Stephen Kelly, an anatomy and physiology teacher at Broomfield High School, first noticed AI in his classroom last year.
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“Students were working on a research project dealing with the immune system. And the projects that I got were really, really good. A little too good,” said Kelly. “And the students could not explain what they were writing.”
A PhD-level project on brain-eating amoeba, turned in by one student, was too complex for even Kelly to follow.
“It was clear that it was not student generated, and that the students were not getting anything out of it,” said Kelly. “That's when I started to realize, like, AI is here, and we need to do something about it.
Boulder Valley School District (BVSD) prohibits students from using AI to complete graded work. Still, multiple teachers told KUNC about similar experiences: students turning in work or answering questions with information that they were unable to explain.
“This is a thing teachers have faced since we've had computers in the classroom,” said Chris Hespe, a history teacher at Aspen Creek Middle School in Broomfield. “And now with AI, it's even more amplified.”
BVSD blocked ChatGPT for students this year due to adult content functions, but allows access to other AI tools. Teachers don’t have complete control, especially over AI use outside of school.
‘I was able to do this much faster’
Hespe has used AI with his middle schoolers to write songs about the school year, an exercise that they loved. He also had students use MagicSchool to research Greek gods for a card game. The students then played the game based on each god’s skills. He said they were able to access age-appropriate information quickly.
“I was able to do this much faster than I could when we used to go down to the library and check out a cart of books on Greek mythology… that was the old school way,” said Hespe.
Stephen Kelly responded to the students’ AI-generated homework by creating a tool that he hopes will enhance their learning: chatbot tutors
Using MagicSchool, an educational AI program that the district subscribes to, Kelly built chatbot tutors for students to use in class and after hours.
“So, the way that I've designed these is it's kind of like talking to me,” said Kelly.
Meaning that he has programmed the bots to withhold answers. Instead, they ask for information and then ask follow-up questions and give feedback on whatever a student is working on. Kelly remembers one high schooler who went back and forth with the bot, workshopping her conclusion, the part of an experiment when you explain your results.
“By the end, you know, she's got this really solidly written conclusion that I would never have expected to see in years prior,” said Kelly.
Just over 50% of teens say they use chatbots for schoolwork, according to the Pew Research Center.
“They aren't waiting for a digital literacy class. They aren't waiting for us to update our academic integrity policies. They're already pivoting,” said Ashley Renick, with aiEDU, a non-profit focused on AI in education, during Colorado’s recent AI Literacy Summit.
‘It’s very intuitive’
Stephen Kelly is now the district’s top user of MagicSchool, meaning that he has entered more prompts into the program than anyone else.
“It's very easy to use. It's very intuitive,” said Lynn Gershman, the district’s director of academic services.
While Gershman’s past AI trainings have been popular, they are not mandatory, and the district has yet to adopt formal AI policies for teachers — a situation that is common in schools nationwide.
Gershman plans to embed AI training into the three days of professional learning for teachers in August, before the new school-year starts.
More than 10,000 teachers and students are using MagicSchool, according to numbers Gershman presented at a recent board of education meeting. The number of prompts entered into the AI program jumped by 250% since 2024.
“I've never seen a tool take off like this with so little guidance around it. For the most part, this was organic growth. I've never seen anything like this,” said Gershman, during that meeting.
Statewide, survey data shows that while the majority of teachers say they use AI, only one in three feels prepared for the future of AI in schools.
“It's so cart before the horse, a little bit, right now,” said Katie Miles, a Language Arts teacher at Fairview High School in Boulder.
Her department is all over the place with AI adoption, with some diving in, she said, and others who are strongly opposed.
Miles has created chatbots to make book recommendations and help with writer’s block.
“Writing is hard,” said Miles. “It's easy to sit and stare at a blank page, and if they can get a little bit unstuck by just having a conversation, maybe even asking questions that they would be way too embarrassed to raise their hand and ask in class, can really empower them in the process.”
She also teaches AI literacy, including how to disclose when AI has been used in a piece of writing and how to think about that usage from an ethical perspective.
“If I were to ask AI to read through my brainstorm and poke holes in my thinking, that feels totally fine. That feels like it's enhancing my learning. It's not handing the learning over,” said Miles.
Figuring out how to use AI in the classroom is a learning process. Stephen Kelly, the high school anatomy teacher, had expected time spent with the AI chatbot tutors to translate into higher test scores.
“That is not that linear,” said Kelly.
What’s more important, said Kelly, is how students use the chatbots. For example, test scores only increased for those who really sparred with them: asking the bot for sample exam questions and then working to answer them.
“They're testing their knowledge,” said Kelly. “They're stress testing their knowledge against this chatbot and that was really cool to see.”
Some students only asked the bots questions. Others got too much help from them.
Kelly’s takeaway? Students who spend a lot of time with the AI tutors are the ones who really need him to intervene.
