When Girls Lead: Action Research, AI, and the Power of Student Voice

This year, I have had the honor to conduct action research with our freshman class through a program called Global Action Research Collaborative (GARC) that is run by the International Coalition of Girls' Schools (ICGS). From learning about the process of action research to collaborating with educators from around the world and diving into current research, this opportunity has been an amazing professional development experience for me. This year's GARC topic focuses on the AI frontier in education, and specifically, I have been focused on the question of whether using AI as a data analysis tool for students to self-analyze their own emotion and activity data helps them grow in emotional intelligence. This has merged two of my focus areas, social-emotional growth in our students, and how our students are using and interacting with technology. 

The entire process of engaging in action research has been amazing; however, by far the best part has been working directly with our students. My project has focused on freshman students, and by the nature of action research, all of our freshmen were able to engage in this learning opportunity. From the first moment I shared my project with the students, they have been not only enthusiastic about helping, but also so thoughtful in their ideas, and I truly feel like I have been collaborating with them. 

We started the semester talking about emotions and the impact their activities have on their mood each day. They started the project already having a great awareness of how their various activities impact them, noting that spending time with friends and outside definitely helps boost their mood, while too much screen time makes them feel worse and more withdrawn. We also spoke about generative artificial intelligence, what it is, and the positive and negative effects that it can have on our world. 

The students' understanding of what AI does and how it can change the world around them was fascinating. They articulated the findings MIT observed in its study of AI: that using generative AI keeps your brain from having to learn and engage with the material. They also noted that it can diminish the power of human creativity by only mimicking what people have already done, and not creating new, unique ideas. However, they also recognize that it can help them save time, provide study strategies, and even help them understand complex concepts. They are already grappling with the challenge of how such a powerful technology can impact their world. 

Action research, by its design, allows researchers to continue to improve their teaching strategies as they learn from students. I designed a tracking system for students to track their moods and their activities to look for trends between the two. As students engaged in the process, I have been able to make modifications that I can use with our next group of students. As the students tracked their moods, they noted that it was hard for them to use different mood words to describe how they were feeling; often, they defaulted to tired or happy. However, they noted that they tried to incorporate more feeling words and having a feelings wheel accessible as they completed their spreadsheet helped them to be more descriptive in their language, and thus get more to the heart of how they were feeling. It was interesting to talk with students about screen time in general versus social media time. Some students noted that their productive screen time sometimes made them feel better because it meant that they were accomplishing assignments and projects. In contrast, when their screen time was mainly made up of social media scrolling, they could see the negative impact that it had on their moods. 

Overall, I have learned more from the students than I ever imagined. They have left me with piles of data and ideas that I can incorporate into our work here at Chatham Hall and improve processes for both them and future groups of students who engage with this process. This work has reminded me of the power of student voice and how much thought and care they put into their own learning and into their understanding of themselves.