AI in Nebraska education: K-12 schools exploring tools for grading, lesson plans

Nebraska Public Media News is taking a look at how artificial intelligence is impacting classrooms across Nebraska, from kindergarten through higher education. This is the fourth story in a series that will explore several areas of AI in education, including school policies on AI, how educational institutions are implementing the technology and the safety concerns around it. Some interviews for this reporting were found in Nebraska Public Media News’ recent AI in Education survey.

While some K-12 schools only have a policy that bans using artificial intelligence for cheating, other schools are looking at the different ways AI could support teachers and students.

In schools across the country, there’s a growing number of teachers and students using artificial intelligence. More than 80% of teachers reported using AI in the 2023-24 school year, according to a Center for Democracy & Technology survey, and more than half of teenagers say they’ve used AI to find information or get help with schoolwork, according to the Pew Research Center.

These trends are showing up in Nebraska, too.

David Kraus, superintendent of the consolidated district Syracuse-Dunbar-Avoca, said he encourages his staff to use AI with time-consuming tasks like writing a difficult email. However, it should help with talking points, not completely write the email for a teacher.

“There's a difference between it doing your job and saving you time,” Kraus said. “There's some jobs that, yes, that is definitely something the teacher needs to do, and then the others, like, that is a great way to save some time.”

Kraus said teachers can also utilize AI to differentiate their lessons to account for various learners, like those struggling in reading and math. He also said teachers can use AI to create a song for students to learn certain vocabulary words.

Kraus and his son, Landry, went to America’s Youth AI Festival in Boston this summer to learn about and discuss artificial intelligence in education. Landry spent most of his time helping draft a bill on AI in education with 97 other students across the country, while David heard from experts and other school leaders about AI.

David said he wants to update his district’s policy to further explain how teachers can and can’t use the technology.

“Can teachers use it to grade papers? Can it be used to create lesson plans? Where does the spectrum start and end with teacher use?” David asked. “Our policy doesn't even talk about that. Also, it doesn't talk about the literacy piece of how we're going to educate our kids as well.”

David said a training session with a representative from an educational service unit, which are organizations that support K-12 districts across the state, helped teachers start to understand what some potential uses of AI could look like.

Eileen Heller, an education consultant for professional learning at Educational Service Unit #3 in the Omaha area, said she explains to teachers that they should focus on the verb the student should be using during the lesson. For example, if they are meant to be analyzing a concept, the student should be the one doing the analysis.

“You want them doing the analysis. You want them doing the summary creation, whereas you can lift up the AI to assist them in things,” Heller said. “Maybe it's brainstorming topics, or maybe it's taking their writing piece and asking it for feedback on the way that they've structured something.”

She said teachers can use AI to help adjust lesson plans for different learning types, multilingual students and those who are on an individualized education plan.

When calculators first became available, Adam Larson, assistant director of the professional learning department at ESU 3, said the focus turned to making sure students had a foundation for math. The rise of AI is similar.

“In education, we're working on keeping the teachers and students focused on that foundational learning that they need to do, so that they can take those next steps and get better at the thing and be able to use AI,” Larson said.

Larson said for schools who are using AI, it's important to make sure the teacher is still the one doing the teaching.

The bill that Landry, who will be a freshman at Syracuse-Dunbar-Avoca, voted on in Boston had a section focused on how the students’ felt teachers can use AI. The first amendment in that section prohibited teachers from using AI as the only way to assign a grade. It also required teachers to have a clear AI policy in their syllabus and recommended they review any AI materials they create for lessons.

Landry said he has experienced the different ways teachers use AI through a tool called StudySync. One of his English language arts teachers would take the grade the AI assigned seriously and dock students’ scores, while another teacher would read through the papers herself after the AI did.

“She likes AI, but she knows how to use it,” Landry said. “She didn't go off of that grade. She always read through the essay and graded it herself.”

While that bill isn’t law, it will be sent to more than 10,000 school leaders across the country as a starting point to the conversation of AI in education.

Megan Wissing, who teaches sixth grade in a school district outside of Nebraska, said she used an AI tool called Class Companion to help her with feedback on papers. However, she said she tested it first to ensure the feedback would line up with what her thoughts would have been.

“It doesn't just give them a grade. It says, ‘Hey, you need to add more details about this,’ which is feedback that I would give them,” Wissing said. “If I have 100 students and it takes me seven minutes to grade each essay with feedback, that's 700 minutes. I'm saving time with the AI.”

She’s also seen how AI tools like Grammarly impact her students’ learning. She said students didn’t know basic grammar rules, like capitalizing the beginning of a sentence. Wissing has seen great uses of AI, though, like with Khan Academy Kids. When her 6-year-old daughter uses the tool, it will adjust to easier or harder questions based on how she is scoring.

Wissing said overall, she wants to see more training for teachers and students when it comes to AI.

“I'm the one that has to do the teaching,” Wissing said. “AI can't do the teaching, and I think that it's important for these kids to know AI can help you, but it can't do your job for you when you grow up.”

This year, she plans to go tech-free in her classroom, and she tries to keep her own daughter off technology at home.

“I was reading an article that said that this generation is the first generation that is underperforming its previous generation due to its reliance on technology,” Wissing said. “I was like, I don't want that for my kid. I want my kid, my own daughter, to learn stuff, not just go through the motions. I try to treat my students like I would treat my daughter.”