Introduction

In this, the second in a series of articles, we seek to understand how AI is impacting education. If you haven’t read it yet, you may want to start with the previous article, Using AI: At home.

Now that you are getting familiar with using AI, and the capabilities it offers, you might be tempted to apply these technological breakthroughs to school or professional work. And frankly, that’s exactly what millions of other AI users are thinking right now, too.

When connecting with a GPT/Chatbot for the first time, I suspect most of us spend the first few minutes asking silly questions: tell me a joke, are you alive, write a poem about a dinosaur living in Japan. Pretty soon, though, we might turn our focus to more productive topics like:

  • Given an annual income of $75,000, how much should I spend on housing?
  • Write a report over the first 5 chapters of To Kill a Mockingbird
  • What are the pros and cons of capitalism?

Obviously, putting AI to use in a school context is completely different than in personal use at home. We’ll need to consider factors like:

  • What is my school’s policy on using AI? Do they have an AI policy at all?
  • What is allowed or blocked on my school device and firewall?
  • Will AI enable cheating? Can we prevent it?
  • How can AI enhance learning?

Like any new technology, it will take some time for the education system to figure out the best course forward. My local school district, for example, doesn’t have a written policy regarding the use of AI/GPT yet, but I expect one will be published in the next year or two. What’s clear is that educators and school administrators cannot ignore AI. ChatGPT alone is reporting over 100 million weekly users; showing that mainstream awareness and use of AI is real and only going to grow. With this in mind, let’s consider some of the questions above.

Will AI enable cheating?

This will be top of mind for any teacher, professor, or school administrator. If we look at some of the example prompts above, the answer is obvious. AI certainly can enable cheating. Even if top AI sites are blocked on school devices, this does not prevent students from using personal devices to ask questions like what is the main theme of Lord of the Flies. If this kind of power scares you, keep in mind the internet has been around for a few decades and already makes answers like this accessible.

How can we prevent cheating with AI?

First let’s talk about what not to do. I do not recommend that schools block access to AI on school devices. As mentioned, most students can easily access a personal or non-school computer, tablet, or smartphone. Rather, schools will need to be proactive and strategic about their homework and lessons. Simply sticking with the same instruction plans won’t cut it. I’ll talk more about this in the next section.

Tools are also becoming available which promise to detect AI writing. But generally, I don’t see this being the best approach. Consider that lie detectors also exist, but are not used to interrogate students. Likewise, AI detectors shouldn’t be relied upon except, perhaps, in conjunction with other methods. Why? Even the best AI detector is going to have false positives and missed negatives. If anti-cheat tools are to become as common place as spell checks, we will surely persecute innocent students along with those who cheat. Teachers’ observations should remain the primary identifier of potential cheating, along with conversations including the student and parent or guardian as appropriate. If a determination still cannot be made, perhaps adding AI detection as a datapoint becomes valuable. I just hope we can resist the temptation of running all homework assignments through them.

So, what should we do? First and foremost, expectations must be clearly communicated to students and their families. The honor system is ages old and many students will not intentionally break school code. By the way, these expectations can’t just say don’t use AI. In a few short years we can expect AI to be functioning alongside employees in many professions. It would be akin to saying don’t use computers.

To make meaningful use of AI while preventing cheating won’t be easy, but can be done. For many teachers, this will require some modification to the lesson plan. Consider, for starters, a flipped classroom approach. By completing more assignments in the classroom, students and their devices can be monitored. Increasing the amount of interpretation, analysis, and creativity in assignments can also be helpful in reducing the potential usefulness of AI.

Thinking beyond that, we want to actually include AI in assignments. Have students gather certain data and facts from AI up front, and then perform their own assessment or analysis or presentation. Have students ask an AI to tutor them in a specific subject. Help students understand how AI can complement their work, rather than replace it. When I was in school, it was common practice to turn in a draft essay, and then submit the final version after making corrections. Take this task to AI, by having students ask AI to review and suggest improvements on their writing.

Get creative and be proactive. AI is going to change the world, much like the personal computer and the internet. Consider this: what do you think schools will do when all of human knowledge was available to anyone at any time? Your answer may be shockingly close to how learning will change over the coming years, as AI becomes more and more prevalent. By integrating and embracing AI, it’s possible to enhance the learning experience, and help prepare students for the future workplace.

How can AI enhance learning?

AI is soon going to offer several capabilities that didn’t exist before:

  • A Personal assistant that can support you as an individual
  • Digital tutor that can adapt to your learning strengths
  • Automated editor/reviewer providing expert writing support

These capabilities are starting to pop-up in various forms, but are likely still a couple years off from truly revolutionizing how people get work done. But, let it sink in that we’re talking a couple of years, not decades, not generations, but soon.

We know that teachers rely on many online resources in learning today. TedTalks, YouTube videos, Wikipedia. These have been incorporated into learnings, with good positive impacts on retention and engagement. It’s time to start thinking about how to transform learning once again using AI.

Some ideas:

  • Students ask an AI to teach them about a subject. Then, they must teach it back to the class or a fellow student.
  • Teachers generate essays with invalid details, using AI, then ask the class to identify the errors or incorrect conclusions.

There is a ton of potential, and we are just at the threshold of what’s to come.

Conclusion

Although we are only scratching the surface on the complex requirements that come with adding AI into education, I hope this article gets you thinking about the implications, difficulties, and potential upsides as well. We must now look to our educators, working with AI experts, to craft a well-designed future of learning. I, for one, can’t wait to see where we go from here.

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