Wyoming Department of Education: Guidance for AI Policy Development (June 2024)

This document provides guidance for Wyoming school districts to develop policies for the responsible and effective integration of Artificial Intelligence (AI), especially Generative AI (GenAI), into K-12 education. It emphasizes embracing technology to prepare students for the future and enhance educational efficiency.

Guidance for Wyoming School Districts on Developing Artifcial Intelligence Use Policy In order to create the most transparent, efficient, and excellent education in the nation, Wyoming must not only accept, but fully embrace ever changing technology- including Generative Artificial Intelligence. Unless we challenge the status quo of the education system of decades past, we will be less efficient in educating students, and we will be failing to prepare them for a 21st century world. If used appropriately, GenAI has the potential to truly revolutionize the classroom, freeing up instructional time for educators and allowing for greater innovation. Developed with the help of a dedicated stakeholder committee, this guidance is meant to assist our Wyoming school districts in taking advantage of innovative technology while ensuring responsible use. As always, the Wyoming Department of Education stands ready to assist schools as they work to implement the most up to date tools to improve outcomes for students.

State Superintendent Megan Degenfelder

Introduction Artificial Intelligence (AI), especially Generative AI (GenAI), is rapidly transforming the educational landscape. As school districts in Wyoming consider formally integrating AI into teaching and learning, it’s crucial to develop thoughtful policies that ensure the safe, effective, ethical, and responsible use of this technology. The Wyoming Department of Education (WDE) statewide Digital Learning Plan supports the use of educational technology in the classroom and is providing this guidance as a framework for districts to develop acceptable AI use policy in a manner consistent with addressing local needs and concerns. “We’ll experience more technological progress in the coming decade than we did in the preceding 100 years put together.” (Peter Diamonds as cited by Daniel Fitzpatrick, 2024). This quote illustrates the rapid progress and expansion of AI we are experiencing. Utilizing AI in education is no small task. There are many potential benefits, but there are also many potential risks that must be considered. AI has the potential to have a positive impact on education, if implemented in a safe manner. There is a need to train educators to use AI, and to continue their training as AI continues to develop and grow. This is an exciting time to be in education as AI can provide the opportunity to revitalize education and create new opportunities for learning.

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Purpose This document aims to guide school districts as they develop policies on the appropriate and responsible use of AI. This guidance document will help the districts navigate the development of policies for students, staff, and school communities on the appropriate and responsible use of AI, particularly GenAI tools, in classroom instruction, school management, and systemwide operations.

Artificial Intelligence Definitions AI leverages computers and machines to emulate the problem-solving and decision-making capabilities of the human mind. (IBM, n.d.) GenAI is a type of AI system capable of generating text, images, code, or other media, such as audio and video, in response to data input. GenAI systems pick up patterns in the structure of the data provided to generate new media that closely resembles the original. AI literacy is having the competencies and skills required to use AI technologies and applications effectively. As adapted from: Human-Centered AI Guidance for K-12 Public Schools. Version 1.0. Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction.

GENERATIVE AI IS...

GENERATIVE AI IS NOT...

... a means to augment teaching and learning.

... a replacement for student development.

... already embedded into many technologies, as is AI more broadly speaking.

... something that can plausibly be avoided or “turned off.”

... permeated with flaws such as algorithmic bias that must be considered when utilized.

... a source of unquestionable, factual information

... a product of companies led by teams of humans with their own values, agendas, limitations, bias, and organizational needs.

... produced in a vacuum free of societal influence.

... an algorithm that enables users to generate new content based on a pre-trained Large Language Model.

... a sentient being with untethered superhuman capabilities. ... a replacement for highly qualified educators.

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Guidelines for Policy Development Cyclical Process

The process of developing a policy around AI will be dynamic and cannot be a one-time event as it must be cyclical. Developing the policy and guidance also involves providing professional development and organizational learning in addition to identifying areas of improvement and transformation. None of these areas exist in a vacuum; instead, they will continually feed the other in order to be interwoven with the policy development and review, improvement and transformation, and organizational learning.

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As adapted from: Code.org, CoSN, Digital Promise, European EdTech Alliance, Larimore, J., and PACE (2023). AI Guidance for Schools Toolkit. Retrieved from teachai.org/toolkit

STAGE 1

Create policy to address the immediate risks so that AI does not undermine learning during the coming year.

STAGE 2

Facilitate organizational learning by making a small but strategic investment in harnessing the individual learning of the many educators already excited about AI.

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Identify areas for improvements and effective transformations with potential to scale to support the education system.

Guidance Team

No one person should have to make the decisions for their organization surrounding AI by themselves. A guidance team or committee should assist in determining the trajectory of AI implementation for your organization. Team Members Who should be on your team? Who are your stakeholders? Representatives may include members from the following stakeholder groups: • Parents. • Human Resources. • Legal. • Administrative Team. • Teachers of all content areas, including CTE and Special Education. • Curriculum/Instructional Leaders. • IT/ED Tech Leaders. Guidance for AI Policy Development | 3

• Librarians. • Local College Representative. • School Board Members. • Students. The above list isn’t exhaustive and could include other stakeholders the team deems necessary.

Guiding Principles

Use the following guiding principles to guide the work of your team: • Purpose: Use the AI tool ethically and responsibly in a collaborative effort to help all students achieve educational goals. • Compliance: Reaffirm adherence to existing policies and procedures and any relevant federal regulations (e.g., FERPA, CIPA, & COPPA). • Knowledge: Promote AI literacy. • Balance: Realize the benefits of AI and evaluate and address the risks. • Integrity: Advance academic integrity. • Agency: Maintain human decision-making when using AI. • Evaluation: Regularly assess the impacts of AI. Source: Code.org, CoSN, Digital Promise, European EdTech Alliance, Larimore, J., and PACE (2023). AI Guidance for Schools Toolkit. Retrieved from teachai.org/toolkit Purpose The use of AI tools should align to the mission, vision, and goals of the district. Many AI tools are not created for an educational context. The clarity around the educational goals must be well-known and communicated for the use of the AI tools to be successful. AI tools should be utilized to serve existing goals, such as promoting student and staff well-being, enriching student learning experiences, and enhancing administrative functions. Questions that need to be addressed include the following: • How does our guidance highlight the purposeful use of AI to achieve our shared education vision and goals? • How do we reduce the digital divide between students with easy access to AI tools at home and those dependent on school resources? • How does our guidance ensure inclusivity and accessibility catering to diverse learning needs and linguistic and cultural backgrounds? Compliance When implementing AI systems, the key areas of technology policy to ensure compliance with are privacy, data security, student safety, data transfer and ownership, and child and youth protection. The Council of Great City Schools and the Consortium for School Networking (CoSN), in partnership with Amazon Web Services, have developed the K-12 Generative Artificial Intelligence (Gen AI) Readiness Checklist to help districts prepare for implementing AI technology solutions. The checklist provides a curated list of questions to help district leaders devise implementation strategies across six core focus areas: executive leadership, operations, data, technology, security, and risk management. Questions that need to be addressed include the following: • What is the plan to conduct an inventory of systems and software to understand the current state of AI use and ensure adherence to existing security and privacy regulations? Guidance for AI Policy Development | 4

• Does the education system enforce contracts with software providers, stipulating that any use of AI within their software or third-party providers must be clearly revealed to district staff and first approved by district leadership? • Does the plan take into account any implications for FERPA, CIPA, and COPPA, or if applicable, PPRA and GDPR? Knowledge AI literacy equips individuals to engage productively and responsibly with AI technologies in society, the economy, and their personal lives. Schools can create opportunities for educators to collaborate and consolidate lessons learned to promote AI literacy across disciplines. AI literacy starts with school staff. Professional development is necessary to ensure staff are trained on the proper use and implementation of AI that is aligned with the district’s core values. Training does not stop with the staff. Students, parents, and community members will all need some level of training in AI Literacy. Foundational concepts of AI literacy include elements of computer science, ethics, psychology, data science, engineering, statistics, and other areas beyond STEM including digital citizenship and information/digital literacy. Questions that need to be addressed include the following: • How does the education system support staff and students in understanding how to use AI and how AI works? • Are AI concepts incorporated across the curriculum? • What are the teacher support mechanisms to address concerns and challenges that might arise? • How is system-wide participation in AI education and professional development being encouraged and measured? • What is the strategy to ensure that students, teachers, parents, and community members understand AI and the importance of utilizing AI in our educational system? • How will the district support high-quality and rigorous student learning through the use of AI, including instruction on the safe, equitable, and ethical use of AI and preparing students for college and careers with the reality of AI? Balance AI has potential benefits, but it also has potential risks. There must be a balanced approach to the implementation and the discussions around AI. Guidance should include responsible use cases in line with AI’s potential to support community goals, such as improving student and teacher well-being and student learning outcomes. Rather than only acknowledging the risks of AI in schools, education systems should provide guidance on mitigating the risks so the potential benefits can be realized. Questions that need to be addressed include the following: • Does our guidance describe and support an iterative process associated with using AI and proactively mitigate the risks? Integrity While it is necessary to address plagiarism and other risks to academic integrity, AI simultaneously offers staff and students an opportunity to emphasize the fundamental values that underpin academic integrity with honesty, trust, fairness, respect, and responsibility. For example, AI tools can help staff and students quickly cross-reference information and claims, though they must still critically analyze the output. AI’s

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limitations can also showcase the unique value of authentic, personal creation. Questions that need to be addressed include the following: • Does our guidance sufficiently cover academic integrity, plagiarism, and proper attribution issues when using AI technologies? • Do we offer professional development for educators to use commonly available AI technologies to support the adaptation of assignments and assessments? • Do students have clear guidance for AI usage, using it properly to bolster learning, and understanding the importance of their voice and perspective in creating original work? • Do students know how to properly document, account for, and cite AI usage in a transparent manner? • Do students know how to review and evaluate the accuracy of AI generated information and recognize potential bias? • Do we address guidance in the ethical use of AI and offer professional development on the effectiveness of this technology? Agency AI is not intended to replace the teacher, administrator, or student. AI is not here to replace humans in the teaching and learning process. Any decision-making practices supported by AI must enable human intervention and ultimately rely on human approval processes. These decisions include instructional decisions, such as assessment or academic interventions and operational decisions, such as hiring and resource allocation. AI systems should serve in a consultative and supportive role without replacing the responsibilities of students, teachers, or administrators. Questions that need to be addressed include the following: • Does our guidance clarify that staff are ultimately responsible for any AI-aided decision and that AI is not solely responsible for any major decision-making or academic practices? • How does our guidance ensure that students retain appropriate agency in their decisions and learning paths when using AI tools? Evaluation This technology is evolving at an ever increasing pace. Guidance should be reviewed, audited, monitored, and updated often to ensure it continues to meet the school’s needs and complies with changes in laws, regulations, and technology. Guidance and policies will benefit from feedback from various stakeholders, including teachers, parents, and students, especially as more is learned about the impact of AI in education. Questions that need to be addressed include the following: • Does our education system’s guidance on AI recognize the need for continuous change? • How often will we revisit and revise our education system’s guidance on AI? • Are existing products being reevaluated as providers add AI features to them? • Is there a plan for community input on AI policy and implementation, including feedback from students, parents, teachers, and other stakeholders?

Questions to answer with your guidance team

As you work with your guidance team, using the guiding principles, answer the following questions in order to plan your AI implementation for your organization. How will we define AI? Will we use an existing definition of AI? Will we develop a definition? Will we limit the definition to GenAI? Will we use AI to develop our definition? Guidance for AI Policy Development | 6

Who is using the AI tool? How will teachers and staff use AI? How will students use AI? What will those different uses look like? Does AI use look different when a teacher or a student uses AI? How is student engagement at the center of AI use? How will students engage with AI? Should students trust everything AI produces? Why or why not? When allowed, how might this tool support students when generating ideas and initial arguments? When might failure to cite AI use violate our Academic Integrity or Academic Misconduct policy? When students evaluate the level of writing produced by GenAI, what grade would they give the response? What are the allowable tools? What tools are allowable for teachers? When are they allowable? What tools are allowable for students? When are they allowable? What should guide educator and student use of AI? Are you aware of any age restrictions? Are you aware of the potential biases? The below example will help you develop a scale for appropriate AI use in the classroom to help determine when AI use is allowable and when it is not. Additional examples are provided in the Resources section.

Student AI Integration

Student AI Usage Continuum for Empowered Learning To prepare all students for the AI-rich future that awaits them, it is imperative that they all learn about AI, and have opportunities to learn with AI increasingly interactive and complex ways. AI FREE • Work must be completed entirely without any AI assistance. • Students must rely entirely on their own knowledge, understanding, and skills. • Any AI use is a violation of student academic integrity. • An academic honesty pledge that AI was not used may be required. AI ASSISTED • AI is used for tasks as specified such as brainstorming, planning, or feedback. • No AI content is allowed in the final submission. • Usage beyond specified tasks is a violation of academic integrity. • Disclosure statement & links to AI Chats should be submitted with final product. AI ENHANCED • AI is used interactively throughout to enhance your knowlesge, efficiency, & creativity • Student must provide human oversight and evaluation of all AI generated content. • Interactivity with AI and critical engagement with AI-generated content is required. • Student is responsible for the accuracy and fariness of all AI-generated content. • Detailed disclosure statement and links to AI Chats should be submitted with final product. AI EMPOWERED • The full intergration of AI allows for the creation of things that were previously impossible, empowering students as critical thinkers, creatives, and problem solvers. • Student mush provide human oversight and evaluation of all AI-generated content. • Student is responsible for the accuracy, fairness, & originality of all AI- generated content. • Detailed disclosure statement and links to AI Chats should be submitted with final product. As adapted from: Dr. Leon Furze, Dr. Mike Perkings, Dr. Jasper Roe FHEA, & Dr. Jason Mcvaugh Guidance for AI Policy Development | 7

Safety Concerns Are we keeping apprised of the latest technology? Have we updated our bullying policy to include any concerns that may arise from AI generated audio, video, or image files? How will we address any fake AI generated files that are harmful? How can we know if the files are generated by AI? What are the concerns around bias? What do we have in place to address digital literacy and digital citizenship for both staff and students? Can our school librarian(s) provide resources? What is our focus? Is our policy/guidance aligned with the mission, vision, goals, and values of our district? What is our focus for our students’ learning? Will we need to rethink assessments with AI? Will the policy be more permissive, guiding, or restricting? What are our specific goals for AI in our district?

Policy Review

Review existing policies There may be existing policies impacted by AI. These may include the Acceptable Use Policy, Academic Integrity Policy, Bullying Policy, and Privacy Policy. The Acceptable Use Policy in most districts is set up to outline how students and staff utilize technology in an acceptable manner. These policies usually outline the use of the tech tools and include both hardware and software. This policy may likely need to be updated to include AI. Academic Integrity or Academic Misconduct policies are policies that outline what it means to do work in a proper manner, what it means to cheat, and what the consequences are. The use of AI may need to be addressed in these policies. Bullying Policies may also need to be updated to include AI. The technology is improving at a very fast pace. Digital citizenship and digital literacy programs can help offset some of these issues, but the policy may need to be in place to address issues when they may occur. Privacy Policies address student data. AI companies are not all educationally focused and how they collect, store, and utilize student data needs to be scrutinized. Privacy Policies may need to be examined to ensure that they cover AI. Addendum vs. AI Policy itself Is there a need for a stand alone AI policy? Should the policies addressed above mention AI and have an addendum that addresses the issues raised by AI? These are all questions that your guidance team and your individual district must address to ensure they fit local needs.

Conclusion The WDE is committed to leading the state in AI education and preparing the next generation of learners and leaders for a future that is built with, and alongside AI. This guidance is intended to be a living document–the WDE recognizes that AI tools are constantly evolving and expanding and will regularly review this guidance to determine if and when updates are appropriate. As districts, schools, and educators move forward with incorporating AI into instructional practice, it is the expectation of the WDE that all stakeholders will use this guidance and will provide continuous feedback on the guidance as it evolves. This process will lead to a common goal of improving WDE support for all Wyoming school districts and students. Guidance for AI Policy Development | 8

Resources AI Guidance Resources

Acknowledgments This guidance was written by members of the Digital Learning Plan Advisory Panel and the WDE, with input from seven stakeholder groups including curriculum directors, technology directors, librarians, classroom educators, instructional facilitators, elementary and middle school principals, and school board members.

References Code.org, CoSN, Digital Promise, European EdTech Alliance, Larimore, J., and PACE (2023).AI Guidance for Schools Toolkit. Retrieved from teachai.org/toolkit. [February 3, 2024]. Curts, E. (2024, Jan. 24). AI in Education: What Educators Need to Know [Conference session].Future of Education Technology Conference 2024, Orlando, Florida, United States. Fitzpatrick, D., Fox, A., & Weinstein, B. (2023) The AI Classroom: The Ultimate Guide to Artificial Intelligence in Education. Teacher Goals Publishing. Fitzpatrick, D. (2024, Jan. 24). The AI Classroom: Teaching and Learning in the Artificial Intelligence Revolution [Conference keynote]. Future of Education Technology Conference 2024, Orlando, Florida, United States. Griffin, A. (2024, Jan. 23). AI in the classroom: Legal and other issues [Conference session].Future of Education Technology Conference 2024, Orlando, Florida, United States. Miller, M. (2023). AI for Educators: learning strategies, teacher efficiencies, and a vision for an artificial intelligence future. Dave Burgess Consulting, Inc. Nguyen, A., Ngo, H. N., Hong, Y., Dang, B., & Nguyen, B. P. T. (2023). Ethical principles for artificial intelligence in education. Education and Information Technologies, 28(4), 4221-4241. Pedro, F., Subosa, M., Rivas, A., & Valverde, P. (2019). Artificial intelligence in education: Challenges and opportunities for sustainable development. Vanderpool, J., & Jones, W. (2024, Jan. 23). Operation AI Taskforce [Conference session]. Future of Education Technology Conference 2024, Orlando, Florida, United States. Washington Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction. (2024). https://ospi.k12.wa.us/sites/default/ files/2024-01/human-centered-ai-guidance-k-12-public-schools.pdf

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