2.2 Current Usage of AI in Education — The AI-Enhanced Classroom: Redefining Teaching and Learning

2.2 The Inevitability of AI in Education

Guiding questions:

What are the effects of temporary bans on AI in education?
In what ways is AI inevitable in education?
How are students already using AI?

So far, in this module, we've explored the impact of AI on teaching and learning. In this lesson, we’ll discuss AI bans in education and why we think they’re an ineffective approach. We’ll also discuss the inevitability of AI in education. Then, we’ll look at some existing AI-powered apps and tools that are already benefiting students. Lastly, we’ll address the issue of AI plagiarism as an example of why teachers must stay up to date with this technology.

When ChatGPT was released in late 2022, many schools and districts quickly banned the site from school-owned devices and forbade students from using it. These bans stemmed from concerns surrounding plagiarism, privacy, data security, and potential biases in AI algorithms. However, we’re already seeing many districts changing their AI policies and even embracing the use of AI. And for good reason. Administrators and policymakers are beginning to see that temporary bans on AI in education may not be effective in the long run for some of the following reasons:

AI Bans

Rapid Advancements in Technology: With new apps and tools being released on a consistent basis, bans cannot keep up. Trying to enforce bans instead of encouraging ethical AI use is ultimately a waste of time and resources.
Demand for AI: the numerous benefits offered by AI in education, such as personalized learning and improved resource efficiency, create a strong demand for AI-powered tools. This demand can put pressure on institutions to lift temporary bans and embrace AI technologies. Also, as it becomes clear that AI-related knowledge and skills will be required for school and work in the future, students are demanding that they learn to use AI.
Furthering Inequality: When some schools and districts ban the use of AI while others embrace it, students get left behind.

The Inevitability of AI in Education

As AI continues to advance, its integration into education becomes increasingly inevitable. There are several factors that contribute to this growing trend:

Rapid Technological Progress: The rapid pace of AI development ensures that it will continue to shape the educational landscape, offering new tools and resources that can enhance teaching and learning.
Growing Demand for Personalized Learning: As the need for personalized learning experiences grows, AI's ability to cater to individual students' needs becomes more valuable.
The Need to Prepare Students for the Future: With AI playing an ever-increasing role in the workforce, it's essential to prepare students for the AI-driven careers of tomorrow. Integrating AI into education can help students develop the necessary skills and knowledge to thrive in a rapidly changing world.
Many experts in the field seem to be predicting that the new generative AI platforms coming out now will follow in the path of calculators and Google. When these tools were first introduced, people were worried that they would ruin math and research skills, but using them is now required in these fields.

Existing AI Tools

While generative AI is new to the educational landscape, artificial intelligence tools have been around for a while. You might not have even realized you were using AI, but some grade management and performance tracking systems have been running on AI for years!

Students across the globe are already benefiting from AI in various ways. Let's take a look at some examples of AI tools that students are already using to enhance their learning experiences:

Khan Academy’s Khanmigo provides students with one-on-one tutoring while they navigate through Khan Academy’s video lessons.
Duolingo teaches foreign languages using gamified lessons, adaptive feedback, and speech recognition to help students learn.
Quizlet has a chatbot that aims to provide tutoring assistance, such as assessing writing skills and offering hints and explanations.
Socrat.ai allows teachers to provide targeted tutoring assistance to students while monitoring their interactions.

Plagiarism and Cheating

Of course, not every way that students are currently using AI are fair or beneficial. AI-assisted plagiarism is a huge concern, given the capabilities of generative AI. Some of the ways that students may use AI to cheat include:

Generating essays that can sound like human writing
Paraphrasing and rewriting
Providing answers to quizzes and tests

Here are some examples of how students may use AI inappropriately:

Input (In You.com):

Input: "Paraphrase Justice Fortas' Opinion in Tinker v Des Moines”

Output (In Bing Chat):

Math example in ChatGPT:

And while AI detectors do exist, they are not perfect, and relying on them comes with many issues, including:

There are challenges in developing effective detectors
- Rapid evolution of generative AI models
-  They use different technologies, so would need different detectors
-  They can write in certain tones
-  Designed to make human-like mistakes (You.com)
Limitations of existing plagiarism detection tools
- Inability to recognize all AI-generated content
-  False positives and negatives
-  You’ll waste time playing wack a mole with different detectors
-  Students will spend more time trying to evade detectors than learning the content

Given this issue, having a thorough understanding of how generative AI works and its potential for misuse is essential. In later lessons, we will dive deeper into effective responses to the issue of AI plagiarism and talk about crafting a responsible AI-use policy for your class.

Key Takeaways:

AI bans were an initial response that many schools had to generative AI, but we’re already seeing many of them reverse their restrictive policies in favor of ones that embrace teaching and learning with AI.
At this point, AI’s integration into education is inevitable because of its capabilities as well as its impact on the workforce.
Students are already using AI. There’s a wealth of AI-powered education tools that already exist. However, not all ways that students are using AI are fair and teachers must be aware of its uses for plagiarism and cheating.