With the rise of prevalence of AI, people are left questioning: What is AI’s place in education?
If you haven’t been living under a rock, then you know what AI is. If you have, AI, or artificial intelligence, is technology that can perform complex tasks normally done by humans like problem solving, creating, and decision making. It is a rapidly growing field with various categories, but there are three main categories. The most commonly used of the categories are generative artificial intelligence (GenAI), which generates new content such as text, audio, images, etc. based on patterns in inputted data. Examples of GenAI are ChatGPT, Gemini, and DALL-E. When considering the usage of AI, people are usually referring to GenAI.
The Waterford school district is one of the many school districts facing the challenge of deciding the role of AI in education. Recently, the district has taken steps to embrace AI.
As AI is integrated, staff and students alike have mixed feelings about it. Ms. Hesch says, “As a history teacher, however, I tend to hate it” but knows that it will ‘become the next tool for my course.’” Mr. Silvestri, an English teacher, has a “very mixed opinion,” but thinks “It’s a ‘genie out of the bottle’ situation.” There are a lot of issues with students using AI to do 100% of their work. However, AI isn’t going to go anywhere any time soon.
This isn’t the viewpoint of all teachers. Mr. Wheeler is all for the “responsible use of AI for both students and teachers.” He thinks that AI, when used responsibly, is of great benefit to teachers and students and looks on the situation with more levity.
As AI becomes more commonplace in educational settings, the difference between district wants and what teachers are willing to do becomes stark. The district has given all teachers an “AI menu” poster to hang in classrooms. Some hang it up on the walls, others stuff it into a forgotten corner.
One thing that all teachers seem to agree on about AI is that it has massively impacted education. It has changed the way that teachers approach assignments and grading. Mr. Silvestri says that “It’s become very difficult to tell when a student actually does an assignment” and “weakening students’ ability to think deeply and critically.” A student even told him that they did not understand why they had to learn to write when AI exists. He has to carefully consider completed assignments and provide more motivation for students to learn basic skills. AI isn’t all storms and rain clouds, though. Mr. Wheeler talked about how AI has become a “great efficiency tool that helps us [teachers] create modern activities and materials.” This has allowed him to create better assignments and assess them better. Additionally, it has freed up time for more analysis and discussion.
As governing bodies try to decide where AI should stand in education, there remains no clear cut answer.
