Students and AI

~ Clarissa

I have observed no change in how students learn as a result of AI. There are some attempts to cheat but they are in the same scope as 10 or 20 years ago. People on social media report observing massive changes in retention or attention spans. I haven’t seen anything of the kind.

Students almost invariably use AI as a limited-function Google. They aren’t very good at using it. I’m not seeing anything even marginally different in students, let alone anything catastrophic. It’s enormously easier to teach Zoomers than Millennials but this is not related to technology.

I have no idea where people find all this massive cognitive damage from AI they keep talking about. In my teaching, AI has the most marginal presence imaginable. I teach a lot in the computer lab. I tell students “use anything you want for the assignment.” They almost always go directly to Wordreference.com or Reverso.com.

Unknown's avatar

Published by Clarissa

10 thoughts on “Students and AI”

  1. I see cognitive damage from AI regularly, but I see it most among working professionals, especially in the tech industry. I would imagine that among students, STEM majors are more into AI than humanities students, but that’s just a hunch.

    Like

    Reply

    1. // I see cognitive damage from AI regularly, but I see it most among working professionals, especially in the tech industry.

      What kind of damage do you see? Tech people are paid good money precisely to use their brains.

      Like

      Reply

      1. Colleagues in STEM do say that AI cheating is rampant and it’s impossible to give homework assignments any more. They tend to have large classrooms, unlike my purposefully small courses, so there’s no way to avoid cheating.

        Like

        Reply

  2. I teach courses with a lot of math and physics. I’m sure some students use AI or one of the homework/exam aggregator sites like Chegg, but I don’t give much weight to homework. Tests are in person, on paper, and I make new tests every time, so it’s not like students can cheat there (except perhaps the old-fashioned ways by copying from someone).

    In my department, the faculty who’ve been hit worst with all sorts of electronic cheating (including AI) are those who have automated their courses (videos online, fully electronic assessments) to presumably reduce their own workload. It feels like poetic justice that students will try to reduce their own workload, too.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. So true. I have no idea how anybody could cheat in my courses because what I do is real teaching. Don’t want AI to do work instead of the students,? Then teach instead of farming everything out to tech.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

      1. “could cheat in my courses because what I do is real teaching”

        I envy you, a lot of what I do comes from a structured program that is many years out of date… with a bunch of busywork. I’d use AI for some of it so I sympathize with students in that regard. But basically back to pen/cil and paper during class. I’ve seen traces of AI in some stuff that I have to have them do but so far not overwhelming…

        Like

        Reply

  3. A trend I noticed is students using AI to create study documents. Or even podcasts regurgitating class content. It. Does. Not. Work. Yet many of them still believe it is a smart solution to save them to precious time in order to spend more time on IG, TikTok, or their part-time job.

    But won’t you say it is becoming more and more difficult to ask students to write papers, unless they write them in the classroom? I know that between millennials who were not original thanks to regurgitating one article or one idea discussed in class in their papers, and Zoomers who are not original asking AI to write a paper using B1 or B2 level of proficiency, difference is not significant. But still?

    At my university, I had to create an online version of elementary Spanish. I was strongly advised not to give an in-person final exam because I would get 50% less students enrolled, according to the university retention stats. You have no idea how original I had to be to assess students fairly in an online-language-class environment, with 100+ students enrolled. It is all very tiresome.

    Lastly, you are lucky to be able to teach purposefully small courses. In those courses, yes, negative AI influence is minimal.

    Ol.

    Like

    Reply

    1. I don’t assign papers that they would write 100% at home because I don’t see the purpose. It’s going to be crap if I don’t stand over them and control every step. We struggle the most with actually coming up with an idea to develop in an essay. It takes even the most lively, engaged students at least three tries. After that, if I don’t hover over them, they’ll produce nothing but miles of the most banal generalizations that will give me a headache. For example, I had a discussion earlier today with a student who doesn’t understand why she can’t write an essay demonstrating that the decisions people make in life can have consequences. 100% of students would write something like this if I didn’t badger them away from it.

      Like

      Reply

      1. Yes. Maieutics (spelling?) with our student is demanding. I have the luxury to teach an advanced cinema course this semester with only 11 students registered. In that class, I dedicated two weeks to small-group and individual meetings to help students come up with original ideas.

        Ol.

        Like

        Reply

Leave a comment