“Trying to look for an easy shortcut? Aren’t we all?” asked Mrs. Rizas, a Social Studies teacher at B-CC, in response to the use of artificial intelligence among students to complete their schoolwork.
The increase in AI usage among students hasn’t gone unnoticed by teachers. “As far as kids, trying to put in an essay prompt and pulling an essay out of it, it was usually pretty overt,” said Koplowitz. However, some teachers haven’t noticed the use of artificial intelligence as much. “I don’t know if I’ve necessarily seen it unless I’ve asked them to use it,” said Rizas.
However, students have seen their peers frequently using AI in school. More specifically, students believe that AI is mainly being used for “open-ended questions,” according to Freshman Emma Koeppel. “There [are] so many times, not even in English classes, in other classes too, [students will] be like, ‘Oh, I did my homework using AI,’ ‘Oh, I didn’t have any time so I just asked Open AI or ChatGPT,’’ said Junior Tasia Mallombasang.
Teachers at B-CC believe there are both positive and negative ways that AI can be used in a classroom setting. “If [students] can’t think through a complex problem themselves, if they’ve never worked through the process, I worry about their inability to do that in the real world [without] being able to pull something generic off ChatGPT or another AI program, something that everyone has access to,” said Koplowitz.
However, teachers do see how AI can be used as a tool for students. “I think it can be helpful to the student’s learning to help them get started… [it helps] to narrow down ideas,” said Rizas.
Teachers at B-CC have taken it upon themselves to acknowledge the use of AI among their students. “For some jobs, students will be encouraged to and need to be able to use ChatGPT,” said Koplowitz, adding, “I just want to make sure I am not sending anybody out into the real world without the opportunity to learn the process without it.” Similarly, Ms. Cameron in the Social Studies Department, has discussed with her students what they can and cannot use AI for, and the purpose of completing their own work, “I don’t know that that will prevent students from using it, but that has been my approach, at least.”
According to Social Studies teacher Mrs. Lansell, there hasn’t been, “any assistance from the county or guidelines” on student use of AI. At the beginning of the school year, the county held an optional training. Resource Teacher for Social Studies, Dr. Hogewood, said that many teachers agreed the training was, “more of a discussion. He said, “The theme of that was basically that AI is here, we need to figure out how to work with it as opposed to working against it.”
Although there are no official B-CC or MCPS county policies regarding the use of AI among students, there are disciplinary actions can that teachers take when a student uses artificial intelligence to do their work for them; “The first thing, even if I am unable to nab them for plagiarism, which is the first course of action where they would get a zero on the paper and have a referral written up, is they are going to lose points if the thinking doesn’t reflect the skills we’ve been working on in class. And both in my AP class and my English 11 class, it’s very skills-based,” according to Koplowitz.
Hogewood believes that the basic idea of the optional training was, “We’ll figure it out,” by finding, “ways to have kids use it to help [them] learn from it as opposed to trying to fight it, because it’s here to stay.” As for what teachers believe should be done, Rizas states, “In my classroom, I haven’t seen it be used so often that I wish there was a policy about it. But, I’m sure in the future we will need one.”
Every student needs to realize what consequences they may face if they become too reliant on AI, and every teacher needs to address ways they can help guide their students in the right direction when it comes to using AI. Cameron states, “I have a feeling that education is going to shift.”
