With the recent innovations in AI, there has been a fear of AI use in educational settings, and in response, schools have implemented rules regarding AI plagiarism. While these fears are valid (students have been reported to use AI in their work to cheat), there are many reasons why AI should not be totally banned in schools. Instead, schools should teach students how to use AI effectively and responsibly. AI is beneficial to educational settings because it creates more efficient teaching and learning, expands on the creative side of education, and allows personalized learning.
First, AI can take the burden off of teachers while also increasing the productivity of students. With its ability to store information and present it when prompted, AI can answer student questions even outside of teacher office hours. This can prevent teachers from being inundated with emails outside of office hours. A recent experiment at The University of Murcia in Spain tested an AI chatbot that “answered students’ questions about the campus and areas of study.” The surprising result of this experiment was that the chatbot not only answered more than 38,708 questions correctly 91% of the time, it also increased student motivation. Though it is still in its early stages of innovation, AI bots do seem to have a benefit in schools. In addition, by having a tool that can consolidate the vast amount of information on the internet into a couple of paragraphs, AI minimizes the time that is needed for preliminary research, also increasing the productivity of students. In spite of its nature of not always being trustworthy, it still provides a good first base of information.
Second, AI promotes creativity and learning. Houman Harouni, a lecturer on education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a former elementary and high school teacher, explains, “You have to stop thinking that you can teach exactly the way you used to teach when the basic medium has changed.” Education should evolve with the advances in technology. Instead of banning AI models like ChatGPT, schools should learn how to embrace and incorporate it into their curriculum. Harouni continues, “If students can turn to ChatGPT or other AI language models for quick and easy answers then there is a problem with the lesson.” By using AI in educational settings, students are pushed to use their creativity rather than search for easy answers. One example of this is written by Harouni in an article for Wired. He describes a challenging assignment he gave to his students that used “ChatGPT to spur higher-level thinking.” The students quickly realized that their initial answers were no better than the chatbot, “it was after ChatGPT reflected to the students their failure of imagination that they could begin to think of options that they, or any automatic language scrawler, would not have readily reached for”, Harouni recalls. Despite the criticisms of student plagiarism with AI, it should be embraced in schools as a new tool to promote a better education of creativity among students.
Lastly, AI can help create personalized learning. A key characteristic of AI is its ability to gather information. It can observe a student's study patterns or wrong answers and know how to help the student improve. Recently, Khan Academy has been testing a new learning technology, an AI called Khanmigo that interacts with students by asking questions and promoting thinking. In addition, Duolingo has also announced an AI feature that involves explaining wrong answers, and using role play to learn languages. This will greatly improve the learning capabilities of individual students as not all students learn the same way. By providing a way for students to learn in a way they are comfortable with, we can make learning more efficient for students. Additionally, this can also help students with learning disabilities who struggle to keep up with class. AI can improve education and the way information is absorbed based on the student.
This is just the beginning of AI, and it doesn't seem to be going away. It will continue to develop and expand, creating more tools that the world will have to learn to adapt to. To conclude, even with the many criticisms of the abuse of AI in schools, AI is a helpful tool that can improve productivity of students and teachers, promote creativity, and create personalized learning.
