The reduced critical thinking skills among students using AI is likely part of a larger issue tied to systemic pressures and their attitudes about education that have shifted greatly over the last few decades.
According to this recent study, frequent use of AI tools, especially among younger people, is associated with reduced critical thinking skills.
For the last couple of years, I’ve been trying to gauge student use of AI for submissions and trying to determine what levers may be available to deter the offloading of their thinking.
A lot of it comes down to the fact that they don’t think things like this apply to them and they just want to make it through.
So far, students I’ve spoken with often express indifference about their AI usage. They:
- have not indicated that they care that using AI for submissions is cheating.
- do not seem fazed that an interaction with an LLM uses the equivalent of a bottle of water.
- do not care if AI tools are trained on their interactions
- do not care that pasting/uploading copyrighted material is also used in the training of LLM without compensation to the creators/copyright holders.
This seems rooted in a deeper sense of disconnection and generally just being overwhelmed. They typically seem to view school as an obstacle to overcome, not something that is a valuable part of the learning experience that will give them skills and knowledge for the future. They often overestimate their capabilities on a given task and would just like to finish something as soon as possible and be done. I do not think that this is due to some shortcomings in younger generations. We let this happen to them.
They’re busy, overscheduled, anxious and looking for the next thing they have to do. I don’t know all the causes for this, but I can guess at a few…
- We never addressed the experiences and feelings loss related to the remote emergency learning era. On a related note, we still lose 900 Americans a month to COVID and we don’t even really talk about it. We’ve all lost connection.
- The importance placed on grades and credits over learning motivates students to play a game and get it done.
- Anxiety around the future when it comes to the cost of post-secondary, housing, cost of living when wages haven’t kept up with basic needs.
- Bullying and school violence persist and there rarely seem to be consequences for repeated bullying. Yet we force students to attend places every day where they are tormented and harmed.
- They have more responsibilities for work and extracurricular activities.
- Mental health issues are worsened through screen and social media addiction, which harms self-worth.
That is just a quick list of the top of my head that I mostly didn’t have to deal with 30 years ago when I was in school. These attitudes don’t arise in a vacuum. They are the result of broader systemic pressures that have shaped how students view education and their role within it. Is it any wonder they’re turning their thinking over to a machine that will shortcut their efforts? They just want to get it done. We have an opportunity to rebuild connections and show students that they are valued.
I was hoping that the arrival of LLM would have led to the death of the 5 paragraph essay and the types of assignments that don’t really help demonstrate what they know and how they connect to what they are learning. It hasn’t really been panning out that way. Teachers simply don’t have time to make the revisions and rethink education on the fly.
We’ve seen diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives now fall by the wayside as more and more companies eliminate those requirements. We see state legislatures ban the use of the terms altogether. We see Social Emotional Learning (SEL) cuts, if not bans on the term completely! If we don’t address these systemic issues, can we really blame students for turning to shortcuts?
I have had some success this year by redesigning assignments, rubrics and feedback keeping AI use in mind. I had minimal time to do this over last summer and put in a lot of my own time and work into figuring this out.
How can we shift the system to prioritize learning, well-being, and engagement over just getting it done? One of the things I’d start with is giving teachers time, space and community to work on these issues together. Schools could provide workshops or collaborative time for teachers to redesign curricula that reflect the changing realities of an AI-driven world (it’s not going anywhere). This could include training on how to integrate AI tools as learning partners rather than replacements for thinking. Regardless of how people might feel about that, I want to be realistic to the reality we find ourselves in. It’s easy to see AI as the villain in all of this. To me, the use of it to get student work done quickly is the result of the system we’ve built.
I want to be part of the solution when it comes to these issues, especially as it relates to AI, accessibility, equity and inclusion. That is why I have resigned my full time teaching role and am working to connect with schools and organizations who want support from someone who has had time to think about these issues and develop strategies that help us get back on track with our learners and gain some credibility with them.
For more on my work on AI go to Inclusive AI Strategies!