(lively music) - [Derek] Coming up on "Learning from Maine," how one Maine district is teaching its students and faculty to navigate the daunting threats and daunting opportunities of artificial intelligence.

- How do we leverage this as a tool as opposed to replacing our brains and replacing our thinking?

- [Derek] That's coming up on "Learning from Maine."

(soft music) - Hi, I'm Derek Pierce.

I'm your host on "Learning from Maine," a show about what's happening and what's possible in Maine public schools.

(audio scratches) - That was not Derek Pierce.

I'm Derek Pierce.

That was an AI-generated version of the old guy designed to show you what's happening and what's possible with generative AI.

Fake videos like that first one can be created in minutes and they look pretty real, don't they?

Yikes.

Google Gemini, ChatGPT, MagicSchool, all these generative AI programs comb through massive datasets to answer our questions and create new things.

It can be used to plan your next trip to Canada or create a business plan based on your big idea.

AI can become your therapist, your doctor, your best friend.

If you're a student, it can solve any math problem, summarize any reading, write a paper on any topic moments later for free, anytime.

Homework done, and done pretty well.

You can even tell AI to write it in your voice.

You think that might be tempting to a teenager?

And what then are the implications for our kids' critical thinking skills, their ability to write, to read, to talk, and connect with friends?

AI can also be used to help you create art you never could alone, to accelerate and personalize your learning in any field, and perhaps to transcend our limitations and biases and solve our most intractable human problems.

So, is AI the future of teaching and learning, or is it the end of it?

Well, it's in our schools now, whether or not our students and teachers are ready for it, whether or not our students and teachers like it, and a lot of them don't.

- Well, I mean, I don't try to use AI, but it's kinda hard not to.

Like, every time I look something up, the first thing that comes up is an AI overview.

It's everywhere now.

- None of us went to school for this, we weren't prepared, and neither are our community members.

- It's inevitable.

It's here.

It's here to stay, it's here to grow.

- We have to, you know, kinda take our heads out of the sand and say, "This is something that our students are gonna need."

- [Derek] And the fear is palpable among many students, parents, and educators that generative AI won't just change education, it could ruin it.

- So, with AI, it's really easy to plug in, "I want a paper that sounds like a ninth grader about 'Of Mice and Men.'"

You know, and you can get that kind of paper back from AI, but we don't want students to be doing that, right?

- When we as a faculty started talking more about AI, there was a lot of, and continues to be, a lot of skepticism, fear, confusion.

- Like, right now, 100% if you threw AI in a classroom, half of that would cheat.

- [Derek] And the fears go way beyond cheating.

- The threats are that, you know... (Gray laughs) Let me see, how many fingers do I have, you know?

As these systems get really intelligent more so than us and become increasingly powerful, what's gonna be their attitude or manner of treating us?

They're not just things 50 or 100 years from now.

They're things that are in the coming decade.

- I don't have an aspiration for AI other than I don't want it to take over, right?

I want it to know its place.

- What a time to be a kid.

It's so hard.

There's so much to navigate.

- [Derek] Mount Desert Island High School in Bar Harbor, or MDI, believes schools have a responsibility to take on the perils and opportunities of AI head on.

- It's really, really important for us to teach students how to navigate the world that exists, and AI is an important part of that world.

It's the same thing with a table saw or an AI tool.

You know, you really have to know what you're doing and know the safety aspects to it before you go delving into it.

And when you do, you can make some really great things.

- [Derek] Or you cut your hand off.

- You could also cut your hand off, yes.

- Let's get in, let's write a great prompt, and let's get out.

When should we use AI?

When shouldn't we use AI?

What does that look like?

What kind of choices do we have as the humans in the process to engage with this tool or to not engage with this tool?

We have to take control and not let that technology control us.

- 10 years ago, Stephen Hawking said, "The rise of powerful AI will either be the best or the worst thing ever to happen to humanity."

How can a school, how should a school teach its students to use AI in a way that both deepens their learning and their ethical behavior?

How can teachers use AI to improve their instruction and liberate more time for the most impactful, human part of their craft, supporting and connecting with kids?

Like schools across the state nation, AOS 91, home of Mount Desert High School, is trying to figure that out, and they don't have all the answers.

But like a wise chatbot, they've generated some responses that are definitely worth paying attention to.

The district work on AI followed a year-long process with extensive student and community input.

They crafted a new description of the qualities and skills they aim to foster in their students, their vision for a graduate.

They realized if they were truly gonna cultivate students who were truth seekers and solution architects, they were gonna have to reckon with AI.

So, in September, 2024, they formed an AI team and started meeting weekly.

- And really, the feeling was, the speed of change was so great.

We had to have these regular times on the books to connect and be able to learn what's on, understand what's going on, and then decide how we were gonna support.

- Cindy, it might be something that your tech integrators might be interested in- - [Derek] And they're still meeting once a week.

Team stalwarts include business leaders and a College of the Atlantic professor and MDI alum who's written a book about AI.

- If you wanna go fast, go alone.

If you wanna go far, go together.

So, part of the question is, well, how can we, when we're using all this technology, be going together?

- [Derek] The team also includes the emerging technologies specialist at the Maine Department of Education, an MDI English teacher, Kate Meyer.

The group's goal became to- - Just get folks leveraging the tool for good.

(chuckles) - [Derek] Spring of 2025, the team rolled out its first professional learning session with teachers.

Soon after, they took the bold step of pulling Kate Meyer out of her English classroom for half the day and making her a half-time instructional innovation coach, an unprecedented job title to take on the unprecedented challenges of teaching in 2026.

This was a wise choice.

Kate had recently returned to MDI after a stint with the Department of Ed.

While there, she immersed herself in issues of teaching and AI.

Kate has written one book on the subject with her former DOE colleague, Nicole Davis, and another one's in progress.

Perhaps no educator in Maine is more knowledgeable about AI's possibilities as a learning tool or more wary of its dangers.

- I'm really concerned about students and educators using this tool safely, using this tool ethically, and using it in a way that enhances their creativity and their critical thinking as opposed to, you know, cognitive offloading with it.

- [Derek] The high school's next big move happened last August.

They introduced one of Kate's communication tools to the entire faculty, AI use zones.

Now, you'll find a poster in every MDI classroom describing the six AI use zones, a continuum from use zone 1, which means 100% student created and no AI, to zone 6, when a student prompts an AI bot and the bot creates the desired product.

The idea is that with each assignment, a teacher announces in which zone it falls, and this clarity helps shift AI from a shadowy tool for cheating to a potential tool for learning for teachers and students.

- They can see visually where they are on the scale, and then they also know from the get-go with their assignments if they are allowed to use AI and in what ways they are allowed to use it.

- [Derek] Zone 2 permits students to use AI to seek clarification on an assignment's instructions, like the meaning of rubric terms.

In zone 3, students may use AI to help with brainstorming ideas.

In zone 4, students may get feedback from AI about a draft they've created.

Zone 5 is used when a student already knows a topic well and can critique or improve upon a bot's creation.

- So, it just creates this common understanding of what it is that we want to be happening in the classroom at that moment.

Are we in a zone 2?

Is that okay?

And if so, exactly what does that mean in terms of how we are not using AI for whatever task?

- [Derek] At MDI, some teachers don't allow any use of AI.

11th grader Kyomi reports that in her biomedical science class at the local tech center, AI use is limited to zones 2 and 3.

- You can use it to get clarification or you can use it to get ideas, but you can't use it to answer the questions.

- [Derek] Ms.

Dyer's even using the AI use zones in her art classes to help guide research and brainstorming.

- I was starting to use the AI use zones today.

And in the field of art, like, I have so many artist friends and other art teachers who are so strongly against the use of AI for anything.

I'm thinking about what my students are going to experience ultimately in the workforce and what I want them to be prepared for.

- [Derek] Some teachers talk openly about how they use AI to develop their lessons, modeling the transparency they want students to exhibit.

- My English teacher now is very open about how she says this lesson plan, this assignment was used with zone 2 AI.

- Now, we are living in zone 6 for only this piece of the papers.

- [Derek] While spreading this new AI language across the district, Kate Meyer also lives and explores her ideas for instructional innovation daily during her junior English class.

- Today, we're going to talk about AI prompting and how to prompt AI to co-create with you.

- Ms.

Meyer's students often read, discuss, and analyze novels as you might expect in an English course fully in zone 1, but after reading "Fahrenheit 451" about the dangers of a tech-obsessed society, she also weaves in what she calls AI literacy.

Students used AI to help them design a new cover for the book.

- My definition of AI literacy is having the skills, knowledge, and mindsets to use this tool ethically, responsibly, and safely.

- [Derek] Students learn how bots are taught by consuming huge sets of human data with all their flaws and biases.

They learn which chatbots protect your data and which feast on it, as well as the environmental impact of each bot query.

- And people get very upset about data centers when it comes to AI because data centers use a fair amount of electricity.

I have taught the book "Fahrenheit 451" for 25 years, and for 25 years, we have been talking about Bradbury's warning about technology's impact on our society.

And 25 years ago, that was a laptop, and now we're talking about AI.

So, it's the same unit, the same book, the same conversations, but we're focusing on our world because this is what's happening.

- [Derek] Part of AI literacy for Kate is paying attention to personal technology use and digital wellness.

Twice a week for 20 minutes, Kate's students practice what she calls focused silence.

- Take out your notebooks.

Let's stop looking at screens.

We work on engaging our brains in one task in silence.

- [Derek] Students quell the clamor of our TikTok world and sustain silent engagement in one task tech-free, like reading a book or writing in a journal.

- It's just a great way to think about really rewiring our brains to be able to focus.

- [Derek] After they've read "Fahrenheit 451," students design and choose their own research question about AI.

- What role does AI play in shaping teen relationships and how does this impact their mental health?

- [Derek] After completing their original research, students then tell the story of that research through seven different genres of the students' choosing, from a newspaper article to a poem.

One and only one of the writing pieces is meant to be in zone 6, a co-creation with AI.

- This is how you're going to prompt the AI today.

- [Derek] With zone 6, AI literacy means knowing how to effectively and efficiently prompt AI, Ms.

Meyer models.

- So, I'm going to say we are going to write a poem.

It's going to be between 23 and 40 lines long.

It is about AI companions and mental health.

You are a poet and an AI expert.

I can tell it to be an expert in whatever I want.

- [Derek] Then students try.

- I asked the AI to create reasons why the human would be more helpful at that company than just robots.

- I'm researching about how AI can be harmful to teenagers' mental health.

And so, I'm telling the co-creation chatbot to make, like, an interview between a therapist and a child who is affected by the AI.

- [Derek] Even when students are in zone 6, Kate is spending lots of time at their side, supporting, connecting, and nudging, and she sets students up so they can explore safely.

- So, the tools that I use with my students, the AI tools that I use with them in the classroom have guardrails built in, their data is protected.

They're not logging in with emails, so their data is not being tracked.

I can monitor everything that they're doing in the tools.

I see their chats.

- [Derek] One of Ms.

Meyer's students, Sophie, has been researching AI's impact on human creativity.

She's prompted her bot to craft a two-voice poem that reflects her findings.

- One voice is gonna be a student who, like, has gotten too reliant on AI and is, like, unable to have originality.

And then the other voice is just gonna be the AI.

- [Derek] Following Ms.

Meyer's steps, Sophie continues prompting and re-prompting with AI, striving with each new iteration of the poem for the bot to eliminate bias and incorporate missing perspectives.

She also prompts the bot to evaluate its poem.

- And then I was trying to get it to rate it at a 10, and it gave itself a seven, so then I had to make a new one to make it be a 10, and it gave me an 8.5.

And then I tried to do it again to make it a 10, and it gave me a nine.

So, I'm still kinda working on that.

- [Derek] Outside of English class, Sophie's a top-ranked youth barrel racer.

Inside English class, Sophie's learning how to steer a bot, just like she coaxes her horse around and through obstacles to get the desired results.

- As long as you know how to talk to the AI and really approach it in the right way, you could get a lot of helpful information, more so having a conversation with it rather than just telling it what to do.

- [Derek] Unfortunately, most teens have not learned how to use a chatbot as a tool to direct and converse with.

A 2025 survey by Junior Achievement indicates that nearly two-thirds of our teens attend schools where AI use is neither taught nor encouraged.

Over 40% of teens admit to using AI to do school assignments they're supposed to do themselves.

Most teens and adults are still in prompt-and-paste mode.

About half of teachers nationwide report receiving at least some AI professional development, but as with students, there's still a lot to learn.

So, that's the other half of Kate's job.

- [Kate] Where are we in our AI usage or thoughts about AI?

Yeah, okay, thank you.

Yes, yeah, zero.

Okay, love that, yeah.

- [Derek] Much of the training Kate does with teachers is similar to what goes on in her classroom.

- High school right now, it looks like this.

I will give out an assessment and I'll say, "Hey, this assessment is a zone 1 assessment.

That means no AI."

- [Derek] Staff frowns can turn upside down once they actually get to play with AI.

Within educator platforms like MagicSchool, they discover that AI can be a time saver with the less rewarding parts of their job, like rewording rubrics or drafting a delicate email to a parent.

Principal Haney often consults AI before a challenging conversation.

- I'll say, "I've got this coming up," I'll put in, "Here are the parameters."

I'll say, "What are the things that I should think about?"

I'm not giving my brain over.

It's just it can be a thought partner.

- [Derek] Julie Keblinsky is most excited for how teachers can strategically prompt AI to customize their lessons so they can better meet the diverse needs of their learners.

- Everyone's telling me I should differentiate, but now they're giving me a tool that actually helps me do it in seconds flat.

- [Derek] As with students, sometimes the most meaningful learning for staff happens during one-on-one coaching.

Anxiety can metamorph into possibility.

- I'm in a new unit and I'm trying to really reflect on my assessments and see how I can kind of AI-proof them.

- Well, let's talk about AI-proof assessments.

- Yeah.

- Right?

How do we make it so that students won't access AI or won't access being online?

And so, a lot of ways that we've done that is, we've gone back to paper and pencil, which can be appropriate sometimes.

But also, what I mean... I know, these are the notebooks I use with mine, too.

- Are you using them now?

- Yeah.

But then I also think about, they are using AI tools, and so how do we leverage those in assessments so that they're using them the right way?

- [Derek] With their coaching, as in her classroom, Kate strives to find the balance between no-tech assignments and ones that require AI literacy, whichever route is best to get students to think hard, learn deeply, and meet the desired outcomes.

- So, we work in zone 2 a lot, so here's a MagicSchool room.

You can put my instructions in there, my rubric, and you can talk to the bot about how to do this assignment.

You can clarify the assessment, but it won't do any of the assessment for them.

- It's clarifying the directions?

- Exactly, so kids sometimes, like, they might choose to cheat because they don't really understand what I'm asking.

- [Shelagh] Mm-hmm.

- But if I give them a tool that allows 'em to dig into what it is that I'm really asking or ask in different ways, you know, they can ask as many questions as they want without feeling any sort of embarrassment about their questions.

Instead of trying to AI-proof everything, opening up the possibilities and then having them make sure that they're being transparent about their use.

- Will you send me that?

- Yeah, yeah.

- [Derek] Conversations like these are still fairly rare in Maine schools, and that worries Kate.

She remembers when Maine was the first in the nation to roll out one-to-one laptops.

- We were handed the technology, we were told to integrate it into our courses, and then for a while, we were left to our own devices to do that.

- [Derek] And she does not want to see history repeat itself - Without really thoughtful and cautious application of those tools and conversations about those tools, I'm a little afraid that we might head into the same place 20 years from now with AI where we are with students and social media and their phones.

So, I think it's really important that we get in front of it.

- [Derek] Nicole Davis at the Maine Department of Education agrees.

- We're looking to do professional development for every Maine teacher, every Maine school.

- [Derek] Nicole and her DOE colleagues have created the interactive AI roadmap with extensive resources teachers can access anytime.

- [Nicole] And our Maine teachers are, like, they're rock stars, all of 'em.

I do think Maine can be a leader, and is a leader, in implementing AI in education.

- Governor Mills' task force on AI recently shared their recommendations for how Maine could, quote, "capture the benefits of this new technology and mitigate its risks."

The recommendations for Maine schools centered on providing the time and training needed so all our teachers and all our students become AI literate.

MDI is showing what the task force words can look like in practice.

At the end of their unit on AI, Kate Meyer asked students to show what they know without the help of AI or their teacher.

They grapple with the big questions with each other in a discussion circle.

Let's listen and learn from the new experts.

- Can we use AI in education in an ethical way?

- I don't think it could be done ethically.

- [Derek] But other classmates see it differently, including Penny, the girl who was 100% sure that 50% of her peers would cheat with AI, unless- - So, I think as long as, like, you're educated on how not to use it, I feel like it's a really good thing to have in the classroom.

- Having an understanding is what makes it ethical.

And without that understanding, I'm not sure it can be done quickly.

- I feel like, especially teachers have such a big fear of AI and like, "Oh my God, everyone's gonna use it to cheat and stuff like that."

But I would just tell them that it's not scary.

And as long as you educate your students, then they can use it well.

- Yeah, I feel like the more it's encouraged and less, like, frowned upon or, like, I don't know, forbidden, I guess, like, the less people will use it to, like, cheat.

- I've used ChatGPT before, like, I'm gonna say.

Like, last year when I didn't know anything about it, I definitely used it.

So, I think learning about it has taught me, like, it's not that amazing of, like, a cheating aspect.

Like, you need to, like, learn more about it 'cause I definitely would not use it anymore to cheat.

- So, by having students and teachers be more, like, educated on, like, AI ethics and all that and prompting skills, then it can help everyone get better with that knowledge.

- Because if every classroom could say like, "This is a use 6 or this is a AI use zone 1," that definitely would, like, make a difference.

- What I have done in my classroom is, I have ruined AI for my students.

So, it is no longer some, you know, mystical magical box that gives them great answers.

It's a tool for learning.

But if you use it correctly, it can push you and help you do things that you couldn't do before.

- [Derek] After countless prompts and revisions, the poem that Sophie co-created with her chatbot transformed into a haunting piece that imagines rooms of creativity that correspond with the AI use zones, starting with zone 1 and progressing to zone 6.

By this final draft, AI helped with the structure, but the words were all Sophie's.

She's learned deeply about both AI's potential for expanding creativity and squashing it.

- "Everything is handmade.

Shaky.

Humane.

My thoughts seem to echo from each corner.

Slight and fragile, but still mine."

"The AI stands behind me like a shadow with hands.

Let me help.

It whispers, but the pencil moves before I touch it."

"My voice repeats words I didn't say.

My image moves in ways I never have.

It builds worlds from my data, stories from my patterns, art from my silence.

I reach for the doorknob behind me.

But the door has vanished.

Only the AI remains.

Smiling with my mouth."

- [Derek] Intense, huh?

But even when operating in zone 6, even in a piece about the danger of AI's creative control, there's no doubt that Sophie's still in charge of her bot.

- Oh.

Wow, I finally wrote after- - Okay, that's 7 out of 10.

- After reaming it out.

(Kate laughs) (Sophie chuckles) - Both she and AI are learning together.

So, is generative AI gonna be the end of teaching and learning, or will it catalyze the next generation of Maine students to be super achievers?

Well, the work here on Mount Desert Island shows it's complicated, but it also shows that if Maine's really gonna be a leader in AI, then we're gonna need a lot more students like Sophie, teachers like Kate, and districts like AOS 91, places where students and teachers can engage in supervised play with AI, where there's the time and training for everyone to become AI literate, and where AI is used as a tool to extend, but never replace human greatness.

Thanks for watching "Learning from Maine."

If you've missed any of the stories from our first season or wanna go deeper with bonus content, head to our YouTube page or our website at mainelovespublicschools.org.

Coming up next week on "Learning from Maine," how a booming work-based learning program at Brewer High School and across Maine is changing students' sense of what is possible in school and for themselves.

Thanks again for watching, and let's keep learning from Maine.

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