Wichita Public Schools personalized learning for students using Microsoft Copilot

A small team of leaders within the school district began exploring the capabilities of Microsoft Copilot and GPT-4. Soon after they began to share their findings with the broader teaching and administrative staff. Because every member of the school district’s staff has their own Microsoft 365 A5 account, accessing Microsoft Copilot is as easy as opening their Microsoft Edge browser window. “Microsoft Copilot is a game changer,” says Olivia Sumner, a fourth through sixth grade teacher at Education Imagine Academy, a virtual school within Wichita Public Schools. “What immediately blew me away was the ability to use GPT-4 and the PDF Reader in Edge to generate and tailor lesson plans for my students.”

Granting teachers the power to focus more on each student

Dyane has for years held the idea of student voice and choice in the classroom as a guiding principle. It is a concept that once seemed difficult to deliver on, given the number of students in a single class, the small amount of time teachers have to prepare, and the equally short amount of one-on-one time educators get with each student. “More than anything, the efficiency that we can drive with Microsoft Copilot was what caught my eye,” says Dyane. “With these new capabilities, I can quickly generate authentic, project-based learning experiences on a micro level.”

Andy Curtis, who teaches sixth through ninth grade history at Education Imagine Academy, has only just begun to familiarize himself with Microsoft Copilot. He’s already using it to great effect in the classroom. “When we start teaching Machiavelli, students have a hard time understanding,” says Curtis. “The original is in Italian, and the translation is in an antiquated form of English.” When a student indicates that they are having difficulty with a certain passage of text, Curtis uses Microsoft Copilot summarize the section in modern English. Students in his classes are also now given lesson materials at their unique reading levels, in fonts conducive to their learning abilities, and which can be read aloud through Immersive Reader in Edge.

Sumner has also begun using the solution in her lesson planning sessions. “With Microsoft Copilot I was able to near-instantly create an entire quarter-long, project-based learning assignment for fourth through eighth grades and simultaneously assign each of the Kansas standards that I had requested for every core subject,” says Sumner. She even used the solution to add relevant art and organizers to the project. Without the assistance of Microsoft Copilot, Sumner estimates that the same amount of work would have taken eight hours—all of her lesson planning time for a few weeks straight.

Educators, Curtis notes, are often asked to do a lot with the time and money they are given. Solutions that enable these dedicated professionals to save time and focus on what matters most are therefore highly valuable to them. “Microsoft Copilot gives us the ability to differentiate our lessons without overinvesting our time in the process,” he says. Sumner knows just where she’ll be reinvesting her time. “Sometimes teachers are so overwhelmed that our ability to support kids through the emotional side of learning is what falls through the cracks,” she says. “I’m happy to have more of that energy back.”

A powerful solution deployed with simplicity and security in mind

Any digital tool brought into educational environments must of course work to safeguard the privacy of data. With new AI technology, this can be a complex and difficult thing to provide. But for Rob Dickson, Chief Information Officer of Wichita Public Schools, Microsoft Copilot presented no such issues. “Yes, Microsoft Copilot is an amazing tool, but to me an equally important aspect is that it comes as an extension of our existing, highly secure Microsoft ecosystem,” he says. “We don’t need to worry about creating a new data privacy agreement with an unknown entity or do any of the laborious back-end provisioning that would result in a new vendor relationship.”

“Because Microsoft Copilot is accessed through Edge on each educator’s Surface device, they simply access it using their Azure Entra ID, and Microsoft security protects it as well,” explains Dickson. “I don’t have to train people to use the solution. Their single sign on credential provides easy access. They gain personalization on top of data privacy and access to Microsoft Copilot.”

A next-generation teaching and learning solution

The leaders and educators at Wichita Public Schools are very familiar with disruption. From the move to remote learning to the introduction of AI in the classroom, they have seen a lot of change over the last few years. All the while, their focus has been on preparing students not only for the current technological landscape, but for their future as well. “We need to teach students how to use AI not just to improve their schoolwork, but how to use it effectively and ethically throughout their lives,” says Sumner.  

As Dyane looks back on the last few years of rapid change, she sees an important shift in how educators are bringing technology into the classroom. “For a while, we were adopting technology as a survival mechanism,” she says. “I’m seeing people adopt Microsoft Copilot purposefully. I think AI is really bringing teachers back into the conversation regarding how education is evolving.” To support teachers as they jump into AI-assisted education, Wichita Public Schools has put several professional development stations in place. There, aided by guides and hints, teachers can build confidence and hone the prompts used to generate content within Microsoft Copilot. “There is a highly documented anxiety “ping” that affects teachers each Sunday evening,” says Dyane. “We wonder if we are ready for the coming week and if we have time to get ready. When teachers embrace Microsoft Copilot and begin to understand the time savings it represents, I see the anxiety fade away, replaced by sighs of relief.”

The introduction of generative AI is creating a sea change in the ways people work, teach, and learn. Dyane is quick to note that these changes aren’t likely to go away. On the contrary, she believes that embracing Microsoft Copilot and tools like it is what will enable educators to meet tomorrow’s challenges today. “We’re seeing teachers create massive time savings with Microsoft Copilot, we’re seeing them positively influence the ways children approach and examine information. We’re not just ensuring the importance of our jobs for the future; we’re giving kids important 21st century foundational skills that they will build upon for the rest of their lives.”