LAST SPRING, as I wrapped up my 18th year of teaching, I felt a sense of anxiety I’d never felt at the end of a school year. With grades coming in and summer looming, teachers can often breathe for the first time in nine months. Instead of the relaxation, joy, and accomplishment that usually comes with the end of the school year, I worried that this might be the last time in my nearly two-decade career that I’d teach a class without worrying about AI.
I get it — Ai News Reporter has technically been around for a long time, and natural language processing tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT are built on decades of research. Anyone who has used a spell checker or a language translation app or listened to a text message has used language processing tools powered by AI technology. But many teachers I know haven’t been too concerned about the extent to which AI might infiltrate our classrooms until now.
Most teachers keep up with technology to a reasonable degree and do their best to teach students how to use it responsibly. Many see technology as an instructional asset and I have long believed that students are more engaged when their lessons make full use of technology.
But, as the ancient Romans said, everything changes, and we change with it. No one knows this better than teachers. When ChatGPT exploded onto the scene last November, we couldn’t have predicted how our jobs would be affected.
As it turns out, ChatGPT is the fastest-growing consumer app in history, hitting 100 million active users in just two months after its launch, Reuters reports. By comparison, it took TikTok nine months and Instagram two years to reach the same milestone, according to data from Sensor Tower, a digital analytics company.
Suddenly, doing my best doesn’t seem like good enough. By the time the next school year starts, I’ll need knowledge about AI that didn’t seem urgent or even necessary a year ago. I’ll be spending most of this summer learning as much as I can about how AI is impacting education, students, and the classroom. Perhaps most importantly, I’ll need to get smarter about how to incorporate AI ethically into my teaching. With these goals in mind, I started looking for resources with the mindset of getting familiar with AI. After all, the best defense is a good attack.. Here are some things I’ve learned.
Ethics and AI in Education
Concerns about whether computers and robots will replace humans in any profession have long existed, and there are real concerns that AI will increase the pay gap between many jobs and professions—especially teachers. These concerns are valid (and scary) and need to be addressed. But depending on who you ask, AI may or may not replace teachers in the near future.
Bill Gates is famous for saying that AI is on the verge of becoming as good as teachers at teaching (and for some, implying that we will soon be replaced), but he would say so. Gates has invested billions of dollars in his own ideas about what education should be, and may want to see a return on his investment—an issue that raises ethical questions in itself.
To be honest, it is difficult to find balanced sources on the topic of AI’s impact on education. On the one hand, the rapid and sudden growth of technology has left little time to properly study it and its impact. On the other hand, sadly, there are many who feel that educators do not serve a useful purpose in society and are eager to see something – anything – put us out of work. Despite this, I found the Welcome to AI in Education podcast to be comprehensive and informative. Most episodes are under an hour long. The hosts are tech experts and Microsoft employees (the Microsoft relationship should be noted), but I appreciate their expertise and they provide an informed and objective perspective on how technology, and specifically AI, is impacting schools, as well as the ethics involved.
Another podcast, called TopClass, produced by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, “brings together OECD authors and researchers to interpret and explore emerging education data and provide objective insights into educational practices around the world,” according to their website. Their AI episode also offers a comprehensive look at how issues surrounding the use of AI impact education.
Finally, while not a podcast, this interview with Peter Stone, a university professor and AI expert, offers a thoughtful look at how technology impacts the classroom in general, and points realize that computers will never replace “the role of the teacher in the math classroom.” According to Stone, who teaches a graduate course on AI and ethical robotics, things like misinformation and the impact on the economy, and all that stuff, are very relevant for students from kindergarten to grade 12 to think about.” This is a worthwhile read and a reminder of how teachers’ responsibilities continue to change with technology.
How is AI being used in the classroom?
UK-based Eton College has been at the forefront of ethical use of AI in the classroom, and I was impressed by the school’s description of how teachers invited students to chat with an AI-powered version of Isaac Newton about “what people thought about gravity when he was young.” In a blog post on the subject, the school describes its efforts to explore “many different ways AI can enhance teaching and learning in a safe and ethical way,” and this post offers a practical look at how the latest AI can improve the learning experience by combining history with the present.
For those who need a reminder that they’ve been working with AI all along (possibly without even realizing it), the University of San Diego’s online site provides a detailed list of 43 examples of Artificial Intelligence in Education .
The Elephant in the Room: AI and Cheating
Perhaps every AI-focused question is an ethical one, and the one that most concerns many teachers is cheating and plagiarism. While cheating has never been a major issue in my courses (I’ve dealt with two cases in nearly two decades), I’m a little concerned about how the landscape of Intellectual integrity can change as technology makes cheating easier than ever. This NPR interview (with a podcast-style audio component) describes how some educators are addressing the ethical issue with chatbots, with one teacher even asking for it.
And of course there are the long-standing plagiarism detection tools, which have also evolved to detect the use of ChatGPT. GPTZero, created by Princeton University student Edward Tian, describes itself as the world’s number one AI detection tool and boasts over 1 million users, but reviews are mixed. According to Jumpstart, an online magazine that covers the world of startups and innovation, “the tool is still in its early stages of development and educators should not rely solely on it to assess student work. GPTZero itself acknowledges this… encourages encouragement to use it as one of many tools for grading assignments.
I’m less concerned with AI’s impact on cheating than its impact on relationships. Having taught at every level at some point in my career, I know the following: Students don’t learn from curriculum content, they learn from people. Students don’t build trust and rapport with the curriculum. The curriculum can’t serve as a role model, but the teacher can.
When a child is struggling, parents don’t want to talk to AI-driven speech engines—they want (and need and deserve) to deal with the humans who interact with their children every day. AI has given us (and perhaps taken away) a lot. But the humanity required to navigate intimate human relationships is not something AI can replace. We, as a society, can choose to learn this lesson the hard way, but as with everything else, it’s up to us.
