? And so we actually, we're actually reframing our promptathon to do a little bit more on AI literacy. Because we saw. We saw. I Was, I know that you and Deanna was like, I tend to be a person that. And I get excited about something, but I thought it was so unique.

26:52
Amanda Bickerstaff
But also I think that if you're one of the things we have to be aware of that you guys had budget and time, and these kids are coming from really remarkable home lives and support. But they needed AI literacy training like everyone did. It wasn't like they were coming in. We use generative AI at home with the top models, and we know how to prompt those same types of basics they needed just as much as any other student group, which also I think was. It just pulls us all together that this is something that we really need to be intentional about. But I also want to give another anecdote. So one of the cool things is that a group of your teachers did our summer course on instruction and assessment and actually had a teacher be willing to integrate this piece.

27:37
Amanda Bickerstaff
But one of Paul, who's on the team, who's a great guy, actually did this wonderful thing around generative AI and research using Perplexity, for example, where Perplexity is a general research tool. And he had his kids, he gave them just a very simple prompt. You can use Perplexity, but you need to identify if this is a trusted source, a non trusted source, or, I don't know, you're not allowed to do anything else. But see, the way that the gender research came out, what ended up happening is all the kids put everything as. I can't tell. And then like weeks later, they were like, but Mr. Paul, like, Paul, we can't. We don't know. We have to search more. We have to find resources. And it was like such a really beautiful example of something quite simple that, you know, those kids are anchoring on.

28:27
Amanda Bickerstaff
So I thought that was a very cool thing that just something. It doesn't have to be crazy. It can be something really tight and specific and have a huge impact. So I get very excited, everybody, sorry. These are the types of things that we know matters. And we'll continue on. Okay, so my next question. And there have been some good questions about guidelines. So when we think about, like, really AI readiness, we think about guardrails and mindset shifts with those. Guard with those guidelines, and we think about AI literacy. So, Liana, can you talk. Liana. I'm saying it right. I'm sorry. Liana, can you talk about how you created those guardrails and then how it's setting up, like, better AI literacy? Because I can. I know for a fact that just having the Guardrails can lower the friction.

29:11
Amanda Bickerstaff
But can you talk a little bit about how those two things intersect for you all?

29:15
Lyana Azan
So I mentioned a little bit earlier, what we did was we got the big academic council together and we began actually, because we are a Catholic independent school with trying to create a mission statement around AI, what we believed AI use was in our school. So what I did was I created a padlet for like different groups. So there was a group that was going to be looking at our institutional vision, there was a group that was going to be looking at faculty, and there was a group that was going to be looking at student. So each group I made like we had resources that before we started this work we would read. So you know, what was the Pope saying about AI? What were like Catholic social teaching leaders in the country saying about AI? The same thing for faculty.

30:00
Lyana Azan
What was the research showing? Was there research? What were the great thinkers saying about AI? And the same for what students? Like, what were other schools doing with students? So it was a broad spectrum of research and each group looked at their padlet, had questions and then I just kind of made prompting questions so people could then create our institutional vision. The frameworks and guidelines for the faculty and the frameworks and guidelines for students. And then each group kind of vetted each other's and then we shared it out to the larger community. So that was kind of how our process worked. And I do think that you're right that the friction really shortened.

30:38
Amanda Bickerstaff
I think one of the things that.

30:39
Lyana Azan
I really loved was we made posters for the classrooms about for the students. And I love we're an upper school and lower school division. So our Lower School is 3 year olds, 6th grade and upper school 7 through 12. And you know, many of these AI, you actually can't use it if you're under a certain age and you don't have mental permission. So really this, it was really for sixth grade, but I loved it because it was just a teacher kind of standing at the front and it was basically like, did you ask your teacher if you could use AI? And it's like, yes. No. It was like the simplistic, like it made it really clear for that age group. And for our upper school, it was a little bit more in detail.

31:22
Lyana Azan
We have something that we call the Sacred Heart way, which is how we practice making decisions, which is about pausing, reflecting, discerning, deciding and acting. So we created the students kind of framing, you know, should I use AI? What is it okay for me to use AI? We framed it around that sacred Heart way. And then we made those posters and put it in everyone's classroom. So I think that having that like in every classroom. Right. Really clarified for students expectations and that has decreased a lot of tension.

31:56
Amanda Bickerstaff
Can we just talk about how just connecting it to those decision making values is like the fastest path from A to B. Those kids are already being trained to understand the importance of those, like, very important decision making skills. By putting them together, it makes it so much easier to get these things across because you're not trying to. You're actually connecting it to the mission and vision and values of your organization. And we have a question from Leslie about how do you connect this in like a district level? We would say it's the same thing. We would much rather if whether it's in school or a group of schools, like it really is, it comes down to, like, how are you connecting this to what you're already doing? Because the easiest way for something like this to die is it becomes another thing.

32:45
Amanda Bickerstaff
If it becomes another thing. Or kids are like, I don't know, from classroom to classroom, but by having it be like really strategic, connected, but also like on walls and repeated and spiraled and like expectations for students and teachers, like, it starts to bring this all together into a change management process that you can start to see the practice shift. And I just really love that. And sometimes it can be. I think one of the underlying things we're coming to is it can be a lot simpler than we think it needs to be. It can be small, it can be discreet, it can be focused. So I really appreciate that. So, Estella, can you talk a little bit about.

33:19
Amanda Bickerstaff
You have some guideline docs that we're going to share in the chat, which is thank you for sharing, but can you talk a little bit about how those guidelines came about but then how you're connecting it to the AI literacy work?

33:30
Estela Proano
Yeah. And I was thinking about what Liana was saying and I started thinking like, what should come first? Because we started with the guidelines and it's true. I think it's super important to align those to the mission and to have all this buy in. But then now I'm feeling we have less friction because teachers know how to use. The more teachers are familiarized with the tools, they feel less threatened by them and they see the utility of them. Now, for example, that you mentioned, perplexity, we in our extended essay process, I just taught my students to use and some of them already knew how to use perplexity. But I just taught my students and I Allowed them to use Perplexity to do their annotated bibliography.

34:17
Estela Proano
And that also allowed me to teach my teachers how to use Perplexity because some of them use it pretty well and others did not know about it. So it's a win scenario to really start teaching the students how to use it appropriately because they're going to use it. The thing is, they need to know.

34:37
Amanda Bickerstaff
How to, I mean, 100%. I mean, that's the thing, right? We know that students like the majority, like almost half of ChatGPT's users are under 25. Like, it is an enormous, like, part of the young people's lives. But I do think what I really like about ISELLA is that we are. You're teaching it at both times, right. Like, it's not just the teachers learn, the students learn and if you can bring them together, like how nice that is. But also we have found that as long as your guidelines have been developed with stakeholders that have AI literacy and understand the complexity, then that's a great place to start.

35:14
Amanda Bickerstaff
The only time we would suggest not starting with guidelines if you don't have, if you're just doing them to have them done, but if they are done with intention, with the right group, with the right support, then it starts to really make sense. Then all the interlocking pieces come together and the order works really well. Because what you've done is you've lowered the temperature to then have like more questions, more transparency, more openness to try things out, which I think is really nice. So we're going to go to Shelby. So one of the things that we, one of the first things we ever did was we looked over your guidelines. I want to focus on two things. Shelby, I want to focus on your guidelines, but also one of the interesting parts about this is that you kind of act as a network.

35:54
Amanda Bickerstaff
And there has been a really fascinating, like you all are like out ahead, but like other schools are kind of at different places, kind of similar to a district. So can you talk a little bit about your guidelines but also about how you're seeing adoption kind of different across the Dwight network?

36:11
Shelby Berry
Sure. So I think what I think has made us relatively successful in this journey is that as a school we've acknowledged that we don't really have all the answers to this and it is constantly changing. So we at our Dwight school is credited by Middle States association, so msa. And through MSA they offer a RAIL certificate. So it's responsible AI use and learning. I think I got that Right. Or something along responsible AI learning.

36:42
Amanda Bickerstaff
Yes.

36:44
Shelby Berry
And I know, Amanda, I think that's when we kind of started to connect and having. Having kind of an outside organization kind of hold us accountable and kind of give us those timelines. Because, as, you know, within schools, things get really busy and we lose track. So that really forced a bunch of our community members to work together. And that is how we have the, you know, this policy in New York. To Amanda's point, that policy that was established in New York was shared with our other campuses. And the other campuses, some of them took those policies and changed them for the context of their school. Other schools are really just beginning this journey. You know, we have a campus in Hanoi that just opens up and they have other priorities right now.

37:34
Shelby Berry
And as much as they would love to focus on this, they're starting to focus on it, but they also have to continue to work on, you know, a school that has just opened. Our school located in Shanghai, you know, has very different access to certain gen AI tools. So we absolutely share resources and ideas. But as Amanda said, I would say that our campus here in New York is a little further ahead, given the context of where we are, I think has made a big difference.

38:05
Amanda Bickerstaff
Absolutely. Well, I think that one of the things that we see is that the drive by leaders to really push and create space and give it, like, the time and effort and the budget is a huge shift. Like, even an organization that's being supported, whether you have a district, we do see that leaders that are really bought in are the conduit to this type of system level change. And I think that is really important. Go ahead, Shelby.

38:36
Shelby Berry
Yeah, sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off. The only other thing that made me think of Amanda that we recently did is all of our campuses come together for annual music concert, and all of our heads of school were there. And we actually offered with, you know, Corey offered an AI for education session with all of our heads of schools. And I think that was a really great moment for all of the leaders of our schools to come together and talk about, like, okay, this is what it looks like at each of our campuses, but what is our ultimate goal as a network? And how can we share resources and help one another? And I think that was a really meaningful opportunity, especially even when you're looking at it from a district standpoint.

39:17
Amanda Bickerstaff
Yeah, I mean, I think this is really, like, very, like, fascinating in the sense of, you know, even that session was really eye opening because I think that there are also, like, expectations from, like, Your main leader. Right, of what it looks like that might be disconnected from the hard work and like the real like, push that has to happen right at the individual level. Because the quantum of change is school by school. Right. The quantum of change is along those lines. But I think it's been a really fascinating experience to kind of see and be part of it because it also includes parents. Like, you've done a lot of work with that because there are a lot of questions that are coming. So we're going to move into our kind of our last questions.

40:00
Amanda Bickerstaff
And so, you know, for us it has been such a, like, fascinating journey to work with you all, but we would love to understand how you're measuring impact. Like, so we've talked a lot about the ways in which we are doing this and what it is. But like, how, like, what are your goals for this and how do you know some of it's been successful or some of the areas that you need to still work on? So, Liana, I would love to understand that for you all.

40:23
Lyana Azan
So sure. Some of our goals were really building students literacy, obviously, and empowering teachers to feel comfortable using it without like the specter of is this my students work? So we just had, we're at two terms. So we just had the discipline chairs meet with their groups when we came back from the break, Christmas break, and they talked to each group about how is the, how are these guidelines being used in your classroom? What do you think needs to be changed for next year? Just kind of like a touchstone meeting. And we're kind of processing that data right now.

41:01
Lyana Azan
The plan is for in June to kind of have like some sort of all school survey again, to kind of get some feedback from the students and the parents as well as the faculty to see, you know, we've worked with these guidelines for a year. How's it going? What do we need to change what still is missing, you know, and that's kind of where we are right now.

41:22
Amanda Bickerstaff
That's great. And you know what, I love that you're doing evidence bases. Like, there's no way to know really, because this is such a noisy space. You're most likely hearing from the loudest students, teachers and parents on either side of the coin. The people knocking on your door daily. But that's only like, that's usually the ends of the bell curve. Right. That's not the 75 to 80% of people trying to figure this out. And so the fact that you're taking that time to drive that awareness and that evidence is something that we just think it really opens up, like things you never thought about. Like, we, for example, another school we work with, you know, didn't think that kids were using AI companions. And were like, well, why don't we ask a question about it in our focus group?

42:07
Amanda Bickerstaff
And they're like, kids are absolutely using AI companions. And that shifted the way that they're thinking about their next year of work of like, how do you keep them kids safe and how do you build better? Like, how do you pick tools? And even things like mandated reporting, which would never have even been part of their thinking because it was all about academic integrity. So I really love that. So, Estella, what about you? What are your next steps? I mean, some of it we're talking about literally later today, but love to understand what you all are hoping to have happen.

42:33
Estela Proano
Yeah, right now we. Something I wanted to bring up and mention before that is that we once we wrote the guidelines, we then started kind of training our teachers and talking to them. And not necessarily like, we started training them on the tools on how to use AI in their teaching. And we did like a PLC group. And the teachers really, the teachers who were part of that group really took advantage of that opportunity. And we ended up putting all those strategies into our handbook or our playbook. And then the next year we started working with you. And then that's when primary joined us. So primary is like a different stage. That's very interesting to see. So we can see the different level of knowledge. The know how and how the teachers are. Are advancing on this. On this experience.

43:32
Estela Proano
The other thing I wanted to mention is that we provided the teachers with a short workshop that they would present to their students in the advocacy class that really helped them learn more about advocacy, about the appropriate use of artificial intelligence. And we used a similar presentation for our parents. And actually our parents were the ones that they were less resistive resistance to it. I thought I was very nervous when I was presenting that to the parents, but they really appreciate it and they see AI as some us using AI and teaching our students to use AI as us being like on the venue and being very modern. And the other thing that has been very useful that was developed with amisa, it's in the original AMISA guideline is. We call it the stoplight.

44:36
Estela Proano
It's a MA photo and it's a colored chart that we're asking all our teachers to use when giving an assignment. So when you give an assignment, they have to ask the teachers to really state and tell the students, this is where this assignment. You can use AI you cannot up to what extent. So my next step is to have our teachers indicate because the assignments have different stages. So it would better, not like, more effective if they say, like, when you're doing brainstorming, this is the type of AI that you can use and actually give them, tell them which tool, because sometimes it's too general. And then that's when students use.

45:26
Amanda Bickerstaff
That's when that goes off track. Yeah, totally. Well, I love that. I mean, I think that we see that something like the stoplights to get start. And as you get more. As you mature, what usually happens is we see that shift into more of a scale of 1 to 4 or 0 to 4. But the starting place of the stoplights are great because it gives enough context for the teachers to realize what level of nuance they need to give. It needs to be hyper specific. I need to think about the actual design of the assessment. So it's not just putting a stoplight on an existing assessment, but actually even thinking about reframing that. And I love.

46:05
Amanda Bickerstaff
Because I think the parent stuff is really interesting because I think that in some cases, parents have a lot going on, but they also want to feel like it's okay that you're. That the schools are thinking about it, that there's a plan that you know, and it leads to more questions. Right. I'm sure, Estella, you've gotten more questions since you've done that. But it also really gives. Gives you like this. This place of strength to start from. Right. Because they're being brought in. It's not something that's happening in classrooms to their students, but it's something that you're taking the time to bring them in on. So, Shelby, you're going to bring us home with this question, and then we're going to do a round robin of next steps. But, you know, like, how are you thinking about this work going forward?

46:45
Shelby Berry
Sure. I think one of the things that we've had our faculty do for the last two years, actually, as part of their annual goal setting, we've had them focus on an individual goal that they write about around AI. So, you know, I think just like our students, we've noticed that our faculty are at very different, you know, levels with it. As I said, some really embraced it. Some are more experienced with certain tools. Some have realized I really need to focus more just on how I'm using it myself to prepare or how I'm getting my students to. So I Think as a school, looking at those goals and figuring out how can we continue to kind of differentiate our support a little bit more for our faculty is definitely one next step with them.

47:33
Shelby Berry
And then I think from a parent and student perspective, you know, we did offer a parent session, so I think, how can we offer more of those? But what came out of that session is parents really wanted to kind of know, okay, my child is in sixth grade. What does AI literacy look like in sixth grade? And I think as a school, we need to work on an AI literacy scope and sequence. So I think that will help everybody, our faculty, our parents, our students, and think about the progression of it and also recognize that's an evolving document that, you know, new things come out all the time.

48:13
Shelby Berry
And I think we're just also, in some ways, I feel like even our policies are constantly changing because new tools are coming out or just, you know, something that were using is now no longer being used.

48:29
Lyana Azan
Right.

48:29
Shelby Berry
So being open minded, I think to the fact that you're going to have to be reflective and things are going to have to change.

48:35
Amanda Bickerstaff
Yeah. And I think that what we don't want to happen is waiting to either write guidelines or I think guidelines are more stable because there's so much more about mindsets, the policies, about what tools, what not tools. Those, those shift a little bit more. And so. But I would say, like, this is a time to get started, even if it needs to change, like putting that effort in, because it really does have a long, a large amount of support. I think also the idea of the goal setting is really great, but we're releasing our C framework soon that will have a progression that'll have K5, like K2, 3 to 5 middle school and high school that moves from building awareness of AI to building a gradual release of responsibility as students get older based on developmental appropriateness. So that might help Shelby a bit.

49:21
Amanda Bickerstaff
Yeah, that's wonderful.

49:22
Shelby Berry
Thank you. That was great news. As you said that we will definitely.

49:25
Amanda Bickerstaff
Be using that very head down right now in the sense of like doing this work right now, because our goal is to have it published on AI Literacy Day on March 27.

49:36
Estela Proano
Okay.

49:37
Amanda Bickerstaff
But so we're gonna do a rapid fire next steps. And so what's on your plan for AI literacy for the end of this year, into next year and starting with Liana?

49:47
Lyana Azan
So I think again, our really is like we've lived with these guidelines for a year, so to get feedback from as many stakeholders as possible and see what changes and what professional development would be Needed as a result of living with this experience for a year.

50:03
Amanda Bickerstaff
Amazing. Love that. And we want to hear all the things. We love a piece of data as well. So I'm sure we'll be asking about how it goes. Okay, Estella, what about you all?

50:12
Estela Proano
Ensure teachers clearly specify aius at every stage of assignments. Strengthen alignment with the diploma program because still the IB has this gray area. How much and to what is the extent we can use it? Clarify expectations around internal and external assessments and continue advancing in primary implementation with the implementation of AI in the primary section.

50:37
Amanda Bickerstaff
Absolutely. And I love how tactical. I love a tactical moment. That's great. And giving those goals as collective goals. I'm sure you'll get some pushback and. Or questions, but that's part of the process to figure that out. And then, Shelby, what about you all?

50:52
Shelby Berry
Yeah, I think really one of our goals by the end of the year is to continue with that parent education. I think we've done a little bit of it, but our goal was to offer some other opportunity in the spring for our parent community. So I think that's one. And then our curriculum team has really been analyzing assessments and AI usage with that. So we're hoping to see a little bit more with that by the end of the year.

51:15
Amanda Bickerstaff
Yeah, that'll be. I think that's a really big one. I mean, I think that I would say that you all are slightly different stages, but I do think that starting to really quantify who's using what. How many assessments are no AI. How many assessments are with AI. If teachers are feeling that students are interacting differently, if there are places and needs for shifting assessment practices, which we know, but if your teachers know, that's the ease. If you convince your teachers, if assessment practices need to change, it's a lot easier than telling them. So I think that's something we really like to see. So I want to say thank you. First of all, can we, like, let's give everyone a virtual, like, you know, round of applause for this work. It has been.

51:57
Amanda Bickerstaff
It is such a privilege to be on this journey with you all. Not only in the sense of learning and seeing what's worked and what the challenges have been, but also getting to know your schools and the quality of, like, just the work that's being done. Culture matters. Culture matters amazingly in terms of this. And if you have a culture that's being built to be open and to have people talk about it and to invest in this work in a very complicated time, we see that really matter. So I want to Say thank you to Leanna, Estella and Shelby. And then if you are, like, new to us as well or have never worked with us, join us with this.

52:34
Amanda Bickerstaff
We do a lot of this work, so it makes me slightly uncomfortable to do this part, but we always happy to do it because we see that it matters. And so whether it's training and workshops or policy development or strategy, we also have our new AI literacy course for students. That's amazing. We've had almost 800 kids complete it in a month, and the first early results are that 70% of students feel more confident that they will use AI ethically after 90 minutes. If that's not a cool, even kids that are ninth graders that were required to take it. I feel like we've done something remarkable there if you want to reach out. And then the final thing is we also have our train the Trainer, which we've had quite a few people take that.

53:15
Amanda Bickerstaff
And if you're really looking to create some embedded AI literacy capacity, we will be having more webinars. So we're really excited about that. So look out for that, especially our AI literacy launch on the 27th. But as always, I want to say thank you so much to everyone that works with us, but also to these three lovely organizations and ladies. We just really appreciate you all, and we hope you have a wonderful rest of your day and we'll see you all soon. Thanks, everybody.