With the rapid rise of easily accessible AI tools this year, there are a lot of educators scrambling to answer the question around how the use of AI in the classroom will impact learning. With this, there is a strong desire to have some written statements around how AI could and should be used in the classroom. While some are going to run off and just say to ban it from the start, this is almost impossible with the fact that various AI tools like ChatGPT and Bard have been integrated into so many tools that we already use. Banning it is not as simple as some would like and then we have to look at the big picture about how we should be trying to help our learners be successful beyond the classroom and AI is not a piece of technology hat is going away, it is only going to be better and better.

What we should be doing, at least in my own professional opinion, is to have an open discussion with students from the start. We know that not all students will know how to use these new tools in an appropriate way and there are many ways that students could be using these tools in order to help them learn in ways that may not have been possible before. I can already imagine new ways of learning that could help those who have struggled in the past, but give them new options and resources they did not have access to in the past. We should be looking for how we can best help students and not just have our fears dictate our actions.

One thing that I have heard many ask for is a simple statement around academic integrity and the use of AI tools. While this should already fall under any academic dishonesty statement teachers already have, I can see the desire to have more specific statements around the use of AI tools. We can also show students various scenarios in which the use of an AI tool is appropriate versus downright cheating. Using Bard or ChatGPT to summarize some articles or Youtube videos could be very appropriate but using it to write your whole paper or code for your computer science class, would not be as appropriate. There is not hard lines on this but it would help to have discussions from the start and keep adding to the list as you progress. You may encounter new situations, many you did not initially think about, as the year progresses. Not to mention the fact that we can’t predict how the AI tools will change and progress as the school year goes on.

Many universities have already created language examples for professors to use in their classes. Iowa State University (Disclaimer: I have a few degrees from ISU and have taught for them in the past) have a great resource from their Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching department about how they could include statements around AI use into their syllabus. I have seen a few examples from various high schools as well but none have really hit the goal for what I would want to say. So naturally I turned to one of the AI tools themselves, ChatGPT, to see what it would say would be a good statement around academic dishonesty and the use of AI tools. The section at the bottom this post is what it was able to create.

This could be a great base to start from but the key points that I would want to make is that we are starting to see some AI tools that can help students stay organized, help create outlines to get them started on papers or projects when they would otherwise be stuck, have a discussion partner to bounce ideas off of, and even provide support when they have questions when outside of the classroom. I ultimately hope that these AI tools can bridge a gap over the inequities to outside resources that our students face as they become easily more accessible. Whereas you have situations like with my own son, who has two very educated parents at home who can provide support on homework, there are many students who do not have this resource and then would be expected to perform the same as those who do. I would love to see AI tools become an easily accessible tutor for all students to use as they need and help them become better learners than ever before.

The question you have to ask yourself is how can you best use this technology to help students. It is out there, they have access, it is only going to get better and better. Do we see this as a tool to use to improve teaching and learning, or a tool to be scared of as we would be scared of Skynet.