Generative artificial intelligence has gone from novelty to a daily presence in schools. Once seen as a threat to academic integrity, AI tools such as ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini are now being approached with more nuance by teachers — some even hope to strike a balance between the positive and negative effects of AI, and some to tighten restrictions. The result of such measures is not only a shift in classroom culture but also learning in general.
Some teachers are actively taking measures to ensure students are not using AI in the classroom or at home. Mark Krewatch, an English teacher, has started to implement more in-class writing assignments where students are given a quote and told to explicate it. He hopes to ensure that the work being submitted by students reflects the student’s own ability to write instead of the student’s ability to manipulate prompts. This has been implemented in English 2 as of last year through in-class writing assignments and is being implemented in more classes this year.
Mr. Krewatch said, “It is about struggle. It’s about struggling to organize. What you learn when you start to organize something, and it doesn’t work is you’re learning how those ideas work together or don’t work together, and that is a process, and you learn it by doing it yourself. You learn by doing.”
Mr. Krewatch’s approach reflects a concern held by most educators: while AI may be a helpful study tool, it may cause a student to not understand or learn through the process of failure.
On the other hand, some teachers encourage students to use AI to understand assignments. Fatema Burhani, a math teacher, suggests that students use AI as a tool to understand content instead of just looking at the answers and copying down work.
“If you’re really lost and you looked at the notes and you couldn’t quite find it, maybe just ask AI, ‘What is the first step?’” Ms. Burhani said. “Sometimes you just need a little bit of help.”
While AI can be used in positive ways as Ms. Burhani suggests, students using AI to cheat and skip work is still a big issue that teachers face. Moreover, it’s discouraging for students who don’t use AI to see classmates getting high scores after using AI for assignments.
“We know that it’s being done enough, that it can be really disconcerting to other students and really a temptation,” Mr. Krewatch said.
