We asked our form groups to fill out an anonymous survey. A total of 31 out of 33 had used AI in schoolwork, and 27 thought it should be taught in schools.
In interviews, most of our friends and classmates had used ChatGPT, an online tool that can answer questions in human-like language. They said it helped them come up with ideas, research, and things like structuring and phrasing. Some, though, confessed to using it to cheat. (1)
It did not always go to plan. One person said ChatGPT gave them the wrong dates for a history essay, and another said it got “90% of the answers wrong” in a physics assignment.
However, the idea that it was not fully trustworthy did not put off most people from using it. “You can get a really structured answer from the likes of ChatGPT and then back that up with other extended research,” one person said. (1)
And, with AI being easily accessible 24 hours a day, there was some debate about whether it was better than a teacher. “A teacher can have more of an understanding of you and they might have a personal connection, whereas AI doesn’t really know anybody at all, it’s just anonymous,” one said.
Teachers themselves are exploring the potential of this rapidly developing technology, too. Jonathan Wharmby, who teaches computer science at Cardinal Heenan Catholic High School in Liverpool, uses AI to help with planning and creating resources, such as multiple choice questions - but said there were issues. “Sometimes ChatGPT and the like will go off on tangents or will give incorrect answers, so it still needs me to look over them to check that they are correct,” he said.
He said using ChatGPT in an exam scenario would be cheating, just as would using a search engine. “But to help you with your schoolwork, I don’t see an issue - as long as you’ve got that critical eye and you double check what it’s coming back with,” he added. (1)
The government in England launched a consultation this year on AI in education, including on how it can be misused, and will publish its results later in the year.
(1) IIRC, teenagers, especially boys, are inherently lazy so, once the “exercise” is completed, most would be unlikely to assume critical eye and spend time on a “double check” and “extended research”.
As for the teachers, how are they going to mark what is, for the most part, identical material?
Of course, other aspects of learning like, memory training, comprehension and paraphrasing/summarising (for which there is already a specific free online tool - https://quillbot.com/
Seemingly, many teachers haven’t a clue about AI so educationalists must be having kittens.
In the year since OpenAI released ChatGPT, high school teacher Vicki Davis has been rethinking every single assignment she gives her students. Davis, a computer science teacher at Sherwood Christian Academy in Georgia, was well-positioned to be an early adopter of the technology. She’s also the IT director at the school and helped put together an AI policy in March: the school opted to allow the use of AI tools for specific projects so long as students discussed it with their teachers and cited the tool. In Davis’ mind, there were good and bad uses of AI, and ignoring its growing popularity was not going to help students unlock the productive uses or understand its dangers.
“It’s actually changed how I design my projects because there are some times I want my students to use AI, and then there are times I don’t want them to,” Davis said. “What am I trying to teach here? Is this an appropriate use of AI or not?”
Educators like her played with the tools and tried to understand how they work, what the utility could be – for teachers and students alike – and, perhaps most pressingly, how the software could be misused. Some took drastic measures, going so far as to abandon homework assignments as long as the technology was accessible.
“It feels like we’re in some sort of lab experimenting with our kids because it’s changing so rapidly,” Davis said. “If you had asked me about any of this last fall, I couldn’t have told you any of it because ChatGPT didn’t exist.”
Well, she’s an expert and she should have seen it coming … but now that she knows will she be able to keep up with the frantic pace of progress …
