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  AI Savvy Students,  Part 4: Activities That Build AI Awareness Students learn AI best by experiencing its strengths and limits. These classroom-ready activities help them see why prompting, verification, and judgment matter. Activity 1: The Four-Bot Walkabout (ELA, SS, Grades 8–12) Setup: Take a real prompt your students just completed (e.g., “Analyze Scout’s internal and external conflicts in To Kill a Mockingbird*.”*). Paste it into four different chatbots (e.g., ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Copilot). Print the outputs and place them at four stations. Student task: In groups, rotate through stations. Annotate each output: Where does it meet the rubric? Where is it vague, generic, or flat-out wrong? What would you add or change? Debrief: Students quickly see: different bots do not generate the same answer, generic prompts create generic output, and AI rarely matches the rubric without their expertise. Close by drafting a “better prompt” that names criteria, evidence, and ...

  AI Savvy Students, Part 3:  Use vs. Misuse, The Stoplight Analogy AI decisions live in the gray. A simple “yes/no” policy rarely covers every subject and task. The stoplight model gives students clarity while leaving you room to teach. Red Light: Hard no’s (misuse) Copy/paste submissions. AI produces the text; the student submits it as their own. Fabricated citations or evidence. Bypassing the learning target. Example: using AI to write a creative piece in a class where the target is crafting original prose . Concealed use. If AI meaningfully shaped the work and the student hides it, that’s a red light even if the content is decent. Response: zero for the task product, restorative redo with a process focus (drafts, oral defense, verification log), and re-teaching of expectations. Yellow Light: Context matters Tooling that supports mechanics (e.g., Grammarly) in classes where the target is historical reasoning, not comma usage. Tutor-style assistance when stuck. If the...

  AI Savvy Students, Part 2: Teaching Responsible Use of AI If we want students to use AI well, we need shared language and simple routines. “Responsible use” isn’t a poster; it’s a set of habits we model, practice, and reinforce. Here’s a practical blueprint you can roll out. The four pillars of responsible use Transparency Students should be able to answer, “Did I use AI? How, where, and why?” Normalize short disclosures in student work (a sentence or two is enough): “I used ChatGPT to brainstorm counterarguments. I kept ideas #2 and #4 and rewrote them using my own evidence.” Attribution Teach students to cite AI when it meaningfully shapes the work. A simple “AI Acknowledgment” line at the end is fine for most assignments. If your class uses MLA/APA/Chicago, show the official formats but don’t let formatting become the barrier to honesty. The goal is credit, not perfection. Verification AI can be confidently wrong. Build a 5-minute “verify and extend” routine: Highlight one A...

  AI Savvy Students, Part 1: Why Students Need AI Literacy If our job is to prepare students for the world they’re entering, we can’t ignore the role AI already plays in that world. The pace is dizzying, tools evolve monthly, policies shift, and new use cases appear every week. But the signal is clear: companies are investing billions because they expect AI to transform how we learn, work, and create. If we “close the door” on student use of AI, we risk graduating learners who are underprepared for an AI-enhanced future. Yesterday’s World vs. Our Students’ World A quick trip down memory lane highlights the gap. When many of us were growing up and needed the time or temperature, we called a phone number or waited for “Local on the 8s” to show up on the weather channel. Today, kids ask a smart speaker: “Hey Google, what’s the temperature?” They expect instant answers, personalized recommendations, and seamless assistance. That same expectation is moving into schoolwork, drafting, rev...