I have observed some embarrassing uses of ai without editing or personification by other educational leaders. It is a seductive trap. ai may produce what appears to be high-quality work, but when we look closer, there are serious red flags.
Educators must balance harnessing the potential of ai while preserving the integrity of its use to avoid concerns about the ethical use of ai. At the same time, we play a role in modeling for others how ai can enhance rather than undermine.
<h2 id="challenges-of-unedited-ai-responses-3″>Challenges of unedited ai answers
Recently, I saw a well-intentioned praise email sent by a supervisor to a teacher worthy of praise. The problem? He shouted: “I used ai and I didn't change it.”
Understand that educational leaders ought adopt ai. I certainly do. However, their notably imperfect productivity has the potential to lead to awkward complaints, like this example when the teacher came up to me and said, “That was nice but weird.” That's a perfect way to summarize ai production!
The integration of ai technology has revolutionized various aspects of education, from personalized learning tools to administrative efficiencies. However, the ethical use of ai-generated content remains a critical concern, particularly in academic settings where integrity and originality are paramount and where educational leaders should model appropriate use.
Consider:
Educational impact – Students may inadvertently adopt incorrect or incomplete information if ai answers are copied directly. This hinders their critical thinking and learning development.
Legal and ethical implications – Educational institutions must address the legal and ethical implications of using ai-generated content. Proper attribution and understanding of fair use policies are crucial to avoiding legal repercussions.
<h2 id="best-ai-use-practices-for-educational-leaders-3″>Best Practices for Using ai for Educational Leaders
In May of each school year, I, like many leaders, am bombarded with requests to write letters of recommendation. In almost all cases, I want to do it, but it is labor intensive. One of my first experiences playing with ai was when I entered non-identifiable resume content to produce a quick, more personified response.
I write quickly, but 10 letters in 20 minutes each is too high a cost, taking me away from other important tasks and personal time with the family. When I use ai and receive a suggested letter, I spend 3-5 minutes reviewing and correcting several important ai response patterns and customizing them where appropriate.
Ultimately, it's worth spending 30 to 50 minutes on 10 letters instead of 200 minutes before copying, pasting, and sending.
For each entry, especially when it is directed to or about an individual (such as a letter of praise or recommendation), you should take the time to edit the ai's response.
These are the guidelines I follow to ensure I balance efficiency (time saved) and qualitative responsiveness:
1. Use what I call “deliberate feedback” in ai.. One of the first signs that the supervisor recommendation letter was generated exclusively by ai was that there was nothing in the result that separated the individual who was being recognized. It was a generic message recognizing his achievement. Absent was the “personification” necessary in that response. Let's explore two techniques to ensure personification in content:
- Old school review process. We teach students during the writing process how important it is to edit and revise. We must follow the same rules with ai. That is, once you get the content generated, go back and manually customize the talking points. ai does a good job organizing content, you have to add the personal touch.
- Access deliberate comments. When I wrote from resume content, I was feeding the ai deliberate information about the individual. This works just as well as a method I shared about collecting survey feedback to organize the results in a systematic and quick way: I give the ai the deliberate information and then tell it to use it in the message. (“Based on this content, write me a letter of recommendation” or “<a target="_blank" href="https://www.smartbrief.com/original/feedback-using-ai-chatbot” target=”_blank” data-url=”https://www.smartbrief.com/original/feedback-using-ai-chatbot” referrerpolicy=”no-referrer-when-downgrade” data-hl-processed=”none”>Based on the feedback responses from these surveys, identify patterns and trends. and make recommendations”). You can then be sure that the ai's response will be very accurate, rather than the mistake of saying, “Write me a letter of recommendation for a person who presented at a national conference.”
2. Avoid layoffs. ai is designed to please the user. In general, that's great, but not when you repeat an explanation over and over again. You'll notice this when you ask it to reply to a message, as the ai will say the same thing, in three slightly different ways. We don't communicate like this in person, so cut out the redundancies and get to the point. Clarity is key.
3. Eliminate those strange words that you don't use and that the ai injects. My favorite ai word is “unwavering.” I don't use that word. It sounds strange coming out of my mouth, and there are a lot of words like this that ai commonly uses. Remember that your voice matters when communicating the message. The ai still sounds too mechanical, and even when it can learn your tone, it struggles with strange lexicon. Instead of “unwavering” and “tireless,” which I've removed dozens of times each, you could just say “your dedication” or “your hard work.”
While ai offers enormous benefits in education, its integration must be approached with caution and responsibility. Educational leaders play an important role in fostering a culture of academic integrity and ethical use of ai, and in modeling the issues mentioned above.
By verifying content responses, using deliberate feedback, personifying and removing redundancies and extraneous expressions from ai, we can harness the power of ai while safeguarding educational integrity, not only for ourselves, but for everyone who comes to us. us looking for guidance.
