From Fear to Action: Navigating AI in Education with the Ground-Build-Propel Model

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SEE Framework for GenAI Literacy

Common Sense Media Report

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Ground-Build-Propel Framework

MUSC AI Acceptable Use Framework for Academic Tasks

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.

Julaine M. Fowlin, PhD

Dr. Fowlin is an Assistant Professor and Executive Director of the Center for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning (CATL) at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC), where she leads institutional efforts in instructional design, educational technology, faculty development, academic media, and AI in Education and Scholarship. With more than 15 years of experience in learning and development across healthcare, higher education, government, and nonprofit sectors, Dr. Fowlin is passionate about fostering collaboration, innovation, and human-centered approaches to education.

A recognized leader in artificial intelligence education, Dr. Fowlin has been instrumental in shaping MUSC's educational AI strategy and advancing the thoughtful, ethical integration of AI across teaching, learning, assessment, and scholarship. She played a key role in developing the MUSC AI Acceptable Use Framework for Academic Tasks, a shared language designed to help educators and learners navigate AI-enabled environments with transparency, trust, and academic integrity. Her work is grounded in the belief that meaningful transformation occurs when institutions invest in people, cultivate shared purpose, and create opportunities for continuous growth.

Beyond her institutional leadership, Dr. Fowlin is a researcher, educational developer, parent advocate, author, and nationally recognized voice in AI and education. She is the author of Schools Need to Adopt Clear Rules for AI Use and co-author of Empowering Educators: Operationalizing Age-Old Learning Principles Using AI. For the past three years, she has served as a mentor for the AAC&U Institute on AI, Pedagogy, and the Curriculum, supporting faculty and institutional leaders as they explore responsible, learner-centered approaches to AI integration. She is also a volunteer member of the Charleston County School District (CCSD) AI Literacy Advisory Board, helping to shape conversations around AI literacy, digital citizenship, and the ethical use of artificial intelligence in K-12 education.

‍ 00:00
Amanda Bickerstaff
I'm Amanda, the CEO and co founder of AI for Education. And I am so lucky to now have a colleague and buddy, I hope, in Dr. Jillian Fallon. We got to meet in our work in Charleston County School District, and I have just been just absolutely floored by Ghislaine's focus, attention and care to AI literacy. What we're going to do is we're going to have a little bit of a conversation about her ground build propel model. But we really want to think about how to make, you know, kind of AI literacy and adoption, especially for leadership, feel doable.

00:33
Amanda Bickerstaff
And I think that's one of our biggest goals this year and even over the summer is like, how do you take something that's huge and something that's noisy and something that can be quite difficult and actually has real term risks associated with that and make it something that doesn't feel like paralysis, but something that feels like action. So, as always, we're going to start with just say hi, see everyone saying hello already. It's always so good to see everybody. As a reminder, we don't have note takers, but we will share every. But we've got great people from all over the world, Vera and Scott and others that we love, Jane, some people, and also Marwa, but also some people that are new to us.

01:11
Amanda Bickerstaff
Just make sure that you have your chat set to not host and panelists, but to everyone, so that everyone can see if you're going to share or ask a question. If you have a question specifically for Jillian or I. The Q and A is always great. And this is going to be something where we're going to have a little bit of a presentation of the framework, but then also we'll have some time to sit, chat about what we see happening in the world. And so I want to introduce you to Dr. Jillian Fallon. So I met Jillian in November of last year. And so I'll give you a little bit of a backstory. We were brought in by Charleston School County School District just to write a policy. And it sounds like crazy, but for usually we're thinking about things a little bit differently.

01:56
Amanda Bickerstaff
And so I talked to Luke and the deputy superintendent and the cfo Daniel, and I was like, we could just write a policy or why don't we pull everyone together for the same cost for an AI committee? They were like, okay. I was like, I'm going to press you guys though, if you're comfortable to bring in teachers and students and families and anyone that you think would be Helpful. I think at first it was maybe a little bit like, oh, my gosh, what are we doing? But Luke was like, sure. So Luke went to his inbox. This is a true story. And he went through. And anyone that had ever emailed Luke or the district about this district being too slow or not taking the right approach about AI was brought into that committee meeting. And we had this amazing time together.

02:40
Amanda Bickerstaff
That day was such. That first day and now we've met three times was such a pleasure for us because everyone was so engaged in such unique voices. But probably the one that stood out to me the most, and I say that honestly, was Jillian. And I love it because you're a firebrand. You were like, we need to do something now. But yet at the same time, you were able to contextualize the work in higher education, but also as a parent. And I think that was something that really made a difference in the room. So I'd love you to introduce yourself and talk a little bit about your journey, just professionally, but also what you brought you today. And then we're going to talk about your framework in a couple of minutes.

03:22
Dr. Julaine Fowlin
Thank you, Amanda. It's a joy. And as I was thinking about our time together, I was like, this is the first webinar where I'm not representing the Medical University of South Carolina and my work there, even though this work came from there, but it's really representing my heart for K12, and so for everybody. I am Dr. Jillian Fallon, and my title is Assistant professor and Executive Director at the center for Advancement of Teaching and Learning. What I'm up for, and as part of my work at the Medical University of South Carolina musc, I oversee three teams. One that does instructional design and technology, another that does academic media. And then the third team, which is more related to here, is AI education and scholarship. And I've been in this field for about 15 years or so.

04:11
Dr. Julaine Fowlin
The heart of it, though, is based on my work with AAC and you as a mentor. I've been a mentor for about two cycles now. And just working with institutions and seeing what MUSC has done, one of the biggest thing, which is why I brought us here, is that I always use the analogy that when it comes to AI, people feel like the sky is falling. And what I've always said is that the sky is not falling. And even if it's falling, you can determine where it falls on you. Is it going to fall on the left, the right, or the center? And what brought me here was when my son was in middle school, Verizon did some work, and I was excited. I was like, yay. But then after he went to high school, I didn't hear anything else.

04:51
Dr. Julaine Fowlin
And I saw Musc moving along, and I was like, there's a big gap here. If I'm in higher ed and I'm seeing it moving, but I'm not hearing anything at all from my child's school. It means that something is off. And so Superintendent Anita Huggins was so nice. She has her coffee and chat. I think that's what it's called. And at the time, there was a book with Eddie and his co author about AI in education. So I purchased copies of the book and I gave one to Anita. I also gave one at the time to the high school that my son was attending. I didn't hear anything from them, so I emailed them. And I was also part of a cohort for Scholar Strategy Network, where they train us as researchers on how to advocate.

05:40
Dr. Julaine Fowlin
And so through their help, I was able to set up a very nervous meeting with. It was Luke, Daniel, and Buffy at the time. I don't remember who else was on the meeting. And I thought they had forgotten me. And I was going to do an op ed, and I was. Before the op ed got published, I was so mad. I was like, school should listen. And just before it got accepted, this committee started. And I was like, oh, I can change the tone of my opted. It works. Just don't give up. So that's my journey.

06:13
Amanda Bickerstaff
Yeah. But I do think that, first of all, what a wonderful way to show just how much your commitment today, grassroots matters. We see so much of you're willing to be an engine. And I think that we got pretty lucky, though, because I think it was the right people, because were kind of throwing, okay, do something a little bit differently. And then there was already so many voices already represented that wanted this, that when it happened, I think it just happened so quickly where it really did feel like something that changed the trajectory of Charleston's approach, where they thought, okay, we'll come in, we'll do the policy, and we'll be done.

06:54
Amanda Bickerstaff
But since then, we've done three committee meetings, we have done a new resource hub, we have done PD at the symposium that was just featured in the ap, and we can drop that. That link into the chat. But also, like, AI literacy for students and staff, all for next year. And I think that it all became possible because of people like you. And so when you think about, you know, your advocacy work, I think it's such a special thing to have an advocate because I, you know, in the past, I've thought about myself when I was, you know, I've done some other things around advocacy, especially around, like, disaster relief. And it felt very much to me when I was doing my own advocacy is that you just gotta push the boulder up the hill and just believe that it'll fall off either side.

07:42
Amanda Bickerstaff
It's not gonna fall back down. But it's kind of like that Sisyphean feat. But if you keep believing that you'll be able to get enough momentum if you take it that approach, it just means you come fresh every day and you keep trying and trying. And I think that's what you've done. But what I love about this is that you made some real change in Charleston. But also with your model, you're trying to give shape to something that can now be used across, you know, any leadership team. So can you walk us through how you developed the model and then share the share screen and kind of walk us through the different steps of it? That would be awesome.

08:15
Dr. Julaine Fowlin
Sure. And so this is how the model was developed, inspired somewhat by musc. So at musc, we have a strategic plan. And what impressed me about MUSC was that instead of developing a separate, like, AI strategic plan, we do have one. But it was really aligned with the priorities of musc. But everything strengthened down from that. I'm a systems thinker, so as I was working with AAC and you and even seeing some of the reactions, I remember in one of the training sessions that you did, you asked, do you think we're moving too slow or too fast? And that's always something that people have to come with. And as I'm working with different institutions at aacnu, something different. People come. So sometimes it's an instructional designer who's struggling alone. Sometimes there are leaders who just want something, like just do something.

09:10
Dr. Julaine Fowlin
So lots of workshops and then sometimes there's that fear. And so from my experience as an educator, I am thinking, okay, then where does AI fit into the work that we do? And so I worked with Claude and different AIs to say, this is what I'm seeing and this is what is coming up to me. Help me develop a framework. So it was an exciting co working experience. So the first part of the framework is ground. And just like when you're building a house, you can't really be quick on the foundation. You need to be very clear. And so I always tell people, okay, then what are your institutional priorities? What are Your goals. Like, when we think about learning, like, what is your pedagogical philosophy? AI should not enter your space until that is established. I always tell people, if.

10:01
Dr. Julaine Fowlin
If you have a big sale out there, will you just take your money and purchase the item without checking your budget or without saying, is this within my value system? So it's the same thing with AI. First think about that and then decide where does it fit, Do A needs and assessments in terms of that. Right. And in that breath. Then the next thing is like, how do you develop that capacity? So that's like build through training, through establishing AI literacy. So one of the things why I was so appreciative of Charleston county working with AI for education is that you cannot have any strategic conversation about AI literacy, AI transparency, if there is not shared definition about what AI literacy means. Embassy, we've adopted the Digital Education Council's definition. However, AI for Education has a lovely definition.

10:57
Dr. Julaine Fowlin
There are so many definitions out there that my first recommendation is, look at all of them. I'm almost certain one of them will fit with you. With. And then the next thing is, what is your framework for AI literacy? Which I was very happy when you developed the C framework, because that's a framework that is grounded in research. At musc, we do use the Digital Education Councils framework, but we're not selling a framework, we're selling a process. So if C works for you, go ahead and use C. If DEC works for you, use dec. Right. And communicate that very clearly as you're building capacity. Do you have a tool that's available? Like, what resources are you going to provide to your learners, to your staff members? And how are you going to provide access to it?

11:44
Dr. Julaine Fowlin
How are you going to develop your academic integrity framework? And then the next one is propel. Like, how do we make changes in our curriculum and within the framework? This is an opportunity to distinguish between AI for learning and AI literacy as a competence. Yes. Are you using AI to help your work efficiently? Are using AI to provide personalized learning versus am I trying to teach a child? Prompt our student, I should say, because prompt engineering or that type. So that's propel. And then moving forward, like, how do we. I've heard you talk about, like, how can we document what we're doing in a way that will not only benefit the institution, but looking at the scholarship of teaching and learning. So in a nutshell, that's what it is. So I kind of.

12:29
Amanda Bickerstaff
Yeah, I have. It's funny because, yeah, as you're thinking about it, because we'll share the document in the moment, but I want to like, kind of just you make me, of course, like this immediately with the ground. Elaine. We did this with everybody very early on, but this is a slide that we built. I don't even know three years ago, the first time I ever walked into a leadership meeting. And you could change that to district, institution, whatever it may be. But one of the things that I think with the ground that really resonates with what we've seen work is that if Genai becomes another thing, it sits over here in this. It could be huge or small or ignored.

13:12
Amanda Bickerstaff
But if it's in education, if it's another thing, it's the first thing to be ignored, to be pushed back, to be pushed down the list. Right. And so a lot of times what we'll do in sessions, especially around like a roadmap, is like, what does this even mean? What are you trying to do already? What's already in place? And then if you are thinking about introducing generative AI, what now fits in terms of the capabilities that exist today? Because, for example, generative AI is not pedagogical, so it can't replace pedagogy, but it can be in concert. You just talked about the co working. If you have a lot of AI literacy and a lot of expertise and the right model and the right support, you could use that as a way to supercharge your pedagogy.

13:58
Amanda Bickerstaff
And I think that becomes something that is a completely different conversation than all gen AI. No Gen AI, it said, it's like what serves us at this moment meaningfully, because it is like, there's like, I think a little bit of this idea of FOMO too. Like we have to do everything but picking one or two small things. When you think about that grounding component, but also the propelling, if you have good examples of something that works or examples that didn't work, that we can learn from and it's done in a really meaningful way, it just means that it's so much faster between A and purple, whatever it will end up being. And I think a lot about that.

14:41
Amanda Bickerstaff
One of the things that we did last week is we're working with a district that's been trying so hard, Elaine, and they're doing great work, but it's just like a couple things there just wasn't alignment. We could see that with some just slight re changing that if we can get everyone aligned, it means that they're actually going to be able to do 10x what they thought they could do. This Year, because everything is in place. But there's just not this kind of agreement that can lead to that acceleration, that potential, like risk taking around assessment redesign or student AI literacy. And I think that it really does go to. It's a lot easier to do than you think if you get the right people in place and the right strategy in place. Do you agree with that?

15:30
Dr. Julaine Fowlin
Definitely agree. Because I know one of Charleston's Charleston County School District, one of their priorities about, like, college readiness, or at nusd, we're talking about, like, workforce readiness. So if you were supposed to take, like, one of those strategies and you say, then what does this mean for me? If I'm saying that my priority is college readiness or workforce readiness, what does it mean for my graduates? And so if you look at college readiness, you're looking at. Colleges are already having academic integrity policies. They're already deciding where AI fits. And some of the colleges may be excluding, expecting students coming in to have some level of AI literacy. So if you're saying that college readiness is a priority for you, then just looking at that goal, you say, okay, then what are the colleges or universities expecting our high school graduates to leave with?

16:15
Dr. Julaine Fowlin
And then you could do a backward design approach where that is concerned and determine where that is. So that's an example of, like, just really having that alignment and it allows you to communicate. Because I feel in this space, especially where people have different views, you're looking at sustainability, you're looking at just different conversations. You don't want people to feel like they don't have a voice. And I feel like as we're talking about visioning the naysayers, even though people are looking at them like, oh, you're such a naysayer, they do have a voice, and they should be invited in the room to say, if we're focusing on our end goal, what are your thoughts? And then how can we compromise? Or how can we have shared understanding? Because we're using AI to the extent that it helps us to achieve this goal.

17:04
Amanda Bickerstaff
Absolutely. And it makes me think of. So the third session that we did recently was kind of funny because we had the. The parent and the student. So we had two. Like, I'm telling you, the Charleston's bringing in the coalition. So this young, this, like, I think she's a 10th grader, 11th grader, had gone to the board and talked about how she's an artist. And they had. Charleston had a, like an art project, an art contest that did not specify that AI cannot be used in the final product. And the person that won used AI, and she was really adamant that this was completely out of line, that these tools are not artistic. And so what did the district do? You could have almost contained that young person and her mom. Instead, they said, come to our AI committee the next time.

17:57
Amanda Bickerstaff
And so I will say they walked in a little bit blind, and I think they were ready for a little bit of a fight in the morning, but it only took, like, an hour. An hour, Especially with the parent. I think the student we like just has such a deficit mindset about generative AI that we finally got to her to a place where she at least could admit that the kids are on their own. If they're making difficult decisions, it's still our duty of care to try to change that. And what was really interesting is that not only did they start listening differently, but we did a video for the AI committee, which I think we can show if you're comfortable. And they were on the video, they went from, like, not thinking that this is okay.

18:38
Amanda Bickerstaff
And I think that was exactly that idea, though, of, like, bringing in those voices, because, like, you have to. If we can convince a person that is on the fence or even negative, to a place of, like, listening and seeing value in this type of work, they will be a bigger advocate. Like, when someone sees that video and sees that mom being like, we needed, we need to not ignore this. She's going to carry so much more weight than the director of technology, the company that's helping you, like. And I think that those types of conversations are really meaningful. And I don't know like we are. From your experience in the room, I thought it. I mean, from a perspective of I'm having to, like, facilitate and try to keep everyone going.

19:20
Amanda Bickerstaff
But I felt like it was such a positive shift by the end. I don't know if you agree.

19:24
Dr. Julaine Fowlin
One of the things that I appreciated about your approach, because some faculty developers, I'm a faculty developer or educational developer, we present the conversation as if we're forcing students to use it. We're forcing faculty. At musc, we've had instances where students refuse to use it for some reason or the other. We do need to separate literacy from usage. And yes, and we do need to, like I say, have a very open conversation about the why. And I did co author an article called Empowering Educators in the Age of AI. And in that article, that's what we talk about. It's not necessarily if AI is more how and when it's not going away, but we do have agency to determine how it enters our space. And even that example talks about like, we do need academic integrity.

20:14
Dr. Julaine Fowlin
Like, you can't be dinging students if there is no shared understanding or if there's no academic integrity policy where that is concerned.

20:23
Amanda Bickerstaff
Absolutely, I know, and I think that, I think it's really interesting because I think that when you think about your model, your framework, that's where the evidence building comes in. I think that it is pretty important to be able to measure like what's happening. Or for example, is the AI policy that you have enough or is academic integrity. Do students feel like it's clear? Do they like one of the. There's a Common Sense Media report, by the way. Anyone that's willing to do any research on education and the kids and AI, we are a safe place, so please keep doing it. But Common Sense Media continues to do a good job on these nationally representative surveys and we can drop that in the chat is that students are using these tools. 65 To 85% are using these tools.

21:12
Amanda Bickerstaff
But when you ask them, have they had a conversation with their teachers or is there a policy or is it clear? It starts to fall apart pretty quickly and you start to see that yes, kids are making some bad decisions, some good decisions, some have no idea what's happening and just think it's fun. There's a gamut. And some kids are over relying on these tools for not cognition, but emotional support. It is a wild west out there when it comes to student usage. But if you can actually measure that, it becomes a significantly different approach. One of the things that I think can be really helpful when you're thinking about this own work is where are you thinking about gathering evidence?

21:54
Amanda Bickerstaff
Are there pockets in which some of this work is already happening and you know it is, or is there a place to which you go out and actually get that information? And so we've got a couple things that help. We have a five question document for teachers and students. We also have a focus group protocol we can share with everybody. But I do think that those types of conversations will change anyone's mind. I don't know. Do you, have you ever. Jillian, do you do any of those? Kind of like when you do your work with institutions, do you ever do focus groups or how do you build evidence.

22:29
Dr. Julaine Fowlin
Done like formal. But in the work that I've done, a lot of it is just asking some of the questions in terms of what's your institutional priorities. I have done a workshop recently for like Durham Tech and a big part of it was that I looked at what their priorities were in terms of just college readiness. They were looking at, I think one of their pathways in terms of like financial security or different things like that. So really finding out what has worked for them in accomplishing those goals. And, and where do they see AI as a opportunity and where do they see AI as a challenge? And for other universities that I've done, looking at their academic integrity policy, how does that look?

23:19
Dr. Julaine Fowlin
Because there is an international association for academic integrity and I've worked with an institution before and even without talking about AI, when they compared this depersonalized framework that exists with their policy, they're like, wow, this looks a little bit punitive. Like how do we even bring back a culture of academic integrity? That's one more built on trust, being built on honesty, built on professionalism. And even though one of the things that we've done at musc, with your permission, never intended to share it, but it's out there where just like you said, whenever an institution is doing something, there's so much going on, don't reinvent the wheel. And that's what MUSC did. There was a AI assessment scale that was already out there, but it was didn't quite fit. And so we adopted that to create the muscle use framework.

24:15
Dr. Julaine Fowlin
And I know there's like red light, green light, but whatever it is, we really want you to understand that having shared documents, shared processes is the way to go. And if parents community sees a blueprint or a roadmap, I promise you they will not say you're going too slow. Why? Because they see that you have a plan. It's when it's not spoken about or when it comes to home in a what I call a pitch patchy way that there is concern and so, or.

24:46
Amanda Bickerstaff
It just happens all of a sudden. I think that's what happened with New York City's guidance that came out where there'd been a lot of work in the background. But then this kind of big document, this big website came out and it was parent focused and it felt like a huge disconnect where people were. It kind of left them open to everyone having like this kind of massive kind of experience of it instead of it being measured. And I think that's really like kind of where that can go wrong. So Julian, do you want to open the document and just walk everybody through the documents?

25:19
Amanda Bickerstaff
Because we have some questions about what it looks like and this is like just at this stage I would say everyone, like this is really your framework to go through and so, but this is a way to like to actually have some guiding questions. So do you want to share your screen?

25:32
Dr. Julaine Fowlin
Sure. And then I'll also just share that article that I did with.

25:40
Amanda Bickerstaff
And was it based on Leon Furz's?

25:43
Dr. Julaine Fowlin
Right.

25:44
Amanda Bickerstaff
Yeah, he's great.

25:46
Dr. Julaine Fowlin
Are you seeing the right screen?

25:47
Amanda Bickerstaff
Yes, we can see it.

25:47
Speaker 3
Yep.

25:48
Dr. Julaine Fowlin
Yep. Okay. It's been a while. And is it large enough?

25:52
Amanda Bickerstaff
Can see it.

25:53
Dr. Julaine Fowlin
Okay. So what I did with this handout is. And I'm looking over here because that's where my screen is. I already spoke about the framework, so I won't spend too much time, but should you want to use it, I've already focused on, like, what each of the pillars are. So it's phase one, which is that you're grounding your work and you're establishing that direction and understanding. So things like examining your institutional mission and values to determine how they shape your response, what are some of the opportunities and challenges? And so in that situation, like, what is your strategic priority and how do you establish ongoing communication channels? That's one of the good things about Charleston County School District is that this work is change management work.

26:37
Dr. Julaine Fowlin
I always love Kotter, and Kotter talks about, like, after you build your guiding coalition, you have to communicate, like, what that is. And so after you have done your students and your stakeholders, then you want to think about how do you build capacity? This is really focusing on your people and your systems, where you're designing training programs that build AI literacy and agency. Agency is very important because we don't want our faculty or students feeling like, I don't know what to do, but you're really building an approach. What are the tools? If you're doing something as an institution and you don't have an approved AI tool, that's not recommended because then you're looking at security. So I'm using MUSD a lot because that's where I work. But recently our chief AI officer, Dr. Marilyn Ritchie, worked to get us copilot.

27:30
Dr. Julaine Fowlin
So even though other people may use other things, we can say that you have access to this thing that we've paid for, and it's under our tenant. So it's secure, consistent expectations and guidelines. So the same thing again. At MUSD, we have the AI Acceptable Use Policy. We've developed the DEC, we've adopted the DEC framework. So if we're working with AI for education, and especially at the K to 12 level, and you're seeing, okay, then this framework, what I do like about AI for education is that you specifically focus on generative AI literacy in higher ed. And at musd we're looking at AI beyond generative AI literacy. That's our vision. But I really like the scope because really that's the piece that a lot ofk to 12 is focused on and it really gives that opportunity to scope.

28:20
Dr. Julaine Fowlin
So when we build our capacity, we can just leave it. But how do we evolve and maintain the progress? Like, honestly, I do not recommend touching your curriculum until you've done phase one and. Right. Because then now that's why you're designing. Okay then for my curriculum, is there a skill set for. So for example, I'll use. This is not a higher ed example. So say for example, learners need to recognize how to documentation without AI, but we know that they're going to go in practice where they'll have AI enabled documentation through an ehr. So how do I teach them without AI to make sure that they have that competence? But then how do I enable them to thrive and survive and lead in an AI enabled world? And how do you track the progress?

29:10
Dr. Julaine Fowlin
Because if you're doing something and you're not evaluating it, tracking it, then we won't be able to say are we successful or not? What are those incentives and reward? That's one of the discussions that we had with Charleston County School District. People are saying, okay, then we're already overwhelmed. Like what is going to give in this situation? It can just be more and more work. And how do you host those sessions which you've done so beautifully and create that infrastructure pipeline for the ultimate goal, which is like your scholarship of teaching and learning or just disseminating that evidence. So in this worksheet, I worked with AI, these are just some tips for dialoguing with AI. But here I have a prompt that you can use if you want to work with AI. You can literally just copy and paste this in the different areas.

29:58
Dr. Julaine Fowlin
And one of the things that I focus on is AI as a tool versus competency. And here's the framework here. And then just some discussions in terms of what surprised you? Where did you identify AI as a competency, what common themes, what resources, then your 90 day plan, who should lead it, what resources are needed, what success looks like, potential obstacles and how to address them. And I go further down into that AI tool versus AI competence because sometimes it gets really muddy. And just how, what support do you need from your institution? So. Right.

30:37
Amanda Bickerstaff
Actually asking for it. Right. Which we really advocate for. Yeah, I think that, I mean it's interesting because I think that what I love about this is that it's a change management process. Right. But you can start to think about ways in which generative AI, if used with a lot of expertise and thought and the right type of background information, especially like a reasoning model, it can lead to some systemization, it can lead to some really thoughtful applications.

31:08
Amanda Bickerstaff
And I know that for us, when I think about my own gen AI use, it is very much, you know, where are the places in which I have a lot of expertise, but not a lot of, like, people and time and like, how can I spend three or four hours sometimes, honestly, building something that would have taken me 20, but I still have to spend the time. But I think that this shows you how you can kind of put the two pieces together. And I think that you're definitely getting some. Some feedback about, like, you need a little. We need to get a little graphic going. Maybe we can work together on a graphic about how this.

31:43
Amanda Bickerstaff
Everyone loves a little bit of a graphic, but I do think that one of the nice things about this is that it's not too late to find that entry point. And you might find that the entry point is at the. Like, we have to go back to grounding, or we're going to go to evidence building first and then grounding. There's a place that I think you can really be flexible with this. But I do think that Jerlaine, you know, I think we're both advocating for taking a step back and being intentional, and I think that. Here we go. Perfect. We got one, guys. We did it.

32:19
Dr. Julaine Fowlin
I actually do have a graphic, but because I thought, okay, then between showing the graphic version of it and the handout. So what I probably do is change the link to a folder, but there is a graphic because I've presented this before. Yeah.

32:42
Amanda Bickerstaff
So, yeah, we can share this in the post. So everybody will. We'll make sure this is in the resources. We'll. We'll get this from Jillian and it looks very nice. Okay, so we're gonna. I wanna show. People had a lot of questions about, like, building that consensus building, which is a big part. So I want to show the video from our time together in. In Charleston, and then we're just gonna wrap and talk a little bit about, like, what you would do at the start of the school year. So I'm gonna. We're gonna cross our fingers that this is gonna work.

33:11
Speaker 3
So.

33:11
Amanda Bickerstaff
So let me share my screen and shout out to Andy from the CSD staff, who put this together really beautifully, but. Oops, that was wrong. Let me make it bigger. I made it tiny. Hold on. Sorry. Let's try one more time.

33:31
Dr. Julaine Fowlin
Stakeholder group of individuals to begin an AI steering committee. To begin a conversation to really build our background knowledge on what artificial intelligence is, and to engage in a conversation about disintegration. And being part of this committee has.

33:45
Speaker 3
Really helped me guide those students through.

33:49
Dr. Julaine Fowlin
Creating curriculum that integrates both the content.

33:52
Speaker 3
That they need to learn in my.

33:54
Dr. Julaine Fowlin
Science classes along with those AI literacy skills. What I was impressed about was the makeup of the committee. It had educators from the district, it had parents and students. Charleston county is taking a very incremental process in terms of AI utilization, making sure that it's tied to its values. I wanted to join the AI committee.

34:15
Amanda Bickerstaff
Because I see the misuse of AI in the classrooms and it's something that's extremely concerning.

34:21
Speaker 3
There's a lot of different viewpoints in the group, which I find to be a very positive thing. AI can be infinitely positive and infinitely negative at the same time. So I think it's really important that you have multiple viewpoints coming to the table to try to come to solutions. I have learned that many more people are excited about AI than we realize. Most kids are using it, most adults are using it, and we need to teach AI literacy so that we're using it correctly.

34:48
Speaker 4
I just think it's been a really great committee and I really have enjoyed hearing all these different perspectives. Getting to know a lot of different people in the school from different parents, administrators and teachers, and working as a team, I think is a really good way. It takes a lot of voices to build this village so that we can make AI effective for our community.

35:07
Amanda Bickerstaff
So, yeah, I mean. Oh, it's still playing. Hold on. The music is still going. I mean, I think it's. It's a great example of a really cross functional group. The last guy is a professor of computer science at Clemson. I mean, he was doing math in the back of the envelope. We were talking about bias the first session and he was like double checking the math, like, and it actually was great because he was like, you know what? It's real. You have the parent and the teacher. You've got one of the parent student, you've got the teacher who piloted this work in a charter school. We've got such a diverse group and I think it just shows the level of commitment that can go really far.

35:48
Amanda Bickerstaff
And I have to say, I love that our mindsets and knowledge, mindsets and practices come up because you can see how thoughtful. I mean, it sounds funny, but this is A real thing we did. But you can see how thoughtful it was. Does Jenny. I change my judgment. All of those things that are, I think, can really make a difference. But, yeah, I get really excited when I see it. And you're a big part of it, Jillian. Okay, so we're going to. We're going to do our little nice wrap. Get you guys with the start of school. We're going to get you out to the 45 minute mark.

36:18
Amanda Bickerstaff
But, Jillian, when you think about this school year, and I know that you're thinking of this in two worlds in higher education and kind of the K12, but if you had your magic wand and could provide like, you know, a limited time budget, whatever it may be, what would be the things you would want our schools to do this year to ensure that we're in a good place for, you know, when things start to really ramp up in 2027?

36:46
Dr. Julaine Fowlin
I think for me, and I'm going to use Charleston County School District as an example, I had the opportunity to go to the state of the school, and so I had a very good understanding of what the school's priorities are. So I would say, outside of AI, if a school district or a specific school has not communicated to parents or to the wider stakeholder group what your strategic priorities are, I would start there first. And then the second thing would be to say, okay, then where does AI fit within these strategic priorities? And then what are your plans at a minimum for having an AI guideline, like a framework of where AI fits in this space? So maybe it's a situation where. And AI for Education has several examples, but you could say, okay, then this is how we're thinking about AI.

37:39
Dr. Julaine Fowlin
And then these are the plans. I like the idea that you have a focus group because I think having a policy that did not include or wasn't collaborative, that's something that you're going to get push back on. So I would say the next step is to do some focus group, like invite some students, invite some. Some educators the same way that Charleston county does. I know it's not a. And it wasn't a big investment because they didn't have to feed us. They fed us.

38:05
Amanda Bickerstaff
The first, we did have snacks, so.

38:08
Dr. Julaine Fowlin
They have very good snack, fed, like really well. And then the second time we had snacks, and I thought that was good, like cut the food budget. Like, we're not coming for the food, we're coming for the work. And then from there, I would say develop an AI acceptable use guideline where teachers and learners can Communicate is AI acceptable here? Is it not? And then in tandem develop what your AI literacy strategy is. Because if you're talking about academic integrity, I always say there is no transparency without literacy. How can I be transparent about something that you didn't teach me to use?

38:45
Amanda Bickerstaff
Exactly. Gosh, yeah, Right.

38:47
Dr. Julaine Fowlin
And I would say get some funding for at least having, because I'm not calling any vendor, but try to get some funding for an approved AI platform.

38:58
Amanda Bickerstaff
Right.

38:59
Dr. Julaine Fowlin
Security reasons.

39:00
Amanda Bickerstaff
Yeah. And I think that, you know, it's interesting that last one, really, you know, we are tech agnostic at AI for education, but we do think that having one system that can be data protected is important. But I will say we are starting to advocate for not just one that you have, but one that's good because like for example, right now Google Gemini is not going to be a frontier model. And Microsoft Copilot has ChatGPT under the hood, but also has some limitations, especially if you're not using the paid version. So you know, it's, it can't just be safe, it also needs to be effective, which is our C framework.

39:41
Amanda Bickerstaff
But I think that's something that we're starting to see more and more because as you build AI literacy, especially of adults and then give them a tool that does not work as well, then it can completely crater like confidence. And so I think there needs to be, and I think hopefully what we'll see is that things like ChatGPT for teachers, which is no student version, but tattoo teachers, does give free access to 2027. We hope that Gemini Google has a frontier model again. We hope, you know, like there's a hope that maybe Claude would have a, you know, not just educator licenses, but district licenses, which is much safer than what they've done. So I love Claude and Anthropic, but they did not do a good job of rolling out this individual account, incentivizing people to use student data.

40:28
Amanda Bickerstaff
So there are some things that you need to think about, but it can't just be safe, it needs to be effective. And I think that goes to like the point of everything we've talked about today. And so when you're thinking about your own AI adoption wherever you are, because I know we have some people that are helping others, some that are leaders in this room, some teachers, we've got some people working in ed tech. But the most important thing is like, is there a purpose to these tools? And even before that, do you have enough grounding in terms of AI literacy? And knowledge and thinking first before you make any of those changes. Right. Nothing. The tool itself will never be the change agent. Well, it might be, but not in the way you want, most likely if it doesn't have the underpinnings.

41:18
Amanda Bickerstaff
But if you do those things first, which is really that grounding component of the framework, then you're going to be in a much better spot no matter what. And so I just want to say, first of all, thank you, Jillian. I'm so glad. I know that you're like, Amanda, what are you going to ask? Asked me. I feel like everyone's like, it's a crapshoot. But I hope you had a good time with me. It's always such a pleasure to get to meet and build my own personal network and we get to spend real time together, which is like, pretty special. Sometimes we come in and out and we don't get to spend time, but we've gotten to be colleagues through this work. But I also want to say thank you to everyone here.

41:51
Amanda Bickerstaff
I know that so many of you are doing this work already and you truly care, and I know the noise just continues to increase. But spending your time with us, especially at the start of school year, we think that as a gift. So thanks, everybody. Have a wonderful time. We'll share the resources. We have a webinar with AMES around some students. We're gonna have a student webinar. We also are gonna have a couple other webinars coming up, so look out for those. But I hope everyone has a great day. Thanks, everyone.