What happened
Cheshire Academy, a private school in Connecticut with about 400 students, uses a patchwork of AI tools including ChatGPT, Perplexity, and MagicSchool. Teachers use AI to prepare class materials like lesson plans and grading rubrics, but none yet use it for student feedback due to quality, personalization, and privacy concerns.
Why it matters
The school trains staff on general AI techniques rather than prescribing specific tech, emphasizing the technology's limits including potential for incorrect and biased responses. This approach emerged as teachers faced increased burdens adapting to generative AI, with organizations like OpenAI and UNESCO encouraging classroom use but many educators feeling confused about how to handle it.
What to watch
Cheshire Academy is piloting a 'Student AI Council' where students create media and lead discussions on healthy AI use. Assignments are now colour-coded like traffic lights — green for fully allowed AI, red for banned, yellow for permitted tools with restrictions. MagicSchool's individual plan costs just under $100 per year for unlimited access.
Summaries like this, in your inbox every morning.
The article profiles Cheshire Academy as a case study in how schools can adapt to generative AI without a one-size-fits-all mandate. The school's decision to train staff on general techniques rather than prescribe specific tools reflects a broader uncertainty among educators about how to integrate AI meaningfully. Teachers use AI primarily for administrative tasks like lesson planning and rubric creation, while avoiding its use for student-facing feedback due to concerns about quality and personalization.
A notable element is the school's emphasis on student reflection. French teacher Miriam Przybyla-Baum, with nearly 30 years of experience, developed assignments where students critique AI edits to their work and anonymously grade each other's AI-assisted work. These techniques have been adopted school-wide, culminating in the traffic-light labelling system and the pilot 'Student AI Council.' This approach positions students as active participants in defining appropriate AI use, rather than passive recipients of policy.
The article also highlights the practical economics of AI tools in education. MagicSchool's individual plan at just under $100 per year offers unlimited access, while general-purpose chatbots from companies like Anthropic, Google, and OpenAI are also used for administrative tasks, with some rolling out school-specific features to mixed results. This suggests schools are navigating a fragmented market, balancing specialized tools with general-purpose alternatives.
Pick your industry and the AI tools you use, and get news related to your work every day.
Free · 30 seconds with Google · unsubscribe anytimeWhat is AIToday? →
Ask AI anything about this article. The AI reads this article, earlier AIToday articles, and Wikipedia, and cites its sources. Q&As are published on this page for other readers too.
Chunghwa Telecom president Rong-shy Lin said the shift from conversational AI to autonomous AI agents is resha…
Apple and Meta said they would jointly release a new open-weight AI model designed to run on high-end Macs, ai…
A writer and entrepreneur opened his daily to-do list and found 156 items, and concluded that an AI assistant…
A Zenn contributor sorted AI use into three modes — AI as an assistant, AI running alongside people, and AI th…
The walkthrough points the CLI at a local mock via the ANTHROPIC_BASE_URL environment variable
A non-engineer operator says one person ships four smartphone apps on Google Play, three on the App Store, wit…
