The Wyoming Department of Education has released the Guidance for Wyoming School Districts on Developing Artificial Intelligence Use Policy.
The Department of Education said the guidance will assist districts in navigating the development of policies for students, staff, and school communities regarding the appropriate and responsible use of AI, particularly GenAI tools, in classroom instruction, school management, and systemwide operations.
“In order to create the most transparent, efficient, and excellent education in the nation, Wyoming must not only accept, but fully embrace ever changing technology – including Generative Artificial Intelligence,” State Superintendent Megan Degenfelder said in the newly released guidance. “Unless we challenge the status quo of the education system of decades past, we will be less efficient in educating students, and we will be failing to prepare them for a 21st century world. If used appropriately, GenAI has the potential to truly revolutionize the classroom, freeing up instructional time for educators and allowing for greater innovation.”
In the guidance, the department stresses the importance of working in a cyclical process framework. The guidance explains that the process of developing a policy around AI will be dynamic and cannot be a one-time event. It adds that creating the policy and guidance also involves providing professional development and organizational learning in addition to identifying areas of improvement and transformation.
“None of these areas exist in a vacuum; instead, they will continually feed the other in order to be interwoven with the policy development and review, improvement and transformation, and organizational learning,” the guidance says.
Additionally, the guidance stresses that developing AI policy must have a team approach. Noting that “no one person should have to make the decisions for their organization surrounding AI by themselves.”
The guidance also provides seven guiding principles that all schools should incorporate when developing their own AI policies. The seven guiding principles are:
- Purpose: Use the AI tool ethically and responsibly in a collaborative effort to help all students achieve educational goals.
- Compliance: Reaffirm adherence to existing policies and procedures and any relevant Federal regulations.
- Knowledge: Promote AI literacy.
- Balance: Realize the benefits of AI and evaluate and address the risks.
- Integrity: Advance academic integrity.
- Agency: Maintain human decision-making when using AI.
- Evaluation: Regularly assess the impacts of AI.
When developing the guidance, the Department of Education’s Digital Learning Plan Advisory Panel worked with seven stakeholder groups including curriculum directors, technology directors, librarians, classroom educators, instructional facilitators, elementary and middle school principals, and school board members.
