By Robert Mueller
Image from wfyi
Have you ever stayed up late the night before a quiz, stuck on an obscure question you don’t know how to figure out? Instead of waiting to ask the teacher minutes before the quiz or scrolling through endless websites of useless information, using AI to help you solve the question can be the best option, as long as it is done right. AI is a rapidly growing field, and its presence in classrooms is growing whether teachers control it or not. I believe AI is one of the greatest educational tools that has ever been introduced to the world, and it should be used a lot more than it currently is, but most of the time, AI is abused and misused by students, so professionals tend to view it negatively. At its core, it’s basically an on-demand tutor with the knowledge of the most advanced professors available to everyone. The key difference between using AI successfully and using it to cheat is whether you ask for answers or ask to learn. When you just rely on AI to give you the answers, that is unscholarly and cheating, but when you apply it with a learning mindset, it gives you the full information on that topic so you can learn practically anything.
The capabilities that have surfaced in recent times include creating practice questions and quizzes, checking answers, explaining mistakes, and adjusting the difficulty of explanations based on the student’s background knowledge. It can also be a tool for teachers to take away some of the tedious tasks, like making rubrics, practice sets, lesson plans, etc. This could give more time for teachers to focus on their students and their needs instead of spending hours preparing lesson content and classroom
materials. For example, a teacher could use AI to create a basic practice worksheet and just do a final check to get it perfect, and that would save them hours.
That being said, AI should not “replace” teachers, but it can help them spend more time doing parts of teaching that need a human. If the world keeps going the way it’s going, AI is going to be one of the biggest assets that we will have, and knowing how to use it will be crucial for all future careers. Students will likely come across AI in college and at many other points in life, so learning how to use it in a responsible manner will be a necessity. Schools are supposed to prepare students for the future, yet they are leaving out what will turn out to be one of the most impactful tools in the future. On the other hand, you have people who will misuse AI and just ask it for answers, this erodes thinking, logic, and reasoning skills that are crucial for surviving and doing tasks. However, banning AI completely will not solve the problem because students are resilient and will find loopholes or ways to use it on assignments or use it after school.
Another huge problem with AI is that students who use it to blindly answer questions learn to trust it and not check if it’s right, leading them to add inaccurate info or other issues in their work. The biggest concern about AI in schools is that students can use it to remove all the work and complete the assignment the easy way, not learning anything, and encouraging cheating. The solution is teaching students how to use AI and when it is acceptable to use AI in school. For example, students should be allowed to use AI for explaining things, brainstorming ideas, or studying, but not to write essays or do assignments for them. I think with the right teaching and adaptations, AI can have a valuable place in the classroom. Its ability to tutor students on the exact subject they need while also being an expert on the topic is such an extraordinary ability. The problem is not AI itself but how it is applied to the learning environment and how people choose to use it. I think schools should teach students to harness the power of AI instead of labeling it as bad and cheating.
Leave a Reply