March 05, 2024
Linda Blaser
Local school districts turn to Lake Forest College for AI insight
For its Let’s Talk community conversation focused on Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Education, the local elementary and high school district turned to Lake Forest College leaders for their insight and expertise.
The February 20 session featured a five-member panel that included Krebs Center for the Humanities Executive Director and Professor of English Davis Schneiderman and was moderated by Lake Forest College President Jill M. Baren. The evening panel discussion was held at the Gorton Community Center in Lake Forest and drew parents and educators from the surrounding schools. The College partnered with Districts 67 and 115 on this community discussion.
In her opening remarks, President Baren called AI an “important tool” that has been “part of the tech landscape for years. As with any other tool, it must be used properly, but when used in the right ways, can be a powerful engine for institutions of higher learning.”
Schneiderman represented the College as the principal investigator on the Kreb Center’s new project called HUMAN: Humanities Understanding of the Machine-Assisted Nexus, a multi-year initiative that explores AI through a humanities perspective. The project, which will equip students with the skills to ethically integrate AI into their professional lives and will emphasize questions of justice and equity in AI, was awarded a $1.2 million Mellon Foundation grant.
During the panel, Schneiderman and educators from Districts 67 and 115 answered a number of questions on the role of AI in education, including the effective integration of AI in existing curricula across all education levels, how AI varies between K-12 and higher education settings, potential long-term impacts of AI on student career readiness, and the ethical dilemmas of AI.
“The implications of AI reach well beyond technology-based discipline, so we need to approach from multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives,” Schneiderman said. “When we consider AI and its ethics through English, philosophy, art, theater, and other disciplines, we engage in community dialogue that tells us how we got here and how we can best consider where we are going.”
Schneiderman will continue as a panelist for an upcoming program in the Let’s Talk AI series. The next session, AI and the Transformation of Work, is at 7 p.m. on March 7 in the Lake Forest High School Library, 1285 N. McKinley Road, Lake Forest.
About the Krebs Center: The Krebs Center for the Humanities is set in an Italianate villa in Lake Forest where the traditional and the cutting-edge converge and where literature, philosophy, history, and the arts are not just subjects of study but also dynamic forces that prepare students to meet an ever-evolving future. The Krebs Center underscores the College’s commitment to paving the way for a future where creativity, critical thinking, and empathy take center stage.