Asa Jelley
Artificial Intelligence has revolutionized the way our world works. It has made it much easier to gain direct access to questions people may have and it works even faster than the Internet. With that has come some controversy about the uses of AI, especially the use of it at the high school and college level. Many individuals believe that AI is harmful for students as it leads to more plagiarism on exams and essays. An AI detection tool known as Turnitin, found that out of the over 200 million papers reviewed, over 6 million were at least 80% AI written. For this reason there is wide support for AI to be banned in school as it hinders academic progress by allowing for new ways to cheat. While this is true, AI is not going anywhere anytime soon and is only going to get bigger. As a result, I believe that it is extremely important for students to learn how to benefit from AI and learn how to properly use it for their academic studies. Furthermore, AI can aid faculty members in order to create lesson plans that will be geared toward their specific class.
AI is not perfect and can provide information that is not totally accurate, so it is important for students to distinguish between a truth and a lie. One article by the Harvard Independent writes, “tools like ChatGPT impair learning when used incorrectly because of both the ease at which it can give students answers and its confident inaccuracies.” Despite this being true, the act of banning the use of AI is not going to fix the problem. Even if AI is banned there will still be students who try to find a way around this and use it to their advantage. This is why schools should embrace AI and teach students how to properly use it in order to distinguish fact from misinformation. AI is only going to become a bigger part of our lives, so learning how to use it to our advantage is extremely beneficial. Another article by EducationWeek Writes, “Teachers also said students should learn to be creative, generate their own ideas and focus on human interaction and hands-on learning.” Although this may be true for some students, AI can actually aid in creative thinking by helping students come up with ideas about a topic that they know very little about. In addition, it may assist students in coming up with an outline for their essays when they have no idea where to even begin.
AI is becoming a major part of the academic learning process and finding the many benefits can help propel learning in the classroom. The New York Times writes, “Los Angeles Unified School District had agreed to pay a start-up called AllHere “up to $6 million to develop Ed,” a chatbot that “would direct students toward academic and mental health resources, or tell parents whether their children had attended class that day, and provide their latest test scores.” This new initiative can expedite the communication system for students and their parents and can also encourage students to find helpful resources. This consequently will be of service to staff members who already have enough on their plate, which is teaching their students.
Another article by AI Powered Response Manager called AI in education statistics writes, “Less than a third (30%) of those working in low-poverty schools have received AI training opportunities compared to around one in 10 (12%) in high-poverty areas.” With so little training in both low-poverty and high-poverty areas many teachers are not equipped to even know how AI works. Moreover, students will continue to use AI without the teachers even being able to detect it. If there was more training on AI, professors would be able to understand how it works and be able to incorporate it in their classroom in a safe and beneficial way. This is further supported by a guide created by Walden University which writes, “Teachers who’ve tried AI have found that it can help make their jobs easier, from coming up with lesson plans to generating student project ideas to creating quizzes. With assistance from artificial intelligence, teachers can gain more time to spend with their students.” This AI is extremely helpful for faculty members as it lessens the time spent grading homework assignments, making tests and coming up with lesson plans. In turn this leads to them being able to spend more one-on-one time with their students and help with fostering the bond between teachers and their classroom.
Artificial intelligence can be seen by many as something that is scary and dangerous toward our way of life, however, just because we feel afraid does not mean AI is going to stop expanding. If we can learn to use AI to our benefit, it can be used to enable future generations to become more successful.