The Department of Education’s Office of Educational Technology (OET) recently released a new report that offers guidance to AI developers while they create tools that will be leveraged in education.
The report – dubbed “Designing for Education with Artificial Intelligence: An Essential Guide for Developers” – builds on OET’s May 2023 report that summarizes the opportunities and risks for AI in education.
OET said its new report is intended to support people who are managing teams in the design and development of AI products to improve teaching and learning.
“This landscape is broader than those building large language models (LLMs) or deploying chatbots; it includes all the ways existing and emerging AI capabilities can be used to further shared educational goals,” the report says.
OET said the guide – which was required by President Biden’s October 2023 AI executive order – is informed by an extensive series of public listening sessions with students, parents, and educators along with developers, industry associations, and nonprofit organizations, like Khan Academy and Carnegie Learning.
Through the listening sessions, OET said it heard a wide range of specific concerns from developers and educators about AI in education and created an AI in education development process “that leads towards earning trust.”
The department noted that “trust” is its one key message that serves as a call to action for AI developers.
The 49-page guide is organized around five key overarching areas and recommendations:
- Designing for education;
- Providing evidence of rationale and impact;
- Advancing equity and protecting civil rights;
- Ensuring safety and security; and
- Promoting transparency and earning trust.
Each of the five core recommendations in the guide include a set of discussion questions that leaders in organizations can use to foster conversation, next steps to promote robust development processes, and resources that can provide additional support.
“The Department and other federal agencies are actively considering next steps to promote the safe and responsible use of AI. Thus, this document suggests ‘questions to ask’ and ‘directions to pursue’ to developers that are deliberately open-ended,” the document says.
The report keys on “earning the public trust” as the most important factor developers should focus on as they launch new applications of AI in education.
OET uses an e-bike analogy to explain that teachers and students should still be in control as they use the capabilities of AI to strengthen teaching and learning.
“Just as a cyclist controls direction and pace but preserves energy with the assistance of an e-bike’s drivetrain, so should participants in education remain in control and able to apply saved energy and time for the most impactful interactions and activities when technology amplifies their choices and actions,” the report concludes. “Developers should take precautions to design AI-enabled educational systems for safety, security, and to earn the public’s trust, just as riders would expect e-bike developers to ensure their rider’s safety and security, and to earn the public’s trust.”
