The following question was posed by Ben Heintz, who runs the “Hippocampus” tutoring center, in an attempt to foster more civil discourse at BHS:
Should BHS forbid students from using A.I. or teach them how to use it?
9th graders discussed the prompt in their civics classes and we have some of their responses below.
“For things like finding quotes for an essay, if you read the book but don’t have it on you or can’t find it, then you can use it, but otherwise not.” – Naomi Nickerson
“Teachers should teach us how to use AI because many adults use it at work. I know my mom uses it to help her sometimes. I think we should draw the line at the point where AI is doing most of the work, like generating prompts is fine but not writing the whole essay. We shouldn’t be allowed to use AI to clean up an essay because it is important that we can catch our own mistakes.” –Shiloh Skalka
“AI should be used as another option to learn and improve instead of a shortcut for generating answers that aren’t your own. Students should be able to use AI and teachers should set limits… For example, if you’re struggling with grammar or need help developing your essay you can use AI to help you learn and improve your writing.” –Aadhitra
“As long as the student tries and shows they’ve put the effort to get assignments in on time the use of AI in their writing shouldn’t be a problem. But if they’re just copying and pasting that’s a problem…. I remember last year when my LA teacher found an essay with complete AI head to toe, and he got so mad at my class because he thought that some of us were also using AI. He forbade us from using AI or we would get zeroes on the assignments.” –Naima
“I think you can use AI for topics on an essay, spell check or to help respond to a peer’s work. As long as AI isn’t completely rewriting what you wrote. AI should only give you ideas for what to write, not write it for you.” –Lily Dantscher
“The line is where you’re using AI for a big chunk of your work or voice and calling it yours. If it’s a word suggestion or spelling fix, who cares, but when you have a whole AI-generated paragraph, that’s not one’s own work. Teachers should educate students about AI, but encourage them to use their own mind.”–Roslen
“Students should be allowed to use AI to brainstorm… The line is crossed when it is at the point where you are submitting work that came straight from AI and not your own words. Learning about how to use AI should be taught because that could show us how to use it properly and to hold ourselves accountable when or if we use it the wrong way.” –Dalib Ali
While many students feel it’s ok to use ChatGPT to find ideas & quotes, to revise, etc. It’s clear that the boundaries are extremely unclear. By the time these freshmen graduate AI will be even more omnipresent at school. How will our teachers and our policies respond?
