AI has been on the rise in recent years. With programs such as ChatGPT to Google Gemini, you truly cannot go anywhere without encountering AI at least once in day-to-day life, especially within the classroom setting.
Many teachers have voiced to students whether or not they think using AI is good for them. A study cataloged by The Hechinger Report talks about how ChatGPT isn’t a replacement for a learning process. They also discuss how students tend to do worse on a test than a student who doesn’t use AI for learning new things.
“I think AI has a lot of potential to positively support education, but AI also has the potential of being misused,” said art teacher Justin DePue.
There have been good things said about letting students use AI for assistance, but teachers do discuss how there are times when students abuse AI usage.
World history teacher Gregg Halkuff said, “I think AI has become a problem for students. They no longer want to think. They’re more concerned about getting good grades than they are about learning.”
There has been a lot of AI usage in English classes due to students wanting an easier way to write an ACES paragraph or to summarize a book they didn’t read.
“I think AI in education is a complicated subject, mainly because it doesn’t help students use their intellectual thinking skills,” said DePue.
Even though teachers might have strong opinions on AI usage within the classroom, they still use it to get ideas for a lesson plan.
“Sometimes I use AI to help me get ideas on word problems I could use instead of repeating a word problem that I’ve discussed multiple times,” said math teacher Jennifer Mackey.
This has been the same response with multiple teachers. They use AI to help them get an idea, but they won’t copy it word for word. It’s just to help them get a plan when they’ve run out of creativity.
Students probably should follow what teachers are doing, because if they don’t, copying AI is a form of plagiarism. And we all know plagiarism isn’t tolerated in schools, especially in college.
With everyone on the planet using AI, tons of energy is being used to power the machines that provide AI, to get answers to questions such as “What is the book ‘Night’ by Elie Wiesel about?” or “What is the formula for a quadratic equation?” Stay tuned for next week’s article to find out the damaging effects of AI on our planet.
