Missoula Teacher Clears the Air About Artificial Intelligence

Missoula, MT (KGVO-AM News) - In my many conversations with those involved in public education, the topic of AI (artificial intelligence) has come to the forefront of concern to parents and laymen, as to how to manage this amazing, and sometimes intimidating technology.

I spoke with Jason Neiffer, Executive Director of the Montana Digital Academy on the UM campus, about the rapid rise of AI.

Jason Neiffer with the Montana Digital Academy Comments on AI

“Artificial Intelligence is a term that's been around for nearly a century now, and the bottom line is, is that it's been impacting our world for decades,” began Neiffer. “20 years ago, when social media became a phenomenon that started impacting our culture, a lot of those tools used some form of artificial intelligence to help determine what you see and how far your posts might go on social media.”

Neiffer said advanced tools are necessary to engage and be successful in today’s world.

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Neiffer said Artificial Intelligence is a Rapidly Growing Technology

“What we know with centuries of learning science and learning about the brain is that to develop the types of thinking skills that I think you need to survive in the modern world, you need to engage with information,” he said. “You need to create outputs, whether it's your writing or speaking or making a video, or a podcast, that the learning process is quite complicated and requires you to engage with information.”

A common fear among parents is that their children will simply lean on AI to do their homework or write their term papers. Neiffer responded.

“Even though I engage regularly with AI and I've become a bit of a leader in the space of how we're going to integrate these in classrooms, I have those fears myself,” he said. “My own practical knowledge in teaching in the classroom and being an administrator in a school tells me that even though students may be able to do their homework with an AI tool, it certainly doesn't mean we should allow them or shouldn't be concerned if that's all they're doing with the information that we assign as homework.”

Neiffer said AI will be a Challenge for Schools and at Home

Neiffer acknowledged the challenge of using such a powerful tool as AI both in the classroom and at home.

“That starts with teachers starting to explore those tools themselves, and even if they don't use a single AI tool with students, I think there's some really interesting and amazing things that that teachers can use these tools for that not only gives them some frame of mind, such as understanding how the tool works, but more importantly, helps them start to develop strategies based on their seat of the pants wisdom of teaching, to know when to advise a student, perhaps to use an AI tool and when to hold it a bit away, because it's going to compromise the learning environment.”

Neiffer encourages parents to learn as much as they can about their child’s learning environment and to contact their child’s teachers for help in better understanding artificial intelligence.