Jan. 10—MITCHELL — Mitchell School District students on a long cross-state bus ride have a few ways to occupy their time as they travel. They can listen to music, talk with their fellow students or take in the passing countryside through the window.
Now, thanks to a new program being piloted by the district, those students have another option to pass the hours: working with their artificial intelligence tutor to improve their understanding of classroom lessons.
“Anywhere essentially that you’ve got the internet now, you’ve got artificial intelligence,” Joe Childs, superintendent for the Mitchell School District, told the Mitchell Republic during a recent interview. “Instead of just having OpenAI, which is a reasonable source of information, this is a platform that safeguards things and keys students in more academically than what other artificial intelligence platforms might do.”
The program is known as Khanmigo and is an offshoot of Khan Academy, itself an online non-profit educational organization that offers a variety of learning resources, including videos, practice exercises, personalized learning features as well as content for educators and test preparation tools.
Khanmigo is set up specifically as an artificial intelligence tutor and teaching assistant, giving students access to a number of tools to assist with their studies. Those include instant feedback on homework problems, step-by-step explanations for difficult concepts, engaging conversations to boost understanding, a debate tool and writing tutor as well as critical thinking encouragement.
The program was launched by Khan Academy in 2023, and though there is no figure on how many schools are using the service in South Dakota, Khan Academy estimates that
over 221,000 individuals nationwide were using Khanmigo in some capacity during the 2023-24 school year.
The program began its pilot phase at the Mitchell School District earlier this year in high school algebra classes, but has since slowly been incorporated into a handful other classrooms in the district as school leaders assess its effectiveness.
Justin Siemsen, principal for Mitchell High School, said officials with the district began exploring the use of the service following an introductory discussion with Childs and other district leaders.
“Honestly, I hadn’t perused Khanmigo at that point yet, so I did a little bit before I went to (Child’s) office, and I found it was just a wealth of knowledge,” Siemsen said. “I will be honest, I’m more of an old-school type, where I was probably less on board initially as far as what AI can provide educationally. But as we got into it a little bit more, my eyes were opened.”
Artificial intelligence in recent years has found its way into practically every industry and field, ranging from manufacturing to medicine. Familiar artificial intelligence services such as ChatGPT, which can generate human-like responses to questions and problems, is used widely in writing, coding and research.
Unlike ChatGPT, Khanmigo does not simply answer questions or solve problems on request. Instead of returning an answer to an algebra problem, for example, it guides the students through it step-by-step, asking questions and then giving the student feedback on their thinking process and progress.
The student has access to the online service 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, allowing them to work on their skills at their convenience. That could include during their study hall, a free period, over their lunch hour or when they’re at home — essentially any time they might not have direct access to their teacher. With wifi available on district buses, students can even access the service and study on bus trips to sporting events or on their way to or from school.
The service is useful for students of all learning levels and it leans into constructive criticism and encouraging feedback, Siemsen said.
“It’s something that’s going to be helpful for not just struggling students, but for other students who might just need a little bit of further understanding in a particular area,” Siemsen said. “We try to use it as an attachment to certain lessons and things like that. Khanmigo has the ability to delve into certain areas in each discipline.”
Khanmigo meets each student at their learning level and customizes its approach based on the skills of that student. That provides a high level of flexibility that can assist students struggling with basic concepts or more complex problems. The system can also help bridge language barriers while tutoring.
The student must work toward the solution and is not just handed an answer, said Sarah Timmer, curriculum director for the Mitchell School District. Part of the learning experience is overcoming the problem, not skipping past it.
“Unlike OpenAI where you are given the answer, Khanmigo doesn’t do that. It lets them sit in that projective struggle and asks the right questions to help them get out of it or to go back a step,” Timmer said. “So it really reaches where every student is.”
Classroom teachers work in conjunction with the service. Khanmigo provides resources for those instructors as well, including lesson planning, creating rubrics, providing feedback as well as a summary of student activity and skill mastery. Parents also have the option to acquire access to their child’s Khanmigo work.
Khanmigo is an impressively useful tool for students, but teachers and in-person learning is still the cornerstone of a solid educational experience, Childs said. Teachers can still provide hands-on lesson help whenever needed and remain the focus of the lesson planning and the presentation of materials, and that will not change with the introduction of artificial intelligence into the school setting.
“This isn’t any kind of teacher replacement. It’s a teaching assistant,” Childs said. “We understand that the teacher is always the best, this is just an assistant that allows the teachers to work with students and allow students to get the feedback they need when the teacher is working with another student.”
The program is being used in Algebra I and Algebra II at the high school level, and has slowly been expanded into a handful of other classrooms in the district as school officials, teachers and students become more familiar with the service. Khan Academy is well-known for its online math tutoring videos and classes, so piloting the program in math made sense as a starting point, Timmer said.
The district secured 250 licenses for the program at $15 per license, opting to go with the minimum purchase option for the pilot program, though the district is not using all 250 licenses yet. For individual learners or parents, access can be acquired for $4 per month.
The potential benefits of the program are clear, but officials note that the pilot program is just that — a pilot program. The realm of artificial intelligence as a high-level teaching and tutoring tool is still a relatively new concept for everyone involved, from the superintendent to the students themselves.
Feedback so far has been encouraging, and more discussion is expected on the topic when the district holds professional development later this month.
“They’re still trying to understand how to use it. Once that part is really grasped by the teacher, then I think we will understand the noticeable benefit,” Siemsen said.
As the pilot program progresses, school officials will continue to assess its effectiveness. Childs said the district plans to eventually use all 250 licenses currently on hand as it evaluates the program’s strengths and weaknesses. If the district determines the program to be an overall benefit, the program could find itself in wide use throughout the district.
Whether that happens remains to be seen, but if anything is clear it is that artificial intelligence is here to stay, and that likely includes the school classroom at some level.
“Number one — it’s not going away. And number two — why wouldn’t you take advantage of something that can be so useful to teachers as well as students?” Siemsen said.