At Saddle River Day School, we know our teachers love their students, and we know they love teaching. We witness their regular, meaningful interactions with each of their students, we see the passion they have for sharing knowledge as they inspire lifelong learners, and we know the difference their personal attention makes in our children’s lives. We benefit from low student: faculty ratio and the SRDS culture of differentiating instruction so that Saddle River Day School students receive instruction that is flexible and can be personalized to them. But, according to Sonny Arcot, AI Automation Consultant and Founder and CEO at The Arcot Group, SRDS educators have also expressed the wish that they could find the time to make each child’s educational experience even more individualized to them.
This is, of course, what Artificial Intelligence has been designed to do; help busy professionals manage their daily tasks in a way that allows for them to prioritize their most meaningful responsibilities. In the case of SRDS teachers, this means using AI to help them generate and present lessons, and grade papers, tests, and projects, leaving more time for our dedicated educators to put our children first. The Arcot Group, in conjunction with Arcitech.ai, their software development partner, has designed a learning management AI tool in response to feedback from Saddle River Day School teachers that will help them optimize their instructional time each day while ensuring each child’s educational experience is tailored to their own individual learning style, interests, and the speed with which they take in knowledge.
Basic information about each child will be provided to the AI learning management tool, including the child’s interests and/or hobbies. As students proceed through lessons that have been generated by their teachers and then taught to the AI tool, questions, problems, and stories will be presented to the students using examples that are relevant and interesting to them. Imagine solving a word problem about the speed of a soccer ball instead of a train traveling from Chicago to Boise. Or budding marine biologists learning to calculate volume based on the capacity of a fish tank, or literature students learning to analyze poetry by dissecting sonnets about Taylor Swift instead of a summer’s day.
An AI Assistant will not only be available to help students complete their assignments but will also track their speed and accuracy, providing a real time assessment of their comprehension and proficiency. This kind of immediate feedback will enable classroom teachers to provide targeted instruction in order to increase their students’ fluency. Assignments will be graded based on rubrics that designate their unique characteristics, standards, and specifications. Rubric criteria can be adjusted to accommodate each individual child.
Teachers at SRDS who have been trained in the new learning management tool have immediately seen the value and have begun to ideate additional applications for the technology. To this end, the Center for Technology & Computer Science will be hosting an International Teacher Training on campus this summer. Teachers from all over the world are invited to visit SRDS to experiment with the ways they can integrate Virtual Reality and Artificial Intelligence into their classrooms and curricula. These teachers will have the benefit of their cohort of teachers so they can share new ideas, applications, and best practices.
It is indisputable that AI and VR technology will change the way our children access and acquire knowledge. In fact, they already are. It’s up to us as parents and educators to provide them with guidelines and parameters for using these new tools ethically, responsibly, and efficiently. Sonny Arcot and the administration at SRDS are building this framework to support our children in the present, even as they are propelled into their future.
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Saddle River Day School
Pre-K3 to Grade 12
147 Chestnut Ridge Road • Saddle River, NJ 07458 • Tel: 201.327.4050
Watch your child grow from a student into a scholar—and into a lifetime of success.
From exploring Spanish, music and lab-based science beginning in Pre-K to hosting a TEDxYouth Conference in high school … from active play to competing on a championship Rebel Athletics team … inspiring success starts right from the beginning at Saddle River Day School.
Here, learning begins with an intriguing problem to solve, a story that captivates or a question that provokes curiosity—and the personal connection between teachers and students motivates everyone. To develop holistic, “right-brain” thinkers, we integrate science, technology, engineering, art and math, and celebrate different ways to solve real problems.
SRDS graduates from recent years are thriving at top colleges like Boston College, Northwestern, NYU, and UPenn. They are creative individuals inspired to think, solve and achieve—in academics and in life.