I recently wrote about teaching in the age of AI. It’s worth taking some more time talking specifically about student use of these tools and how we are very unlikely to redesign our courses in ways that discourage use. When all of this started, that’s what I tried to do. I thought my courses were a little safer because so much of what I ask of my learners is to provide their own personal insights, conclusions, connections, examples, etc. I am continually trying to push for what they think and why they think it. I ask reflection questions, give lots of choice, try to make it about them. When I saw other teachers struggling with student submissions, we’d talk about it. Sometimes I’d share those frustrations, it wasn’t great. I wrote about it previously.
I also wrote about why I thought students were using AI in my post, Many Students Simply Don’t Care When It Comes to AI. I still believe all of those things to be true.
This post is more of an update related to some of those previous thoughts and insights because now, as of today, I have another school year under my belt. I noticed AI use go from about 25% of students trying to get away with AI doing their work for them earlier in the year to finishing with about half of my students trying to take shortcuts using AI. As a quick review:
- I don’t blame them really, I probably would have tried it too.
- I regularly read about AI, new research, new practices, experiences, insights..
- I’m still trying to develop new ways of enhancing assignments and responding to learners who use AI. There are a lot of improvements to be made in traditional educational settings and it’s past time we did something about it. (Though unlikely without support, time and resources teachers need.)
I think about this topic to some extent every day and I have a few things to add to my attitude about learner use and why it’s particularly difficult to prevent. We’ve all seen headlines like the following:
- Lawyers caught using AI with made up citations
- The Chicago Sun-Times obviously gets ChatGPT to write a ‘summer reads’ feature almost entirely made up of real authors but completely fake books.
- Trump Admin Accused of Using AI to Draft Executive Orders
There are even more examples that students see. They almost certainly know that teachers are talking about using AI to develop content and lesson plans (with lack of proper guidance is also problematic).
So, considering all of that… Of course students are using AI, they see adults doing it everywhere with no consequences! How can we have any credibility as educators if we don’t start our courses off with an open and honest discussion about these strange times we are in when humans never fail to take a shortcut, there is a lack of accountability being demonstrated in front of us regularly that doesn’t ever seem to result in consequences. And we are holding our learners to a higher standard than we are holding adults who should know better.
I’m not a big fan of giving students zeros on AI submissions as a final grade. It doesn’t really factor in to the final assessment of what they are proving they know, or what they can do. Until we, as a society, land on where AI fits into our culture—which doesn’t appear to be any time soon, it’s time we take a step back and give students a chance to try again, and again if necessary, and again after that. We should also keep remind ourselves that the desire for the shortcut will almost always win out unless we have some other motivation for doing the hard thing.