Week 4: Ethics from the Ground Up – Student Voice in AI Policy
Big Idea: Students should help shape how AI is used in schools.
Why Start with Ethics?
As AI becomes a daily part of education—helping plan lessons, support writing, or even grade—questions about ethics aren't optional anymore. They are essential.
And yet, most conversations about AI ethics in schools happen without students.
If we believe education is about preparing students for a changing world, then students must be active participants in defining how AI should be used, how it shouldn't, and why it matters.
Ethical use of AI shouldn't be handed down as a rule. It should be built collaboratively—from the ground up.
Essential Question for the Week
How can students help create ethical guidelines for AI use in schools?
The Risk of Excluding Student Voice
If we make AI policies for students but not with them, we miss critical perspectives:
Students can spot harms and blind spots adults might overlook
Students’ lived experiences shape how they encounter AI biases
Ethical AI education is more meaningful when students are co-creators, not rule-followers
When students have a voice, we move from compliance to commitment.
3 Ways to Involve Students in AI Ethics
1. Host an AI Ethics Roundtable
Set up a student-led conversation with prompts like:
What should AI never be used for in school?
What responsibilities do students have when using AI?
Should students have a say in which AI tools schools adopt?
📎 Tip: Record ideas and use them to draft your classroom (or school-wide) AI principles.
2. Create an AI Bill of Rights
Have students work collaboratively to draft a document that outlines their expectations for ethical AI use in school. Some guiding questions:
What rights do students have when AI is used on their work?
How should students be protected from bias, privacy invasion, or misuse?
What role should transparency play?
The result could be a living document you revisit and refine over the year.
3. Use Case Studies to Spark Debate
Share real or fictional scenarios involving AI misuse:
An AI essay grader unfairly penalizes students with non-standard English
A chatbot offers incorrect or biased historical information
A student secretly uses AI for a creative project—was it unethical, innovative, or both?
Ask students to discuss and decide:
What ethical principles apply? What actions should be taken?
Ethics Isn’t Just About Rules—it’s About Identity
When we teach AI ethics, we're also teaching:
Civic engagement
Empathy and fairness
Systems thinking
Voice and agency
This matters even more for neurodivergent learners, students from marginalized backgrounds, and students who often experience bias firsthand.
Their experiences must inform the ethical frameworks we build.
Resource Corner
🧩 MIT Media Lab: AI + Ethics Curriculum – Free units for middle and high school
📜 Day of AI - Ethical Inquiry Lessons
📝 Want a Student AI Bill of Rights template? Click here for an AI Bill of Rights, here for a reflection lesson, here for an extra student project challenge. Or if you would like to use the Bill of Rights and have students discuss with an AI-bot you can skip the reflection lesson worksheet and use this link for a custom chatbot created on MagicSchool. There is also a rubric you can access here.
Final Thought: Build Ethics Like You Build Community
We don't just tell students how to treat each other—we model, co-create, and revisit norms together.
The same should be true with AI.
When students participate in building ethical guidelines, they don't just follow the rules—they believe in them.
