Artificial intelligence is being used in schools, but statewide guidance is a work in progress

This story was originally published by Maryland Matters.

Brayden Morgan says artificial intelligence is here to stay and everyone should embrace it.

“We have to adapt. We have to stay up to date,” said the 17-year-old high school senior and student member on the Anne Arundel County Board of Education. “We have to learn about it and make sure our students know how to use it [the] right way [and] that they’re learning and not being enabled on technology.”

That may be easier said than done.

The technology better known as “AI” is already being used by students and teachers in Maryland schools. But the state has yet to develop specific statewide guidelines on how to effectively use the powerful new computing tool, and what guardrails to protect students from using it inappropriately such as plagiarism on essay papers and other work.

State education officials have been working behind the scenes for more than a year on language, and county school systems have made tentative steps toward developing their own policies. But it’s been slow going.

Jing Liu said there’s a couple of reasons many school districts in Maryland, and the nation, don’t yet have artificial intelligence policies in place.

“The AI space is developing really, really fast. All the AI tools are developed at lightning speed,” said Liu, an associate professor in education policy at the University of Maryland, College Park.

Liu, who’s also directs the school’s Center for Educational Data Science and Innovation, said evidence-based research needs to be done quickly to help inform policymakers and school district leaders on how to design AI policy. He said a policy would include certain tools used to meet education standards and guardrails to ensure appropriate uses.

“I think we are still at a very early stage in terms of understanding their [AI] impact,” Liu said. “There hasn’t been a lot of research looking at the impact of particular AI users on teacher and student learning outcomes.”

Maryland education officials said they have been working behind the scenes on AI guidance for more than a year.

A document from the state Board of Education summarizes artificial intelligence frameworks such as potential benefits like tutoring and personalized learning assistance, aiding creativity and collaboration and operational and administrative efficiency. Some of the risks are plagiarism and academic dishonesty, overreliance and loss of critical thinking, and perpetuating societal biases.

State Superintendent Carey Wright said in an interview Thursday that statewide guidance on AI could be released by the end of the school. In the meantime, Wright has advice for educators and other school leaders on effectively using AI in schools.

“The things that I would hope they’re doing is developing lesson plans that are aligned to our standards. That’s key because our statewide assessment is aligned to our standards,” she said.

“We don’t want just a hodgepodge of things being taught,” Wright said. “So, anything that they can do that is going to make their life easier, but also guiding children in [what’s] appropriate and what’s not appropriate, in terms of the use of AI.”

School District Look

A few school districts have implemented AI guidelines.

Prince George’s County school leaders began a three-year implementation plan last school year that stresses professional learning, ethical considerations and curriculum integration.

For the 2025-26 school year that began last week, there will be follow-up meetings with stakeholders, training workshops for staff and school administrators to start assessing how to implement AI instruction in the classroom.

Students in Calvert County can read about it in their new student code of conduct. The guidelines highlight definitions, educational and ethical uses, academic integrity and supervision and monitoring.

There’s also a warning for prohibited conduct: “Any misuse of AI tools will be subject to disciplinary action. In certain circumstances, law enforcement may be notified.”

Frederick County Superintendent Cheryl Dyson said the school board there is working on an artificial intelligence policy.

Last year, Dyson said curriculum writers used AI to generate topics related to the curriculum that young people would be interested in.

As for teachers, Dyson said they will not only know whether students produced their own work, but also help guide them to think critically.

“When you learn [the abilities of] a student, you can tell when something is an anomaly,” she said. “It’s really about explicit teaching of the writing process, or any process really about learning, because we want to know what they [students] know, not what the computer knows.”

Maryland State Education Association president Paul Lemle provided an example on how he utilized AI last year as a social studies teacher. Lemle asked students to compare a few political ads, but he also required that they make ads of their own.

“It was OK for them to use AI in that assignment,” he said. “If they wanted to use it to research the ads that they were comparing, fine. If they wanted to use it to suggest lines in their script, fine.

“But the AI couldn’t tell them this kind of ad will work in this kind of political context. They had to make that decision for themselves,” Lemle said.

Tiffany Carpenter, 25, said she began to use artificial intelligence during the first week of school to help with a lesson plan for the entrepreneurship class she teaches at Dr. Henry A. Wise Jr. High School in Prince George’s County. Part of that plan, she said, was utilizing AI to design a logo.

“AI’s logo-making isn’t always perfect, so I just use that as a template so that I can get a start,” said Carpenter, who’s going into her fourth year teaching at Wise. “It’s giving you ideas, not the final product. That’s what I tell and show my students. AI is just a tool to help. They still have to do the work and learn from it.”

But without a 100% guarantee, there remains an unknown that students can utilize that technology and easily obtain good grades.

‘Do More Together’

With an ongoing statewide and nationwide teacher shortage, aspiring teachers will need to be taught about how to effectively integrate artificial intelligence into the classroom.

Darilyn Mercadel is doing just that at Bowie State University, where she is teaching several classes and is the coordinator of elementary education programs in the school’s College of Education.

Before students are enrolled in college, high school students already know how to use AI technology through computer programs such as ChatGPT, developed and released in 2022 by OpenAI. ChatGPT can translate complex topics into simpler sentences. In addition, the user can ask questions through text, audio or even image prompts.

But Mercadel stressed there’s other programs such as Adobe Firefly that generate graphics and edit photos; Intellectus that analyzes and breaks down data; and the “Siri voice recognition program on iPhones.

Mercadel said students use a tutoring service program called “CircleIn.” Not only does the program provide academic support, it can also be used to collaborate with their peers. But to ensure aspiring educators, which she calls “preservice students,” understand a particular topic, Mercadel will also give an oral exam.

“There are other means that we can assess students besides your usual paper, or your typical test that we used to give before AI,” she said. “One thing about AI is that it’s a genie that’s out of the bottle. We’re not going to place that back.”

The effectiveness of AI has decreased Mercadel’s time to plan her courses from about two weeks to an hour. She stressed the human element is integrated because “AI can’t do things that humans can do, which is the emotional side and the understanding of our students. It gives me more time to get to know my students and families.”

Mercadel, who taught early childhood education in Prince George’s and Montgomery counties, said another positive with AI is interacting with students who may be hearing impaired.

“Now students are able to swipe that doesn’t require that occupational hand holding of a pencil and can tap or swipe to communicate. That’s a huge difference,” she said. “It’s assistive technology. We have these tools that make it easier, but that also gives us time to do more together.”

Maryland Matters is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Maryland Matters maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Steve Crane for questions: editor@marylandmatters.org.