Comments on: Setting school policy about AI: A cautionary tale

By: JF

JF — Thu, 27 Apr 2023 14:32:16 +0000

As an IB graduate, I took Theory of Knowledge and the papers required in that class focus deeply on personal opinion and philosophy. My concern with AI being used to create work for this class is that it negates the very purpose of the class. ToK aims to have students think deeply about their perspectives. Utilizing a tool to write a paper about your own perception is really an inaccurate representation. One of the goals of the IB program is to produce deep thinkers – and utilizing AI to generate essays on your own thoughts is basically the opposite. It’s also an international program with high pressure and difficult requirements and it’s absolutely unfair for some students to have an advantage. Papers are graded internationally by multiple graders through the IB and submitted to a rigorous standard far beyond the typical grading process. We were frequently reminded that submitting work that was not our own was grounds for dismissal from the program – as it should be. Obviously discussions on the ethics of AI are important AND we also need to hold students to a high standard of accurately representing their own work.

By: Marc Bernier

Marc Bernier — Wed, 15 Mar 2023 18:52:15 +0000

The difference between adults using AI in their fields and students using AI to do their work is that the adults have some background through which they can filter the information and work provided by the AI. Students need to learn how to analyze and synthesize data to create a product that a teacher, professor or supervisor can be confident is their own work so that the person can then evaluate that work and help the student see areas in need of improvement. Even the use of search engines with simple cut-and-paste functions have cut into the students’ ability and willingness to interact with and think about the information they are providing and claiming an understanding of. Prompting and passing material in is a far cry from researching, reading, comparing, analyzing, and creating a product. Helping students realize that the information they are quoting from is often inaccurate and/or incomplete is something we already struggle with in our digital world. Common use of AI is going to make this a much more difficult problem to address when teachers are unable to even tell from where the information was garnered.

What sense of accomplishment or pride can one take from prompt-to-publish material?

By: Jason

Jason — Wed, 15 Mar 2023 15:18:49 +0000

Much of this seems focused on the essentially ‘legal’ wording of the school’s attempt to address the problem. While I don’t disagree that there could be some improvements in their policy articulation, focusing on a handbook that the majority of students and parents do not read until after they have already committed an offense may not be the best avenue to correcting the true issue at the heart of this situation.

When students take short-cuts in their academic endeavors, it can be due to lack of understanding possibly, but overwhelmingly it is because grades are the tail that wags the dog from the perspective of students and parents. Skills acquired and content learned generally are not a high priority for most of these folks, as their objective is just the golden ticket to get through the hoop in order to proceed on to whatever their actual goal may be (ranking in class, gpa, university admission, career path, etc.).

The best way I know to combat this is simply communication. If the teacher can emphasize the true goal of each assignment, lesson, assessment and unit and how it may benefit the student, then hopefully the student can better appreciate the “why” and possibly focus on something more than just the hoop of a grade in order to better support the ‘future’ version of themselves. I may be wrong (and generally am), but I would venture to guess most folks in education got into the gig with the best of intentions for helping youth achieve and fulfill their potential. I doubt dealing with the minutia of grades and consequences of policy violation ever inspired anyone on either end.

Parents, on the other hand, are probably a lost cause as their malleability is most likely well expired.