Teaching classes in principal leadership to graduate-level students who are hoping to fill top positions in schools is, by definition, a collaborative endeavor. My students in these courses are all experienced educators; many have held or hold administrative roles already.
When the artificial intelligence tsunami started to roll in on schools, we needed to address this issue together as we kept learning more about it. And, together, we figured out how to use AI as leaders and how to consider its many facets. In class discussions, both online and in person, we crafted an AI policy.
We agreed that best practices in the use of AI develop honesty and transparency while simultaneously allowing students to develop investigative and research skills. Students told me they respected my willingness to negotiate and relate to how they complete their own assignments.
What steps did we take to collaborate on our AI policy?
We talked about the course assignments and how the students might use AI in completing them. As an instructor, I was a bit uneasy about this: how would I know what students read and wrote themselves, versus what AI said?
Even so, we wanted to explore the positive aspects of having students use AI to complement their own thinking in ways that do not cross lines of academic integrity.
We found the Center for Humane Technology’s instructions on how to cite a ChatGPT response. Proper citation for a ChatGPT response would be as a personal communication, since the answers it gives one user are not retrievable for other users. This is the proper citation: (ChatGPT, personal communication, month, day, year).
From this information, we crafted the following policy for AI and academic integrity: Please submit work that is your own. If you wish to use AI to enhance your work, give credit to the sources and practice ethical research by citing references properly in APA format. Adhere to assignment guidelines, copyright laws, and intellectual property rights when using, sharing, or creating digital content. Look for bias or misinformation in any use of AI.
Emotional intelligence and AI policy
The career of a school principal is non-linear and marked with unknowns. To prepare my students for such a career, I wanted to help them build learning agility and be able to use AI appropriately and responsibly.
As we chatted about AI, I discovered that we were also building learner agility. We agreed that principals might often need or at least want to use AI as a tool to supplement their own thinking.
Many learning agility skills coincide with Daniel Goleman’s emotional intelligence skills, which I already incorporate into my courses. Since school principals work with students, teachers, staff and communities, emotional intelligence is key to building trusting relationships that cultivate supportive and equitable school cultures.
With specific regard to artificial intelligence, aspiring principals need to consider how policies they devise or adapt will be implemented and accepted by students, by teachers, by parents and guardians, and by the community. And how might using AI impact students’ writing skills?
AI, agility and good sense
Certain key skills overlap in learning agility and emotional intelligence:
- Self-awareness: Agile learners need to understand their impact on others and how they themselves are perceived. This involves knowing one’s own emotions, strengths and weaknesses. Principals need to be aware of the effects of their actions and behaviors. Whether my classes are in-person or online, we work hard to build relationships of trust and mutual respect by openly conversing about our strengths and weaknesses.
- Understanding new situations and empathy: An agile learner can attack complex work and situations where they may have no previous experience. In the principalship, such occurrences are frequent. Since school leadership involves collaborating with diverse stakeholders, agile learners need to be able to empathize and understand multiple perspectives. They need to be open-minded and, in making decisions, to consider the feelings or others.
As my course on effective school administration progressed, students adhered to our AI policy, and I was happy that their engagement in creating our policy helped put focus on integrity even as we were able to enhance leadership skills and learner agility.
Our discussions of AI and ultimately our AI policy helped students develop an understanding of the importance of honesty and transparency even as they developed investigative and research skills. Students were not “cheating” as they explored artificial intelligence resources, and they respected my willingness to negotiate and to relate to how they approached and completed assignments.
And of course I was happy to evaluate their assignments, knowing their commitment to reasonable and responsible use of AI—and confident of their readiness to face new challenges with agility and good sense.
Peter Gow, a retired former teacher and academic administrator who has written and presented extensively on matters of leadership and schools’ professional cultures, edited this article. He can be reached at [email protected].
