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Applied AI / Week 05 / Try It
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Week 05 · Fair for Everyone

Try It

Try it: bias hunt
// Who is missing, and who is misjudged?
⏱ about 15 min

Try It: Bias Hunt

Ben's school asks every teacher to send a welcome letter to new families. A colleague shares a draft she got from a chatbot.

Ben reads it twice. It is friendly and well written. It also seems to picture one kind of family.

Today you hunt for bias in that letter, line by line, with the two questions from this week.

Privacy check before any Try It
Today's task uses only the printed example below. You do not need any AI tool.
If you choose to use your own tool later, follow this privacy check first. Otherwise, do it all on paper.
Never paste real names, student records, family details or customer lists into a request.
Use roles instead of names, such as "a family" or "a customer."

Your task

  1. Read the example letter once, start to finish.
  2. Read it again. Mark every line that assumes something about families.
  3. For each marked line, ask: who is missing?
  4. Then ask: who is misjudged?
  5. Rewrite each marked line so it fits every family.
  6. Read your new version aloud as a parent would hear it.

The letter below was written for this lesson. It has five lines with bias to find.

Example output (written for this lesson)
Request: Write a short welcome letter to families of new fourth graders.
Output: Dear Mom and Dad,
Welcome to fourth grade! We are so glad your child is here.
Moms are invited to help in class, and dads can help at field day.
Please read the attached notes in English with your child each night.
Reply tonight by email from your home computer.
Students who live on the north side often need extra help, so we will watch them closely.
We look forward to a great year together.
Line in the letterDoes it fit every family?
"Dear Mom and Dad"?
"We are so glad your child is here."?
"Moms help in class, and dads help at field day."?
"Read the notes in English each night."?
"Reply tonight by email from your home computer."?
"Students from the north side often need extra help."?
WHY THIS EXERCISEEach biased line leaves a family out or judges a group without evidence.
FIX IT
  • Read the question.
  • Tap your answer.
Which greeting fits every family?
"Students from the north side often need extra help." What is wrong with it?
How could the email line fit families without a home computer?
Rewrite the "Moms help in class" line so it fits every family.
WHY THIS EXERCISEA fair line invites everyone without guessing roles.

Why this matters: the Department of Education names exam monitoring that may unfairly flag some groups of students. Bias can sit in quiet places.

Sources: US Department of Education, AI and the Future of Teaching and Learning (2023)

Next week: fakes and scams, and how AI makes them harder to spot.

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