Artificial Intelligence has made its way into education and is here to stay. Are you and your school prepared to manage it? How will you know if a student used it? Are there productive uses for AI? Should teachers use it? Is it safe for all ages? Does your District or Institution have an AI policy in place? Do your syllabus and assignments have a policy in place?
Since the release of ChatGPT (Chatbot Generative Pre-trained Transformer) in 2022, an artificial intelligence chatbot developed by OpenAI, it has found it’s way into the classroom. According to similarweb.com, it is one the top 10 most visited websites in the world. Be certain your students have tried it.
Like any technology, familiarizing yourself and understanding its capabilities is crucial for educators and schools. The “T” in TPACK keeps changing, but not the construct of preparing teachers in the effective implementation of educational technology.
Following is a compendium of resources and research to help you understand, utilize, integrate, and develop policy for ChatGPT and other Generative AI technologies. I will also touch on Agentic AI, and how it differs from Generative AI, and its possible applications in education.
Begin by Understanding
Coursera offers several free beginner courses for Generative AI including courses specific to education.
Common Sense Education, an excellent resource for teachers and parents for navigating the digital world, offers two free learn at your own pace AI courses. AI Basics for K–12 Teachers, and ChatGPT Foundations for K–12 Educators. Additionally, they offer excellent Digital Citizenship resources that can be found in this post.
Codecademy has a free Intro to Generative AI course.
Google Cloud Skills Boost offers free Introduction to Generative AI and Introduction to Image Generation courses with certificates.
OpenAI, the parent company of ChatGPT, offers a guide for teachers, Teaching with AI, including suggested prompts, an explanation of how ChatGPT works and its limitations, the efficacy of AI detectors, and bias. Open AI states on their website: “ChatGPT is not meant for children under 13, and we require that children ages 13 to 18 obtain parental consent before using ChatGPT”.
Wharton Interactive’s Faculty Director Ethan Mollick and Director of Pedagogy Lilach Mollick offer a free five-part online video course for educators on how the latest large language models, including ChatGPT, can be used to enhance teaching and learning.
ISTE offers a paid,15 hour self paced course, Artificial Intelligence Explorations for Educators, and a free PDF guide for school administrators, Bringing AI to School.
For teachers who utilize Khan Academy (which I highly recommend, read post here), there is a free AI tool and training, Khanmigo.
Classroom Curriculum
Code.org offers Generative AI curriculum for students that you can integrate.
MIT developed Day of AI, offering curriculum and professional development.
aiEDU has extensive resources for teachers and administrators.
Stanford University offers CRAFT, a free online collection of research-based AI literacy resources developed for high school teachers.
Resources for Thoughtful Integration
Higher Education has taken the lead on policies and integration of Generative AI, but K-12 should benefit from their pioneering work.
Time for Class 2024, from Tyton Partners, and sponsored by Turnitin, is an excellent report on access of educational technology including AI.
The University of Massachusetts offers a flowchart to help teachers consider options for developing AI policy.
Wake Forest has a short course for managing student engagement and AI expectations.
Duke University offers extensive resources and guidance for teachers.
The University of San Diego Online provides 39 examples of AI in education and 9 benefits.
Grammarly and the University of Texas has published The Faculty Guide to Getting Started With Gen AI. This comprehensive guide for thoughtful adoption of AI includes 20 activities and 9 lesson plans. While geared to higher education, it is a resource for K-12 Policy.
The Department of Education Office of Educational Technology has published Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Teaching and Learning, offering insights and recommendations for AI in K-12.
Designing Learning Experiences
Teachers and Schools have a choice of integrating Generative AI or inoculating their assignments from it. Keep in mind that AI detecting software is extremely unreliable at differentiating human writing and Generative AI. Ars Technica quotes OpenAI as acknowledging such in this article, and explains why in this article, where AI detection thinks the U.S. Constitution was written by AI. A blanket policy of banning AI is unrealistic.
This article from Medium by Open Data Science highlights cases of false accusations of students using AI, as well as the documented bias against non native speakers and differentiated learners.
Be very careful about accusing students of using AI on assignments.
Some possible strategies to manage AI use in student work are to get samples of your students writing at the beginning of the semester using technologies like Windows Assigned Access and Apple Guided Access for school managed devices, or paper and pen. You can also utilize the timeline and version history features in word processing and SLS programs. If the entire work appears on the time line all at once, it may have been cut and pasted.
Create assignments based on information from a unique class activity or discussion, guest speaker, video, etc.
Require citations from specific academic journals. Generative AI usually does not include scholarly sources, such as academic journal articles and books that require subscriptions. Double check the citations, Generative AI has been known to fabricate them.
Integrating AI into assignments can promote an understanding of the benefits and responsible use, as well as it’s limitations.
MIT offers 4 Steps to Design an AI-Resilient Learning Experience and AI Detectors Don’t Work. Here’s What to Do Instead.
Agentic AI
Agentic AI differs in that it is an autonomous design for analyzing data, making decisions, meeting goals, and adapting to changing variables with minimal or no human intervention. Agentic AI is already used in robotics, self driving cars, personal AI assistants, and simulation applications. Generative AI creates new content like text, images, and music. Keep in mind both are evolving rapidly.
Forbes has an article, Generative AI Vs. Agentic AI: The Key Differences Everyone Needs To Know outlining the differences in the models.
Bernard Marr, best selling technology author and award winning influencer, created this video explaining the differences in the technologies:
Element 451, “is an AI-first CRM and student engagement platform designed to revolutionize the way institutions communicate, engage, and support students across every stage of their educational journey.” On their blog is a post explaining how they integrate the technology into their platform for higher education.
Research Literature
Recent research indicates that Generative AI could have a positive impact on education when integrated productively. Enter ChatGPT in Education as a search query in Google Scholar or Semantic Scholar for additional literature.
Liang et al (2023), GPT detectors are biased against non-native English
writers, summarizes that “GPT detectors frequently misclassify non-native English writing as AI generated, raising concerns about fairness and robustness. Addressing the biases in these detectors is crucial to prevent the marginalization of non-native English speakers in evaluative and educational settings and to create a more equitable digital landscape.”
Mollick (2023), Assigning AI: Seven Approaches for Students, with Prompts examines the potential, risks, and limitations of Large Language Models.
Fullan et al (2024), provide an excellent editorial, Artificial intelligence and school leadership: challenges, opportunities and implications.
According to a survey of teachers by Hays et al (2023), ChatGPT in K-12 Education, “Results indicate that teachers are concerned about the potential impact of ChatGPT on education, but many are looking for ways to effectively incorporate it into their classes. Finally, many educators are looking for support and professional development about how best to navigate this new technological landscape.”
In Zhang et al (2023), A systematic review of ChatGPT use in K‐12 education “It is highlighted that ChatGPT could empower educators through curriculum, lesson planning, materials generation, differentiation, and optimizing student learning experience through personalized learning.”
Acharya et al (2005), Agentic AI: Autonomous Intelligence for Complex Goals—A Comprehensive Survey, provides an in depth survey paper on Agentic AI, with educational applications as “Intelligent tutoring and personalized learning paths”, and “Adaptive learning platforms and automated assessments.”
References
Weixin Liang, Mert Yuksekgonul, Yining Mao, Eric Wu, James Zou, GPT detectors are biased against non-native English writers. Patterns, Volume 4, Issue 7100779, (July 14, 2023). https://www.cell.com/patterns/fulltext/S2666-3899(23)00130-7
Mollick, Ethan R. and Mollick, Lilach, Assigning AI: Seven Approaches for Students, with Prompts (September 23, 2023). The Wharton School Research Paper, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4475995 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4475995
Fullan, M., Azorín, C., Harris, A., & Jones, M. (2023). Artificial intelligence and school leadership: challenges, opportunities and implications. School Leadership & Management, 44(4), 339–346. https://doi.org/10.1080/13632434.2023.2246856
Hays, L., Jurkowski, O. & Sims, S.K. ChatGPT in K-12 Education. TechTrends 68, 281–294 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11528-023-00924-z
Zhang, P., & Tur, G. (2023). A systematic review of ChatGPT use in K‐12 education. European Journal of Education. https://doi.org/10.1111/ejed.12599
D. B. Acharya, K. Kuppan and B. Divya, “Agentic AI: Autonomous Intelligence for Complex Goals—A Comprehensive Survey,” in IEEE Access, vol. 13, pp. 18912-18936, 2025, doi: 10.1109/ACCESS.2025.3532853.