“I swear, I wrote it myself!”
When I think of AI I usually think of ChatGPT – it’s a favourite among my students. I teach senior English and in Ontario classes are streamed into academic levels. Since I work in a fairly small school, there are times when I have students who are placed out of their stream into streams that are more challenging than they are used to, which ultimately leads to some cheating. I don’t blame them, and on a level of self awareness I know that as their teacher I should be more considerate, but in a class of 31 I can’t catch everything. Until I can.
One of my favourite things to ask students when I suspect cheating/plagiarism, and now the us of AI to write their assignments is “do you know what this word means?” I ask them for definitions – if they are using a thesaurus to broaden their vocabulary, then even if the word seems out of place for them, they most likely will be able to give me a roundabout definition. If they can’t, then we move onto the talk of “I don’t think this work is yours.” It’s not a talk either of us enjoy, but usually students confess pretty quickly when you approach it in a calm and conversational manner. But then there is the issue of consequences – what do those look like for AI use and how do we implement consequences to something that is so rapidly changing?
In the debate, one of the most prominent things that stuck with me is the dehumanization of learning and education through AI. I don’t mean every use of AI, but specifically with writing and expression. When students write (and I think every English teacher will agree), there is a very clear voice for each student. Students, for the most part in high school, have a conversational tone and they use words they already have in their vernacular. At times they may sprinkle in some interesting adjectives to sound academic, but they do indeed write like high school students. When papers or assignments come in that don’t reflect the voice of students – those of whom you have worked with the entire semester – that’s when things get complicated.
I heard in the debate that “we should move away from writing essays and that could fix the problem,” but you can’t. In the Saskatchewan ELA curriculum, essay writing is a large component. Is the need to build skills to communicate effectively and persuasively in an organized manner always have to be an essay? No. But I would love to see another option presented that builds the same skills that an essay (or even essay style writing where you string together logical arguments in progressive paragraphs) does for our students. Perhaps I am just partial to essay writing because I’m a certified yapper – who knows.
I teach a lot of farming kids – kids who don’t want to go to university or college and therefore love to tell me that English class and writing essays is a waste of their time because they won’t need it. I am constantly reminding them that it’s not the essay – it’s the skills you learn through it. You learn to listen to direction, READ directions (which seems to be a never ending fight), follow structure, organize thoughts, create an argument with logic and evidence, perhaps even do research to ensure that you have knowledge on what you are talking about. All of those things are skills that they will use at their jobs, or even interacting with other people. Those are skills that AI cannot fill in during the real world.
Now of course I want to get away from the factory model of learning – where students sit in rows, teacher is the boss, and we all adhere to the strict schedules of our administrative overlords – but I can’t always do that. There are only so many things I can bend before they snap – I still have to fill out field trip paper work and write personalized report card comments. Those are skills that, while some people use AI to help them, I do not. There is something about reading human voice, or hearing human voice, that just adds some connection that AI lacks. That’s not to say that AI does not have it’s advantages in school, but when it comes to academic integrity I think the struggle will be a long hard road ahead.
I use AI to help create rubrics. It helps me save time. I input all of my criteria and outcome-based understandings and voila – rubric! HOWEVER – I do actually look over the rubric to make sure that it is accurate, appropriate, and usable. I change things to make more sense – or to make it easier for students to understand. I also use AI at times to order my ideas into categories when my brain just won’t figure out where things go. At times AI can be helpful for teachers, and I know that AI can also be helpful to students with some guidance.
This video from Kent University was interesting. I think that we as teachers often see the negatives in AI, or we don’t think about them because it can be too much – too much work, too much stress, and too much information. Just like any piece of media we get our students to consume and analyze, and the sources they get it from, we need to teach students to be critically literate. We need to teach them about bias, and that search engines produce the most used, most popular results first – and AI like ChatGPT works like a search engine to a degree. Once students can read for bias and understand how to critically analyze the sources of information, ChatGPT could be a tool – something to summarize, bullet point, break down, annotate, or reword. Not create.
AI will not replace teaching on the level we all think it might one day. Teaching is a profession that is more than knowledge transfer – we are councilors, parents, facilitators, friends, at times even medical professionals and bouncers (I’ve broken up a few fights). AI will never replace the connection that fosters learning in the first place, and we as teachers need to remember that AI, technology, hell, even the classroom does not equal learning and education. It is the thirst for knowledge, understanding, and connection to our lives that is the thing we call education. Nothing outside of us can take away the inherent community that we have together to learn. It’s innate. It’s animalistic. It’s education.
Artificial intelligence or Animalistic Intuition….. Indeed, AI is not the messiah. Just on a lighter mode…..What if AI has come to steal, kill, and destroy? I can’t agree less that some AI tools are dehumanizing education. However, the use of AI-powered VR and AR applications in science education is helping students visualize and understand abstract concepts. Nevertheless, I think the important thing is for teachers to develop strategies on how to maximize the use of AI to its fullest benefits..
English teacher here, too! I also said this piece during the debate: It isn’t about removing essay writing; it is about considering how we do it. Many people tried to use a totally timed essay-in-class method to combat the use of AI, myself included. While this worked for my DP students, who need the skill to pass their IB exams, it didn’t work for my MYP, who only had a couple of years of essay writing experience to help them write. My English department has switched to chunking essay writing and working on key pieces rather than the whole. We start with our introductions: What is a hook? How can we write one? Let’s try writing several and work together to evaluate their effectiveness. We use this style by working through their essays and practicing different topics rather than one big one. So far, I have seen much better writing than I have in ten years of teaching. It is always fun to have AI rewrite the kids’ work and evaluate the voice/quality it produces. As we all know, AI likes big words but often doesn’t say much. My G8s always get a kick out of that. As kids move through a system with AI, they will eventually get an idea of how it works. It’ll be rocky for a while before they use it as a tool rather than a quick fix.
I have never thought of having AI re-write for students and let them see the difference! I think that is such an interesting idea that I will have to try next semester!
What a great response! I loved your discussion around essay writing, I teach middle school students so I am beginning to get students into being able to write in that format and it teaches way more than just paragraph structure. So much of schooling isn’t the sole indicator we are trying to teach the students but instead the lifelong skills we are trying to teach them. I use the same kind of discussion when certain concepts come up in my math classes “when are we ever going to use this.” I simply say, well you might not use this skill specifically but what you will use every single day is problem solving and critical thinking skills, those skills are formed through solving math problems. I agree with you that AI does not allow for students to form those skills,,. It was interesting to me when you discussed how it is easy for you to spot when students may have used plagarism or cheating due to the voice that comes through on their assignments. We as teachers spend the year, sometimes more with students therefore, we often times know where they are at in their academics before the final paper or assignment is even turned in. Moving forward, I agree that it would be wise for us to know the procedure to act on these assignments where we think a student did cheat, then we know that accross division, or even province we are all on the same page (if that is even possible).
I would love to be all on the same page but we all know it doesn’t work like that. I have to ask my administration the protocol for AI usage to cheat, and honestly it is a bit different from each admin, but also a bit different every time. It makes accountability for students so much harder when it’s hard enough already!
English teacher here also! I loved your point about moving away from essay writing. I noted this during the debate as well. As much as I would love to move away from essays, and the marking associated with them, we can’t. It’s curriculum! And as I reflected more on this, I don’t think doing away with the essay entirely is reasonable either. Essay writing is an extremely valuable skill for most students. Being able to logically explain yourself is not something we can simply do away with because students might cheat using AI. I also think there is value in constructing a well-thought-out argument over time – something that students can’t achieve during timed writing, which as we discussed during the debate is something many teachers are going back to. Do I have the solution to these problems? Absolutely not. But I can tell you that reverting to old teaching methods or getting rid of important curricula aspects because of AI isn’t it.
I also think that cold-essay writing is not the way to evaluate students achievements – but in-class essay writing does not have to be timed down to 1 class period. Working on essay writing over time (say a week) by scaffolding each section is a low-stakes environment that can be beneficial without technology and lessen the stress of “oh my God now I have to write this all down before I forget!”
Savannah, I really enjoyed reading this post. You’ve done an excellent job of describing the complexities surrounding AI in our classrooms. Your final thoughts about teaching and education being about more than the tools that we use and the spaces we occupy really hit home for me. I think that one of the uphill battles we will always face in education is the difference between the perceptions from the historical experiences that parents had when they went to school and the reality of how classrooms and schools work today.
I agree! Nothing worse than hearing “well, when I was in school…” because sometimes while “you were in school” there was also segregation and we used derogatory terms to discuss marginalized groups?? Staying the same is not always the best – move up and move on I say!
Hi Savannah,
I absolutely agree with you when you say that AI will not replace teachers. Personally, I never saw it that way. I am conscious that there are jobs that will be replaced by AI and robots, but teaching is not one of them. In my country, Albania, we consider teachers as second mothers due to the immense role teachers have in the lives of students. AI or robots will never be able to foster empathy and offer emotional support to our students. What AI can offer is supplementary support for both teachers and students, as well as tools to enhance the learning experience.
I agree Ilda! I don’t think that AI could ever replace teachers – we are just too complex to have our job taken over by AI.
Great post, Savannah! It is apparent that you and many other teachers quickly get to know your students and their unique writing style, which will help you identify any AI red flags coming your way in assignments. I am not an English teacher but I have had students try to use “Photomath” to complete their math questions. This can be a little difficult to identify. However, I do believe if students are using AI to complete their work, it will eventually catch up to them on assessments. I guess all we can do as educators is help them understand WHY it is important to build these skills or learn these concepts and the purpose behind them. I agree with you… it is going to be a long hard road ahead, for everyone.
I forgot to add my name to the post! It’s Sarah Clarke!
I can’t imagine how hard it is to catch AI with math!! But I do agree that it can be easy to catch AI cheating through face-to-face or paper assessment. Or at least easier!