An article in District Administration describes Buckeye Central High School (New Washington, Ohio) Principal Dr. Michael Martin’s strategy for using AI for educational purposes. It’s called the “80/20, 20/80“ rule. Its purpose is to keep students accountable for their work while using AI.
Martin says the rule applies to all use cases of AI. For a presentation he gave to his staff Martin did all the research, collected resources and developed a detailed outline, which he estimates was 80% of the work. The remaining 20% was done by AI, which offered suggestions to the outline without making changes to Martin’s original work.
The same formula should be applied to students’ use of AI to enhance learning and avoid cognitive offloading.
“AI didn’t write the outline for me,” Martin says. “I did the research and read its suggestions and I made the changes.”
He came up with the ideas and AI made his ideas better, he says.
After finishing his outline, Martin needed to create the presentation, a less thought-provoking task that AI would streamline. Martin would contribute 20% of the effort and let technology do the rest.
He uploaded his outline into Gamma, a free-to-use, AI-powered presentation and website builder. In 30 seconds, it produced a presentation that was tweaked.
“We do not want kids leaving Buckeye Central doing nothing but cognitive offloading and replacing their brains with AI,” he says. “We want to teach them how to use it the right way as an assistant to improve their knowledge base.”
“The genie is out of the bottle,” Martin says. “So how can we make sure we’re controlling AI so it becomes a tool for students without replacing their learning?”
The Buckeye Central Local School District is also certifying its teachers in AI, which Martin believes will help leadership develop a stronger AI policy.
He says administrators should take caution in using AI to evaluate student data.
“You can’t just throw kids’ names in AI,” he explains. “There’s a process that I have to ensure the student’s information is safe. Once you know how to do that, you’re able to churn through data quicker and spend less time interpreting it.”
This allows him to quickly identify when students need help.
“When I save time, that enables me to go out and do what I think leaders should do, and that’s to be more present with kids,” Martin says.
District Administration
