On October 1, Mercersburg Academy hosted a special day of artificial intelligence (AI) training, in which teachers and students completed specific and individualized training on the practical and ethical use of artificial intelligence. Students in each grade joined one session, which included class-related activities, AI training, asynchronous work, and emergency Informacast updates.
For many students, the AI training session led by Greg Kulowiec exposed the myths and truths of generative artificial intelligence and its best use for students in an academic and communal setting. “[The session] taught us to be more conscious about how we are using AI and gave us insight into how the information we are being given by A.I. can be false. It was done with the intent of making sure that we approach AI with caution and not immediately trust everything it outputs,” Chris Carbone ’26 reflected. “I think that teachers just want to make sure that students are using AI properly and that they aren't being misinformed, and the presentation helps teachers to take a step forward and ensure that students are properly using AI.”
Listening to Kulowiec, students acknowledged the tendency of AI to regurgitate material from the database. Eric Wang ’27, likewise, observed that generative AIs often yields ideas of limited to the input: “[The session] told us how the models are trained to be convenient to us instead of being critical, as well as how we can both take advantage and be wary of the limits they have set, because it is usually people giving them the limitations.”
Some students recognized AI’s practical use as a tool in education. Tuana Özdemir ’26 noted, “We learned how AI changed over time, and I think [the teachers] tried to show us the good ways of AI use, how we can use it to help us learn and understand better.” Roy Seligman ’28 stated, “I was definitely not aware of the detrimental effects that using AI too much has on our brains, and I was really surprised that it atrophies brain cells that much. As a frequent ChatGPT user myself, I am definitely going to begin using AI as solely a helper rather than replacing my actual efforts. I think teaching us how to use AI as a good companion can be really helpful and can actually benefit our schoolwork a lot more than some people might think.”
Head of School Quentin McDowell explained that, from an educator’s perspective, the AI Training Day was part of a broader effort to prepare teachers and students for the future. The Academy partnered with the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education to deliver what will be a year-long AI course for all teaching faculty. “One of the primary drivers for having an AI day was to help our educators imagine ways to practically apply artificial intelligence and generative AI to the work in school. A big part of it is to demystify [AI] and to make it more accessible, so that we work with it, not against it.” Associate Head of School for Student Life Julia Maurer hopes that the training will increase the community’s familiarity with AI as a whole. “We have a wide variety of comfort with technology—both our students and our faculty—and knowledge about what AI is and the tools that are available. So I thought [AI] is an unavoidable part of our lives; we’re at a point … where it’s really hard to go through the day without engaging [with] AI in some way.”
Others found the training necessary to adapt to the ever-rising trend of AI use. “In terms of AI, it is very important for us to embrace it because we are not going to get anywhere without it. The speaker said none of us chose for our lives to be changed, but inevitably it is going to get changed, and it has already been changed. It’s meaningful for the school to put us through the lesson,” remarked Bruce Zhang ’28.
Not only was the training important for students, the teaching faculty also had much to gain. “People come [to] technology from a lot of different places, so our effort is to make sure that we are meeting all of our teachers where they are. At the end of the day, you have to know how AI works, how to use it, and all of the different applications and tools, because all of our students know about it,” said McDowell. “There are a lot of benefits that come with it: common language, common understanding, helping people overcome their fears, helping people understand the many ways that [AI] can be used as a positive tool, not just as a negative tool. I think when we hear AI, we think of ChatGPT, cheating, [or] plagiarism. But it can be a really great tool for teachers and for students to be able to be more efficient in their work, to gain deeper and faster understanding of subject matters, and there [are] so many other things that we can create using AI tools now, and it’s just the beginning.”