Students enrolled in the courses will learn from a leading expert in the field, Oliver Dreon, a Millersville professor who helped develop a statewide curriculum on artificial intelligence.
"While (artificial intelligence) is probably one of the more disruptive things that has happened in my career from a technology standpoint, I've always taken the stance we have to teach the issue," said Dreon, who also coordinates the university's master of education program in assessment, curriculum and teaching. "There's no way of avoiding it."
Practicing teachers can take four courses (12 credits) with the first held during the university's winter session from Dec. 15 to Jan. 10. Completion of all four courses, which would typically take a student at least six months, Dreon said, qualifies a teacher to register with the state Department of Education for an endorsement in AI.
The endorsement supplements a teaching certification for K-12 public school teachers. Endorsements add a layer of expertise, like a micro-credential, denoting that a teacher has background or expertise in the subject.
Courses taught at Millersville will align with key competencies teachers are expected to have to receive an endorsement on AI in education: the foundations and applications of AI, responsible and ethical use, instructional and assessment strategies, student AI literacy and leadership for AI innovation.
Dreon said Millersville was one of the first post-secondary schools to apply for and receive approval from the state Education Department to offer courses toward the AI endorsement following the state's announcement of the new endorsement this summer.
K-12 teachers in Lancaster County and across the state can take the courses, which will be offered exclusively online, to become more versed in the quickly evolving technology.
Practicing teachers can count the AI courses as part of their continuing education requirements for maintaining their initial teaching certification. They do not have to be enrolled in a master's program to take the classes.
GETTING 'CAUGHT UP' ON AI
When the interactive AI chatbot ChatGPT was first developed in late 2022, Dreon said he and a cohort of professors began developing and sharing ideas to ensure faculty understood the technology.
"We started to see some challenges in our classrooms with students using it," Dreon said.
ChatGPT can answer questions, write content (like an essay) and assist with summarizing documents.
"We realized, OK, we have to get our faculty really caught up, we have to build some capacity with our faculty pretty quickly," Dreon said.
Dreon led a group of Millersville faculty in rewriting the university's academic honesty policy for students and faculty while codifying safe and ethical ways to use AI. Dreon, who has been an educator for 34 years, said that rather than ban the technology, he prefers to think of AI as a "thought partner" that can serve as a tool to help students understand concepts instead of as a shortcut that could write an essay for a student assignment.
In his own classrooms, Dreon has begun to use AI to conduct mock interviews for students applying to classroom teaching jobs.
The challenge for educators is that students, particularly those at the K-12 level, sometimes pick up on new technology like AI much faster than their teachers, said Kristen Herman, director of technology and innovation at Centennial School District in Bucks County.
"I definitely have that feeling that our students are starting to possibly outpace some of our teachers," said Herman, who alongside Dreon was part of a task force assembled by the state to develop the curriculum and competencies forming the AI endorsement framework.
Herman said she often receives feedback from teachers that they need more training in AI before they feel comfortable using it.
The technology changes so quickly that the state Department of Education fast-tracked the certification to ensure teachers were on top of it, Dreon said, and as the task force developed curriculum for the AI endorsement, it tried to consider the future of the technology.
"We wanted to make sure (the curriculum competencies) were broad enough not only to reflect things that we saw happening right now in schools but also being mindful of the fact that we didn't know where things were going to be in a year or two," Dreon said.
THE AI 'SANDBOX'
Manor Middle School teacher Michael Brown said the biggest challenge for school districts is finding a way to strike a balance between mitigating student usage while also allowing students to explore the new technology.
"I don't know if there's any policy that's truly locked in for anybody that's perfect yet," Brown said.
Brown took a summer workshop on AI with Dreon and while he hasn't signed up for Millersville's AI classes this winter, he said he's interested in eventually taking AI classes toward an endorsement.
AI is "sort of like a sandbox and a lot of people, I think, are dabbling in it," Brown said. "Some people are still afraid of it. Some people are quote-unquote 'experts,' which I'll never claim to be because of the amazing pace at which it's changing. It's just intense."
That kind of "breakneck pace is going to cause an issue in education," he said.
Brown said one of the biggest concerns regarding AI is that it could replace thought.
"Some people feel that once you start feeding these machines and allowing them to do the thought for you, the idea of critical thinking goes out the window," Brown said. "As cliche as it is, education is a journey, and it is something that should never be finished."
Educators can help guide students through using AI to help them understand how the technology should be vetted for bias and accuracy, he said.
"As soon as we start letting it do the thinking for us and we're just spitting, regurgitating that back as the end all be all, I think that's the pitfall, and that's what students need to be aware of," Brown said.
© 2025 LNP (Lancaster, Pa.). Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
