Special education teachers fill out mountains of paperwork, customize lessons for students with a wide range of learning differences, and attend hours of bureaucratic meetings.
It's easy to see why you might want to outsource some of that work to robots.
A special educator version of the Star Wars protocol droid C-3PO may never exist, but it was developed using a large-scale language model created by its founders, Open AI. Generative artifacts, including ChatGPT and other generative artifacts, can help special education teachers do their part. Experts and educators say it will help them work more efficiently and spend more time with their students.
But those shortcuts come with a lot of caution, they added.
Teachers should carefully consider artificial intelligence suggestions to ensure they are appropriate for specific students. Student data, including diagnoses of learning differences and cognitive disabilities, must be kept confidential.
Even special educators who embrace technology should proceed with caution.
Julie Taurasi, a special education teacher at Lakeview Middle School in the Park Hill School District near Kansas City, Missouri, said, “I don't see how AI is being presented to educators right now and how it's a magical tool.'' I am concerned about certain things.” He completed an AI course sponsored by the International Society for Educational Technology. “And I don’t think the AI literacy aspect is necessarily improving. [shared] The same should be true for teachers. ”
Park Hill is carefully experimenting with the potential of AI as a back-office partner for educators and as an assistive technology for some students in special education.
The district is leading the charge. A survey conducted in March and April by the nationally leading EdWeek Research Center found that schools and districts are piloting AI tools or using them only for special education students. Only one in six principals and district leaders (16%) said they do so.
Amanda Morin, an advisory board member for the nonprofit Digital Promise's Learner Diversity Project, said AI tools are best suited for teachers who already have a deep understanding of what works for special education students and the technology itself. He said it could be effective. An organization that addresses issues of equity and technology in schools.
“If you’re really confident in your knowledge and experience in special education and have looked into A.I. [in depth]I think by combining the two, we can further accelerate our service to our students,” Morin said.
However, she added, “If you're a beginner in either field, it doesn't help students because they don't know what they don't know yet.” “You may not even know if the tool is providing the right answer.”
Here are some areas where Park Hill educators and other school and district leaders see the potential of AI in special education, and what to watch out for.
Promise: We will reduce the burden of administrative procedures.
Some special education teachers spend eight hours a week creating student behavior plans, progress reports, and other documents.
“Inevitably, we're going to get stuck and have a hard time putting it into words,” Taurasi said. She said AI is perfect for overcoming writer's block or finding clearer, more objective ways to explain student behavior.
Additionally, tools like Magic School, an AI platform created for K-12 education, can help special education teachers create student learning goals that should be included in individualized education programs (IEPs). Helpful.
“When you say, 'I need a reading goal to teach my students vowels and consonants,' that creates a goal,” says Tara Bachman, assistive technology facilitator at Park Hill. She can “enter the criteria that you want, but then it's measurable, and then the teacher can enter details about that student,” Bachman said, without her AI. stated.
These workarounds can shorten the process of creating an IEP by up to 30 minutes, giving teachers more face time with students, Bachmann said.
AI can also help when a teacher needs to compose a polite and professional email to a parent after a stressful encounter with a child.
Tarashi said some special education teachers at Park Hill are using Goblin, a free tool aimed at helping neurodivergent people organize their assignments, to take the “spice” out of their messages. It is said that some people do.
Teachers can write the “most emotional email”. Next, press the button called “Formalize”. And it's incredibly professional,” Bachmann said. “Our teachers love it because it's a way to get the message across to families while releasing their emotions.”
Note: Please do not share personally identifiable student information. Don't blindly accept AI suggestions.
Teachers need to pay close attention to privacy issues when using AI tools to create documents containing sensitive student information, from IEPs to emails, Taurasi said.
“If you're not going to put it on a billboard outside a school, you shouldn't include it in any kind of AI,” Taurasi said. “There's no sense of privacy being guaranteed.”
Taurasi said he advises his colleagues to “never include names” when creating documents using generative AI. Although it's OK to include the student's approximate grade level in some situations, entering an exact age or mentioning a unique diagnosis is prohibited.
Indeed, if the information teachers input into the AI is too vague, educators may not be able to get accurate suggestions for their reports. It requires balance.
“You need to be specific without being concrete or specific,” Taurasi said.
Note: AI is best suited for teachers who already understand special education.
Another note: AI tools can help teachers create reports and customize general education lessons for special education students, but deciding whether to adopt their recommendations requires that teachers already have a deep understanding of their students.
Relying solely on AI tools to create lesson plans and reports “takes the personalization out of personalized education,” Morin says. “because, [the technology] Like any good teacher, it's important to frequently spout what comes to mind rather than carefully considering what's best for a particular student.
Educators can adjust the prompts (questions they ask the AI) to get better, more specific advice, she added.
“If you're an experienced special educator, you can say, 'I have a student with ADHD, and they're fidgety,' and you'll get more personalized advice,” Morin says. To tell.
Our promise: We'll make your lessons more accessible.
To ensure that special education students are learning the same course content as other students, teachers may need to spend hours simplifying the language of the text to an appropriate reading level.
Landmark School leader Josh Clark says generative AI tools can perform the same task, often referred to as “text leveling,” in just a few minutes.a private school in Massachusetts serving children with dyslexia and other language-based learning differences.
“If you have a class of 30 ninth-grade kids and they’re all reading a book about photosynthesis, you can customize it for one specific child. [the] “They read the level silently, without anyone noticing, and without you, the teacher, spending hours on end,” Clark said. “I think this is a really powerful way to give kids access to information that they wouldn't otherwise have access to.”
Similarly, at Park Hill, Bachmann uses Canva, a design tool that is made specifically for K-12 schools and therefore has age-appropriate versions for many students. I enabled students with cerebral palsy to create the same type of black and white images. Art his classmates were making.
Kristen Ponce, the district's speech pathologist, used Canva to provide visuals for special education students to make their communications more tangible.
Case in point: One of Ponce's students loves learning about animals, but he has a very clear idea of what he's looking for, she said. When a student says “bear,” Canva shows them a photo of a brown grizzly bear, for example. However, students may have been thinking about polar bears.
She said this gives her an opportunity to tell Ponce, “You need to use more words to explain what you're trying to say here.” She “was able to go from 'Bear' to 'Polar Bear on Ice.'”
Note: It's not always appropriate to use AI as an accessibility tool.
Not all AI tools can be used with all students. For example, tools like ChatGPT are age-restricted and cannot be used by anyone under 13 or 18 without parental permission, Bachmann said. (ChatGPT does not independently verify the age of users.)
“I remind staff about introducing it to children too young and remembering that, and focusing on what therapists and teachers can do together to make their lives easier. I am warning you that you are about to do so.” [students],” she said.
“Accessibility is great,” she said. However, if teachers are thinking of “letting children run free on AI,'' they need to be careful.
Promise: Use AI tools to help special education students communicate.
Park Hill is just beginning to use AI tools to help special education students express their ideas.
A recent example: A student whose language skills were affected by a traumatic brain injury used Canva to create thank you cards for several teachers.
“She was able to generate personal messages to people like school nurses,” Bachmann said. “To a physical therapist who took her to all kinds of events in the community. She said, 'You're my favorite therapist.' She was a very private person. ”
There may be similar opportunities for AI to help special education students write more effectively.
Some students with learning or thinking differences may have difficulty organizing their thoughts or understanding their own arguments.
“When we ask kids to write, we're actually asking them to do a lot of work at once,” Clark says. Aspects of writing that seem relatively simple to traditional learners – word finding, grammar, punctuation and spelling – can be major hurdles for some students in special education, he said. said.
“It's a big distraction,” Clark said. The student may “have great ideas but have difficulty implementing them.”
Caution: Students may miss out on the critical thinking skills that writing teaches.
Digital Promise's Morin says using AI tools to improve self-expression for students with language processing differences has potential, but if not done carefully, students can lose out on important skills. It states that there is a possibility of overlooking the development.
AI “can be a very positive adaptive tool, but I think we need to be very structured about how we do that,” she said.
ChatGPT or similar tools could help students with dyslexia or similar learning differences “produce better sentences, which I think is different from writing better sentences.” said Mr. Morin.
She said it makes sense for students to start using those tools in school because they are likely to be able to use them in the professional world.
However, currently available tools may not adequately explain the rationale behind the changes you make to student work or help students express their opinions more clearly in the future. There is a gender.
“The process is just as important as the outcome, especially for kids who learn differently, right?” Morin said. “The process is important.”
Mr Clark agreed there was a need to tread carefully. At his own school, he is experimenting with what he calls an “orphan experiment” of using his AI to help students with language processing differences better express their ideas.
For now, the school is focusing on upperclassmen preparing to enter college. Perhaps more people will be able to use AI to complete their post-secondary tasks. “How do we ensure a level playing field?” Clark said.