AI Guidance for Staff and Students

Artificial Intelligence: Guidance for Staff and Students


At the Upper Canada District School Board, our mission is clear: We prepare all students for a successful life.

Part of this mission is ensuring students develop the skills they need to succeed in a rapidly changing world, including the ability to thoughtfully select and use digital technologies to solve real-world problems. 
 
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is an emerging technology with the potential to transform how students and staff learn and work.  At the UCDSB, we believe it is essential for students to explore and understand how AI can support their learning and their future beyond school.
 
Exploring the impact of AI in education is a key element of the UCDSB Director’s Work Plan, with the goal to provide guidance regarding the use and implications of AI in the student learning experience.

What is Artificial Intelligence?

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is part of our everyday lives. It is a rapidly evolving technology that performs tasks that mimic human intelligence, such as understanding language, recognizing patterns, making decisions and solving problems.

AI iconPersonalized social media feeds, internet search engines, GPS, and in-home digital voice assistants are everyday tools powered by AI. Spell-check, word prediction, voice-to-text, text-to-speech, and educational games that adapt to student responses and provide feedback or next steps are examples of AI-powered tools we use in our classrooms.

Generative AI (like ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot) is a type of AI that creates new content - such as images or text - based on user inputs by identifying and predicting patterns in the large set of data on which it is trained.

Our Vision for Relevant and Innovative Educational Programming

At the Upper Canada District School Board, we encourage students and staff to explore how AI can be integrated into their learning and teaching. We believe AI use should be student-centred and has the potential to support compelling teaching and learning experiences for students and teachers. It is critical that we evolve with AI as its capacity continues to grow.   

The Ontario Ministry of Education’s Transferable Skills represent the future-ready abilities that our students need to thrive in the modern world. These include:
  • Critical Thinking and Problem Solving
  • Innovation, Creativity, and Entrepreneurship
  • Self-Directed Learning
  • Collaboration
  • Communication
  • Global Citizenship and Sustainability
  • Digital Literacy
We encourage a thoughtful and measured approach to AI exploration, including selecting and using digital tools to solve problems responsibly and ethically, with an openness to innovation, and awareness of potential risks.  

Our work is guided by the following principles:

Digital Literacy: Safety, Cyber Security, and Online Privacy Awareness

Ethics and Equity 
  • Be selective about what personal information you share online (such as your name, age, school, etc...). Carefully consider what information you choose to include in prompts for generative AI tools.  
  • Choose AI tools that are going to help you in your work. Be critical of questionable websites and choose tools with positive reviews from reputable companies. 
  • Use AI as an educational tool to support your individual needs and your ability to learn and work effectively.
  • Be aware that AI can contain biases and misinformation.  Re-read, fact-check, and be critical of anything produced by generative AI. 
  • Use the UCDSB Code of Conduct for Online Behaviour to ensure respectful, fair, and responsible use when interacting with AI tools. Do not create harmful, misleading, or inappropriate content and consider how your use of AI impacts others.

Transparency and Academic Integrity

Enhancing Teaching and Learning with AI
  • It is not always appropriate to use an AI tool. Be transparent, and if you are planning to use AI, have a classroom conversation about why and which tools you plan to use. Whenever possible, reference (cite) your use of AI.  
  • AI can be a great help to you, but it should not replace your hard work, original ideas, or creativity. Use AI as an assistant, not as a replacement for original thought. Saying that AI-generated work is your own could be considered plagiarism.  
  • Use AI as a support tool while maintaining human decision-making over your final product. Never use AI-generated content without reviewing and editing it.
  • Use AI to support and improve your work in appropriate ways, while ensuring your thinking and final work are your own.
  • Use AI to explore and enhance how you learn, study, and create. Teachers can support this by designing learning and assessment tasks that integrate AI with clear expectations for its use.

Download the printable version of UCDSB Artificial Intelligence Guidance for Staff and Students.
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