“At Pine Crest, we are preparing students and educators not just to navigate an AI-enabled world, but to lead it. Through thoughtful and seamless integration of artificial intelligence, we are enhancing learning, empowering creativity, and cultivating ethical leaders ready to shape the future. Our commitment is to innovation with purpose, ensuring that every member of our community is equipped to thrive and make a meaningful impact in our technology-driven world."
- Dr. Dana Markham, President of Pine Crest School
At Pine Crest, we believe that AI is not just a tool of the future but a tool for today. As a leader in independent college preparatory education for students in grades pre-kindergarten through 12, Pine Crest School delivers an exceptional educational experience that is consistently informed by research and best practices. We are renowned for offering innovative curriculum and technology integration facilitated by outstanding faculty. In addition to a strong core curriculum, every student at Pine Crest is exposed to robotics, computer science, engineering, and entrepreneurship concepts, all of which are rooted in creativity and curiosity. Beginning in pre-kindergarten, Lower School students learn programming languages to stimulate their computational thinking. Middle School students write programs and applications in Python and use virtual reality and artificial intelligence in their daily learning experiences. Upper School students have the opportunity to take Advanced Placement (AP) and Post-AP Computer Science courses such as Artificial Intelligence. In addition, Upper School students may enroll in Science Research and Social Entrepreneurship. These three-year signature programs focus on exploring social impact projects connected to various topics, including computer science, engineering, and artificial intelligence.
The past few years have been a pivotal time in education as we continue to witness advancements in technology. Our goal as school leaders is to support faculty and students in harnessing the power of technology to advance learning and teaching. Educators need to possess skills that effectively leverage technology to enhance their teaching and learning. Technology is ubiquitous and fast-moving; therefore, the knowledge and best practices needed to equip educators continuously evolve. As a result, we needed our school community to think innovatively about harnessing generative artificial intelligence, such as ChatGPT, as AI’s impact will shape our students’ future.
In January 2023, as a response to OpenAI’s launch of ChatGPT, Pine Crest initiated an Academic Think Tank for faculty to determine how to intentionally integrate artificial intelligence software ethically and effectively in the classroom while upholding the academic integrity expected of our students and program. The faculty think tank discussed important questions like:
- Will ChatGPT replace the motive for learning to write even though excellent writing starts with questions?
- How will AI Chatbots transform the learning process?
- How can we invite AI into the classroom?
The overall objectives for Think Tank included:
- To develop strategies for incorporating artificial intelligence technologies into our learning environments.
- To recommend instructional methodologies for using AI technologies, like ChatGPT.
- To create a set of recommendations for addressing academic honesty.
Our Computer Science and Technology Specialists team researched and experimented with several tools for faculty and student use while also exploring best practices for implementation. Eighty-eight (88) faculty members across all grade levels and content areas participated in pilot programs throughout the Fall of 2023. The pilot programs evaluated the qualities of artificial intelligence programs that yield the best outcomes for students and develop best practices for teachers moving forward.
Now, more than a year later, AI is effectively embedded throughout our curriculum in various ways, in accordance with the policies and governance we developed and refined during implementation. We have added the position of Educational Data, AI, and Computer Science Specialist to support the rapid growth of our AI initiatives. A core philosophy of educational technology at Pine Crest is cultivating students who create with technology, as opposed to consuming it. A critical consideration for selecting appropriate AI tools for our students was identifying the opportunities for students to create learning experiences and drive their own learning through meaningful inclusion of generative AI under the guidance of a skilled educator. Pine Crest uses Flint K12, which is an AI-powered personalized learning platform designed for K-12 schools. Students in grades 4 to 12 have access to use Flintk12 on their own as a safe, privacy-protected generative AI tool and through teacher-created activities. For example, Flintk12 allows teachers and students to create custom AI tutors for specific content across all subject areas, impersonate historical figures to allow students to have conversations with them, and act as a creative partner for student brainstorming and project creation. Flint behaves like a digital tutor, helping students prepare for assessments, engage in debates, and deepen their understanding through personalized feedback. During the 2024-25 school year, Pine Crest teachers have created over 1,500 activities in Flint, generating over 17,000 student sessions.
At Pine Crest, we are also revolutionizing the classroom by integrating AI with virtual reality (VR) to create immersive and engaging learning experiences. Our teachers are using AI powered interactive historical characters (e.g., William Shakespeare, Albert Einstein, and Rosa Parks to name a few) that students can engage in conversation in the virtual world using Meta Quest headsets. This transforms historical figures into interactive learning partners, giving students an unparalleled educational experience.
One of the promises of AI has been a reduction in workload, and Pine Crest has committed to exploring and adopting AI in order to give our educators more time to connect with students. Other AI tools, such as Brisk Teaching, have been gamechangers. During the 2024-25 school year, Brisk was used nearly 4,000 times. Teachers use this tool to simplify lesson planning, adapting reading materials to provide differentiation in reading level, translate reading materials into different languages for world language study, and providing leveled feedback on student work. Teacher use of AI at Pine Crest is about giving our faculty more time to do what they do best: connect with students.
The AI conversation at Pine Crest is not limited to our teachers and students. We have active programs in our Business Office to use robotic automation to handle rote tasks and free our staff to engage with higher-level tasks. One example of a use case includes using a digital worker to reconcile bank statements, saving significant time and reducing human error. We have also recently completed a deep dive training into prompt engineering and advanced AI strategies with a cohort of thirty (30) employees. From this experience, we are curating an AI Prompt Engineering Booster repository for each department and division.
A common thread through our AI initiatives has been intentionality: deliberately structuring pilots, selecting the tools that best fit our community, gathering and evaluating best practices, and providing targeted professional development. At Pine Crest we endeavor to support education worldwide. Through our programs, such as Collabsites™, we hope to share how our discoveries in educational AI can support intentional programming at other institutions.