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Kids and AI: Leaders at Louisa May Alcott school in Cleveland say artificial intelligence helped teachers, staff improve state ratings

The school introduced Amira, an AI-powered reading assistant from Amira Learning, into the classroom. It's designed to help students with fluency and comprehension.

CLEVELAND — Earlier this year, the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce launched an AI Toolkit for Ohio’s K-12 school districts. 

It’s designed to be a resource for educators to prepare students for a world with Artificial Intelligence. That led 3News to see how local schools are incorporating AI in the learning process and how students are responding.

At Cleveland’s Louisa May Alcott school on the west side, staff and administrators applaud the introduction of Amira, an AI-powered reading assistant from Amira Learning designed to help students with fluency and comprehension.

STUDENTS HAVE A RELATIONSHIP WITH AI

“Their confidence has been built because they have that one-on-one interaction with Amira every day,” says Suzanne Head, a third-grade teacher at the school. “They have a relationship with her.”  

The relationship is so engrained, Head refers to Amira as if she’s a real person.

“She is one of us,” Head says. “She’s teaching right along with me and learning right along with them.”

Head, a nearly 30-year teaching veteran at Louisa May Alcott, says her students have a goal of reading two stories a day out loud into a microphone. Amira listens, catches mistakes, and has students sound out the word again.

“I like how it helps you and I like how it gives you sound out games and pronounce the words,” adds Jayla Jones, an 8-year-old student in Head’s class.

The program also records students reading and reports data on speed and accuracy.

“I don't have an excuse to not know what these students need because it's right here in front of me,” Head tells 3News while looking at a large display keeping track of her students’ reading progress.  “I have more on demand data … I can go and listen to the recordings of Amira and see where they’re making the mistakes, if there is a pattern to the errors that they’re making, and I can work on those with them in my small group teachings.”

IMPROVED STATE RATINGS AND PREPARING STUDENTS FOR THE TECHNOLOGICAL WORLD

Lesley Wilkins-Valentine, the director of elementary curriculum and instruction for the Cleveland Metropolitan School District says Amira played a role in helping Louisa May Alcott go from a 2.5-star rating on last year’s state report card to a 4 out of 5-star rating this year.

When it comes to early literacy, the school progressed from one to two stars.  

The Cleveland Metropolitan School District as a whole remained at one out of five stars in early literacy both years, but jumped from an overall rating of 2.5 stars for the 2022-23 school year to a 3-star rating the following year, a first for the district.  A 3-star rating meets state standards.

“This school has historically had very high usage in this particular program,” Wilkins-Valentine shares. “Not only do they have high usage in it, their instructors are invested.”

She believes AI will help strengthen students.

“I know we don’t always agree with our kinders (kindergarteners), first, second graders being on computers, being on laptops, but this is the world that we live in now,” Wilkins-Valentine argues. “Them being able to access these type of applications early in their careers, that’s nothing but setting them up for the world that they’re going to go in to.”

For Head, Amira turned out to be the teaching assistant she needed.

“I can't do what she's doing because I can't be with all of those kids all of the time,” she says. “They're getting that one-on-one interaction with her constantly and it's the AI, which I never thought would have a place in the classroom.”

And Jones, who proudly shares she can already read chapter books as a third grader, is thinking about how her relationship with Amira is laying the groundwork for the future.

“When they give me the test at college, I'll be ready because Amira helped me," she says.

OVERCOMING A ROCKY ROLL OUT

Teachers and staff at Louisa May Alcott admit the roll out of Amira was a little rocky.  Students disliked the program because of technical issues and not knowing how to use the software. However, once school officials worked out the problems and trained staff, they say students grew fond of Amira as their reading began to improve.

According to Amira Learning, the average cost per student for the program is roughly $20 annually.

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