Should AI be permitted in college classrooms? 4 scholars weigh in

Nicholas Tampio, professor of political science: Learn to think for yourself

As a professor, I imagine the aim of a faculty class is to teach students to think: to read scholarship, ask questions, formulate a thesis, collect and analyze data, draft an essay, take feedback from the teacher and other students, and write a final draft.

One problem with ChatGPT is that it allows students to provide a good paper without pondering or writing for themselves.

In my American political thought class, I assign speeches by Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X and ask students to compose an essay on what King and X might say a couple of current American political debate, comparable to the Supreme Court’s recent decision on affirmative motion.

Students could get fantastic grades in the event that they used ChatGPT to “write” their papers. But they’ll have missed a probability to enter a dialogue with two profound thinkers a couple of topic that would reshape American higher education and society.

The point of learning to write down will not be simply mental self-discovery. My students go on to careers in journalism, law, science, academia and business. Their employers often ask them to research and write a couple of topic.

Few employers will likely hire someone to make use of large language models that depend on an algorithm scraping databases full of errors and biases. Already, a lawyer has gotten in trouble for using ChatGPT to craft a motion full of fabricated cases. Employees succeed once they can research a subject and write intelligently about it.

Artificial intelligence is a tool that defeats a purpose of a faculty education – to learn the right way to think, and write, for oneself.

Patricia A. Young, professor of education: ChatGPT doesn’t promote advanced pondering

College students who’re operating from a convenience or entitlement mentality – one during which they think, “I’m entitled to make use of whatever technology is out there to me” – will naturally gravitate toward using ChatGPT with or without their professor’s permission. Using ChatGPT and submitting a course task as your individual creation is known as AI-assisted plagiarism.

Some professors allow using ChatGPT so long as students cite ChatGPT because the source. As a researcher who focuses on using technology in education, I imagine this practice must be thought through. Does this mean that ChatGPT would wish to cite its sources, in order that students could cite ChatGPT as a style of secondary source in accordance with APA style, a regular academic variety of citing papers? What Pandora’s box are we opening? Some users report that ChatGPT never reveals its sources anyway.

The proliferation of free AI means students won’t need to think much while writing – just engage in a high level of copy and paste. We used to call that plagiarism. With AI-assisted plagiarism, this brings within the potential for a brand new era of educational misconduct.

The concern will come when students take higher-level courses or land a job and lack the literacy skills to perform on an exceptional level. We may have created a generation of functionally illiterate adults who lack the capability to interact in advanced pondering – like critiquing, comparing or contrasting information.

Yes, students can and will use smart tools, but we’d like to hypothesize and measure the prices to human ingenuity and the long run of the human race.

Asim Ali, instructor of data systems management: AI is one other teacher

I teach information systems management, and within the spring of 2023, I had students use ChatGPT for an essay task after which record a video podcast discussing how AI will impact their careers. This semester I’m being more intentional by providing guidance on the probabilities and limitations of AI tools for every task. For example, students learn that using generative AI on a self-reflection task may not help, but using AI to investigate a case study is potentially an amazing solution to find insights they might have neglected. This emulates their future jobs during which they might use AI tools to boost the standard of their work product.

My experience with adapting to AI for my very own course inspired me to create a resource for all my colleagues. As executive director of the Biggio Center for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning, I oversee the educational design and academic development teams at Auburn University. We created a self-paced, online course called Teaching With AI.

Now there are over 600 faculty at Auburn and lots of of college at almost 35 institutions engaging with the content and one another through discussion boards and practical exercises.

I receive messages from faculty sharing ways they’re changing their assignments or discussing AI with their students. Some see AI as a threat to humans, but discussing AI with my students and with colleagues across the country has actually helped me develop human connections.

Shital Thekdi, associate professor of analytics & operations: What are you able to try this AI can’t?

This semester, I’ll ask students in my Statistics for Business and Economics course to debate the query, “What is your value beyond the AI tools?” I need them to reframe the conversation beyond certainly one of academic integrity and as a substitute as a challenge. I imagine students must recognize that the roles they imagine will exist for them may very well be eliminated due to these recent technologies. So the pressure is on students to grasp not only the right way to use these tools but in addition the right way to be higher than the tools.

I hope my students will consider ethical reasoning and the role of human connections. While AI might be trained to make value-based decisions, individuals and groups have their very own values that may differ considerably from those utilized by AI.
And AI tools would not have the capability to form human connections and experiences.

Students will remain vital contributors to business and society as AI tools develop. I imagine it’s our responsibility as educators to organize our students for a rapidly evolving cultural and technological landscape.