A Letter to NYCPS: The Wrong AI Approach Will Squander Potential

Co-authored by Dr. Sabba Quidwai & Vriti Saraf

Dear NYC Public Schools,

We are writing to you in hopes that our collective efforts and thought partnership about AI will yield the best possible outcomes for our students and our society.?

Yesterday, we read about Chancellor David C. Banks ' decision to embrace AI in our schools, kicked off by a “Day of AI”. Specifically, you have resolved to “providing educators with resources and real-life examples of successful AI implementation in schools to improve administrative tasks, communication, and teaching”, along with “a toolkit of resources for educators to use as they initiate discussions and lessons about AI in their classrooms”.?

We appreciate and commend the careful reconsideration of AI after your initial ban. However, if we are to make any progress with AI in education, we have to understand that this moment in time isn’t actually about AI. It’s about the future of living, learning, earning, and community, as an outcome of education.

We know that AI presents significant opportunities for enhancing teaching and learning experiences, but adopting a myopic view of AI by only focusing on existing tools may perpetuate habits that don’t align with the outcomes we might hope for.

In the book Atomic Habits, James Clear highlights the importance of focusing on identity over outcomes. He shares, “A similar pattern exists whether we are discussing individuals, organizations, or societies. There are a set of beliefs and assumptions that shape the system, an identity behind the habits.”?

Today, we find ourselves in the midst of a collective identity crisis – and surprisingly, that’s a good thing. This pivotal moment prompts us to question who we want to be in a world where AI continues to reshape our lives and redefine our roles, and how our habits follow along.

This moment of collective curiosity about our future presents a unique opportunity for schools, organizations, and communities to come together and design what’s next. We are inspired to not just make incremental changes, but rather to reimagine how we might raise the bar and transform how we work and learn, to create more widely shared prosperity. In The Second Machine Age, authors Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee share: “Technology is not destiny. We shape our destiny.”

We believe that, in order to embrace AI in education, in order to prepare educators for the 21st century classroom, and in order to ensure our students will grow to contribute positively to themselves and society, we need a fundamental shift in the way we think about education.

First Shift: Rethinking Teacher PD

First, we must help educators establish systems of thinking. Only then will educators be able to identify effective use-cases for AI tools.?

Currently, most training around AI for educators focuses on how to use ChatGPT or a slew of other AI tools. The technology-first approach adopted by many leaves us with a challenge sociologist Paul Attewell warned about in 2001 - the digital use divide. It is not enough to simply introduce teachers to specific AI tools or platforms; instead, we must empower them with a broader understanding of their own habits, challenges, and systems. Then, applying AI capabilities, limitations, and potential biases to their own systems of thinking, will better equip educators to navigate this rapidly evolving technological landscape and use AI ethically.?

It is worth noting the pitfalls of previous technology initiatives that focused on teaching teachers only one tool, neglecting the importance of technical literacy. Apple Classrooms for example, provided teachers with training exclusively on Apple products without emphasizing broader systems thinking. As a result, teachers were limited in their ability to adapt to alternative tools and platforms, hindering their effectiveness in a rapidly evolving digital landscape.

What systems of thinking should teachers learn?

Consider these two scenarios:?

1. Teacher A discovers that she can use ChatGPT to write a lesson plan. She identifies an objective from her syllabus and ChatGPT creates a full lesson plan with activities, materials, and assessments.?
2. Teacher B discovers that she can use Chat GPT to help her rethink learning. She identifies a 21st century competency that one of her students is struggling with, feeds ChatGPT a design thinking framework, and asks it to identify three ways she can help her student develop the competency. Chat GPT provides teacher B with ideas on how to observe the student to gain better insight, identify core problems, generate a wide range of solutions, and test some ideas.?

Teacher A is left perpetuating the same ineffective practices but she’s doing it faster. Teacher B is rethinking what needs to be taught, and how. If we only focus on the first scenario, we are wasting AI's potential to uplift learning.

Among many, two of the most important frameworks for this type of thinking are First Principles Thinking & Design Thinking. These frameworks are gamechangers for the long term improvement of...basically anything.

1. First Principles Thinking: a problem-solving approach that involves breaking down complex situations or ideas into their fundamental truths or basic principles. First principles thinking allows individuals to understand the essence of a problem, question conventional wisdom, and develop innovative solutions. The key aspects of first principles thinking include stripping away assumptions, building from fundamental truths, rational and logical reasoning, creative problem solving, and an iterative and incremental approach.

The most successful industry leaders use first principles thinking to identify and solve problems yet many of our educators have never heard of this methodology. Before we identify the AI tools we think teachers should use, let’s help them reframe their challenges and empower themselves to identify what they actually need.

2. Design Thinking: a problem-solving approach that emphasizes empathy, collaboration, and a user-centered mindset. It is a human-centered methodology that encourages individuals to understand people's needs, challenge assumptions, and explore innovative solutions.?

Before we present models of how one classroom uses AI, let’s allow teachers to develop a deep understanding of their own students’ needs, ideate solutions, and test a variety of ideas.?

Applying these systems to break down challenges like “why am I feeling burnt out” or “why is my student unable to understand xyz” and then using AI to test or implement potential solutions will be far more effective than using AI to solve superficial problems like saving time. Furthermore, for the educators who are still grappling with the achievement gap and have more fundamental concerns around literacy and math, these systems of thinking will help them leverage AI tools for difficult obstacles with few previous solutions.

Only after applying these systems of thinking, will AI training become efficacious.

Understanding AI Fundamentals: Teachers should learn the basic mechanics of AI to navigate the rapidly evolving AI landscape and effectively integrate AI concepts into teaching practices. This includes understanding on a basic level, neural networks and deep learning.?

Ethical and Responsible Use of AI: Teachers should learn about the ethical considerations surrounding AI, including bias, privacy, transparency, accountability, fairness, and the potential impact of AI on society. Some may simply call this “digital literacy”.?

Practical use of AI tools: Teachers should learn how to use AI to create differentiated instructional plans that are self-paced and adaptive. They should learn how AI can optimize their schedule. They should learn how to better interpret student data and leverage AI generated insights to tailor experiences while providing feedback using AI tools.

But again, all of these AI focused topics must be curated after teachers have already identified their actual challenges. The Edtech industry is guilty of producing technical solutions for problems that don't exist. We would be squandering the potential of AI in education if we made this mistake again.

Second Shift: Rethinking Teaching

What we’ve described above is largely meant to address our current education system. But here’s our hot-take. AI will fundamentally change the teacher's role, shifting them from conveyors of information to curators and coaches. As AI takes on routine tasks like content delivery and grading, teachers will have more time and flexibility to focus on higher-order skills development, critical thinking, and socio-emotional learning. Teachers will curate and customize learning experiences, guide students in navigating digital resources and metacognitive skills.

Schools then, will become places for social engagement, hands-on learning, collaboration, personalized coaching, food equity, and shelter.?

Let's use AI to help leaders, educators, parents, and students proactively prepare for this future in a way that's equitable.

People, Purpose, Plan

In a recent podcast with Reid Hoffman & Aria Finger , Trevor N. identifies “people, purpose, and plan” as the most important discussion we could be having around AI. For our context, this translates to planning for purposeful utility that serves people, instead of fitting AI into existing and often broken constructs.

NYC DOE, if we can do with AI what we never could do before, let's take this opportunity to reimagine how we live, learn, earn, and collaborate, so we can better serve humanity.

Thank you for reading,

Vriti Saraf & Sabba Quidwai

Vriti & Sabba are educators working to reimagine education.

Vriti is an NYC native, a product of NYC public schools & the CUNY network, and a former teacher and dean in Brownsville, Brooklyn, through Teach for America. She is co-founder of Ed3 DAO, a non-profit community for educators using emerging technology to improve teaching and learning, as well as founder of k20 Educators, a design studio that creates learning experiences in metaverse spaces. Vriti breaks down new technologies for educators in her newsletter, "Ed3 World" on LinkedIn and Substack.

Sabba believes cultures of innovation begin with a culture of empathy. Her journey took her from being a high school teacher to education executive at Apple. Sabba now works with organizations to design schools that give young people the mindset and skills to thrive in workplaces and as global citizens. Sabba hosts the podcast, "Designing Schools," and released a documentary based on her research on design thinking in K12.