AI in the Classroom

This week, I chose to try out Perplexity. It’s an AI tool that I have heard of before, but had not tried out until now. Overall, I found it rather similar to ChatGPT. However, I now prefer Perplexity because of how it links to online sources and shares where it is getting it’s information from. I think that there are many ways that Perplexity can be a helpful tool in the classroom if used properly.

I began by testing out various ways that Perplexity might be useful for teaching. I had it make me lesson plans, tests, an email to a parent, and suggestions for classroom management.

While it is not very professional to copy and paste straight from an AI tool, I think that Perplexity can be a great place for teachers to turn to for ideas. It can enhance teaching through helping teachers think differently and giving them new ideas to try out.

However, every class is different and every teach must filter AI suggestions through what will work best for their class.

Perplexity can also be a great tool for students to use, if they are taught how to use it correctly. As a teacher, I will show students acceptable ways to use Perplexity and how it can get them started on a project. For example, I would not have a problem with students using Perplexity to help them study for a test, give them a suggestion for an essay outline, or provide them with relevant sources.

Additionally, Perplexity can be useful for assessing student understanding. Student’s could use it to check their work before handing it into their teacher. Perplexity can give feedback and suggest areas that could use some improvement.

While Perplexity is a great tool, it also comes with several ethical and practical issues. As a teacher, we want to assess our student’s understanding, not the abilities of an AI tool. Therefore, we must teach our students how to use Perplexity as a tool to help their thinking, not entirely replace it. Additionally, we must teach them that directly copying from Perplexity is a form of plagiarism, which is unacceptable. Therefore, we should place clear parameters around the use of AI and how it properly cite its use in their work.

This is an unacceptable way for students to use Perplexity and is considered plagiarism:

While there are tools that claim to check if AI is present in student work, they are not entirely accurate or trustworthy. These tools raise flags, but are not definitive proof of cheating. Therefore, teachers must use their own judgement alongside these AI-checkers and ensure that they are not falsely accusing students of plagiarism via AI.

Just as students can be tempted to use Perplexity to do all of the thinking for them, so can teachers. Different schools and divisions likely have different rules surrounding teacher’s use of AI. Teachers should have an awareness of what is an acceptable use of AI within their professional and what is frowned upon by their division. For example, there are principles that would have no issues with you using Perplexity to draft an email to a parent, while other principles would find this lazy and unprofessional. As teachers, we must find ways to use Perplexity and other AI tools to aid in our thinking or quicken tedious tasks, while not replacing it with our own thoughts.

Throughout my internship, I used ChatGPT to give me ideas for lesson plans, put students into randomized groups, and create questions for worksheets. I find AI to be a very helpful tool as a teacher. We have a lot to do and very little time to do it. If AI can lesson the time that we spend prepping our lessons or doing tedious tasks, I think that it is worth it. However, I am careful to not depend on AI for everything or to replace my own thinking. It is a tool, not a replacement of my training and knowledge as an educator.

While I have no issues with students using AI to give them ideas or check their work, this can be hard to monitor. In the past, I have told students not to use AI at all on their assignments because I did not want to go to the work of explaining acceptable/unacceptable uses of it. Moving forward, I would like to teach students how to properly use AI in the classroom and how to do it without cheating or plagiarizing. I think that it would be hypocritical to use AI to aid in my lesson planning but completely ban all student use of it.