On Friday, May 3, FCPS facilitated a Share Fair to celebrate the learning and innovations of this year’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) Innovator Cohort. 

The cohort included approximately 200 FCPS staff representing 95 schools and the central office. Their focus was to learn about AI, reflect on its application in our work, and discover how to teach students to use it effectively and ethically as we inspire them to imagine careers of tomorrow.

Presentations ranged from using AI tools for help planning family events to using text-to-image tools to help students build language skills. Courtney Marshall, a business and information technology teacher at Chantilly High School, shared how her project using Adobe Express helped students who are multilingual learners. Starting with a drawing and a single prompt in their native language, the students ended up with a story written in English that they presented to a class. 

Marshall (pictured above) joined the FCPS AI cohort because she has a “deep-seated commitment to ensuring all students have equitable access to educational technologies.” She is enrolled at the University of Florida in a doctoral program specializing in using AI to facilitate educational equity. 

She hopes that all students can thrive using AI in the future. Marshall imagines that it can personalize learning for each student based on their individual needs. However, there are still challenges due to the need to develop AI literacy in both students and staff. 

Marshall wants to be part of shaping the way FCPS uses AI so she can continue to push for the team to reflect the student population, “incorporating individuals with varied backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives, [so] we can mitigate unconscious bias and ensure that AI tools are developed with a focus on equity and inclusion.”

Shannon Dumont, school-based technology specialist at Columbia Elementary School, presented at the share fair on connections between Universal Design for Learning, Portrait of a Graduate, and International Society for Technology in Education student standards — three different frameworks for educators. Dumont’s goal was to use AI to try to make sense of these three sets of standards, identify shared best practices, and create professional development opportunities for FCPS staff. 

Through her project, Dumont realized that AI “could not make the connections like I was hoping it would, because it is not a human,” she said. “Through my innovation process, AI tools became a thought partner, providing guidance alongside my learning of the concepts and how they are all connected.”

Visit the Artificial Intelligence Hub page for information about the Innovator Cohort, AI teacher resources, and ongoing professional learning opportunities.