This topic is relevant to our Warrior audience because many students at Woodbridge High are aware of and use AI in class. Learning more about AI and the proper way to use it is important for our Warrior audience.
With the rise of open AI, many students have turned to using AI to complete assignments. In fact, according to a survey held by Best Colleges, 56% of college students have used open AI to complete assignments or even exams, even though 54% of students say that using open AI is a form of cheating according to student surveys. Even though students view using any AI platform as cheating they still continue to use it.
Chemistry and forensics Woodbridge High teacher, Jessica Bracken states, “I have caught students cheating using AI, looking things up, saying it’s theirs when it’s not. A lot of students don’t necessarily write at the level that AI writes, and so it’s very obvious.” This shows that the use of AI is a very big problem even in our own school. This is a major problem because it impairs learning.
Open AI can be inaccurate and “when the tools are used to do the cognitive work of thinking for students rather than to support their learning,” according to Dean of Harvard’s Graduate School of Education Martin West.
Although AI is controversial to teachers and students about whether it should be allowed in classrooms or not, AI can empower educators, accelerate learning, and personalize educational experiences quickly and easily. In the article “AI In Schools: 4 Transformative Ways AI Can Improve Education” by Sylvia Nguyen she says how AI is a “game changer”; it offers a “wealth” of benefits that help students learn smarter and teachers teach better, by providing new technological innovations. The article also states the 4 ways AI is effective in classrooms. For example, it can help students offer personalized learning experiences by analyzing each student’s strengths and weaknesses, make learning experiences more fun and motivating by providing real-time feedback and recognition, help teachers notice students’ learning gaps and resolve them, and lastly, AI can help increase productivity for teachers with automatic grading and feedback.
“I think it is very helpful that can make things slightly easier when working on things,”says senior Kiran Thakur. There are many ways AI can be beneficial and Thakur states how AI is great when “helping teachers make content for curriculum and use it to help students check their work more effectively or faster so that it puts less workload on the teacher.”
As a solution to the heightened use of AI to complete school work, teachers should set limits on the use of AI inside the classroom, along with the addition of requiring visual elements, those which AI isn’t able to create. As instructors begin to search for ways to reduce the percentage of cheating, many are referring back to the old-school use of paper and pencil rather than utilizing computers and other online resources. Although switching back to paper and pencil is a well-functioning solution, the act of requiring students to include various images such as diagrams, videos, and even drawings can help distinguish the use of AI and catch any and all students cheating on assignments, while still being able to use technology.
According to the article by Cengage titled “8 ways to Prevent Students From Cheating With AI ” one of the tips they deem to be effective is incorporating questions with visual or interactive elements. Requiring such elements help students analyze, interpret, visualize and at times even interact with a concept.
Physics teacher Laura Mattair said, “a majority of the assignments and work we give out is on paper, such as labs, notes and even quizzes, so it is difficult for students to use AI to cheat.”
By encouraging the practice of putting a pencil to paper educators are able to create an environment where students rely more on their own skills and knowledge rather than on AI.
Our Warrior audience should care about AI being used in classrooms because many students are starting to use it and using it in a way to cheat. However, knowing about the benefits and the problems of AI raises awareness among these students about using AI the correct way which is not using it to complete work but to get ideas or some help. Taking action towards this problem helps reduce cheating in classrooms. One way to take action is reducing the use of AI and using it to get ideas.
