Artificial Intelligence, frequently called AI, is growing in popularity in many places in our communities, especially in our education, making AI greatly disputed between students and teachers that think AI is beneficial in education and others that think AI is not beneficial.
“I think, depending on what you’re doing, it can be positive and it can be negative.” sophomore Carolina Cervantes said, “Taking the humanity out of something with AI makes it feel not genuine, especially language learning or art but if you’re using ai to help you fix and correct an essay, I think it can be positive with exceptions.”
According to a survey sent to Bellevue East students and staff, there are many different AI platforms being used for educational purposes in our school. Most AI platforms that some students use either help students edit their work, get ideas, or receive additional help learning material. According to Cervantes, she uses Turnitin which checks her writing for any mistakes and makes suggestions accordingly. AI platforms that some teachers and staff use either create assignments, develop lesson plans, or create a place for students to use AI responsibly.
“What I’ve used the most is Magic School AI and I’m about to start using a new website I found called Class Companion,” Instructor Nathaniel Steele said, “What I like about Magic School AI is that the teacher can create a sort of room that kids can use so that kids aren’t just using AI whenever they want to.”
AI platforms like Magic School AI can become a beneficial tool for students that need additional support in their education, but cannot always receive it because of large class sizes. Artificial Intelligence allows students to receive instant feedback that can be tailored to their learning enabling students to be more efficient with their class time to better their learning.
“There are different programmed tools catered to specific academic things that kids might need help with like writing feedback, getting ideas for a project, proofreading their work, or so many possibilities.” Steele said.
AI is often thought of as the future, but it is actually helping students to build their futures. Certain Artificial Intelligence platforms can be used to simulate job interviews, according to Instructor Ronda Aken, that can help students practice how to respond to job interview questions. AI is also being implemented in colleges and workplaces so learning how to use and navigate AI equips students to have the knowledge to be successful after high school.
“I also think that it can help with personalized learning,” Aken said. “There are some cool things that you can do as long as the teacher sets it up right, the student can ask a question and can have a conversation with AI. One thing they are using it for is to practice job interviews so you can go in and type in questions and then it will interview you.”
Artificial Intelligence can both benefit students and become harmful to their education. Instances where students use AI to do their class work for them can be negative towards their education. When students use AI to complete their assignments for them and not as a guide, they do not use critical thinking skills. If students do this, they also do not learn and retain the information for themselves.
“If kids are using it without teacher permission for purposes that are against the learning to replace the work and effort they need to do for an assignment, that is going to negatively impact them because then they are not actually learning anything.” Steele said.
AI can be prone to flaws that can lead to mistakes and false statements. Artificial intelligence searches through websites on the web to find information a student may have searched for. Resources on the web can list incorrect data which AI does not know is incorrect. The misinformation can mislead and harm student learning.
“Another thing that can be negative is that it’s looking at resources from all different things that are on the web and if there are things out there on the web that are incorrect then AI is going to be incorrect also, so those are things people need to be aware of,” Aken said.
AI is continuing to become more prevalent in our society as it continues to improve. Artificial Intelligence’s growing popularity and use in education leads many to question how much of a role AI should have in the classroom. Some students and staff members are still hesitant to use AI because they either do not understand it, trust it, or do not want their students to misuse AI. Other students and staff members see AI as a helpful tool that can be used often to better their learning and work.
“This might be a hot take but I think it [AI] should have a large role in students’ education,” Steele said.
