'25 MSAA Summer Institute

When we assess the potential of AI for transforming education, we should remember the iconic imagery of an infant monkey choosing between two surrogate 'mothers' - one a metal cylinder with a milk bottle and the other a soft fabric roll. AI-the steel mother-promises many practical benefits for an area like school counseling from mapping a student's potential to recommending a set of pathways for them to explore, but is no substitute for the mentorship of human counselors, which neuroscience shows is critical to student engagement and development. A cognitive scientist from MIT and Yale-backed by the US Department of Education-and the principal of Uxbridge High School-nationally recognized for his responsible approach to AI-will explore how we can leverage this remarkable opportunity to merge human compassion with computational efficiency in the service of student success.