It’s 11:38pm. You have an assignment due tomorrow, and you’ve been blinking at a blank screen for hours, just snacking and daydreaming. Eventually, you may give in and take the easy way out, opening ChatGPT. Within seconds it offers detailed explanations with links to follow and ideas to use. It's a convenient escape from the clear page but like any AI system, you will spot it's faults and ultimately as will your lecturers.
For many students, AI is already sitting alongside workbooks and revision notes. We can’t exactly escape AI as it is simply part of our lives now. However, we can choose how we use it and learn where the line should be drawn.
Lecturer of Digital Approaches to Media, Heritage and Cultural Studies Dr Nick Rush-Cooper explained simply in our interview, “like any tool or technology, context matters.”
With this, we should understand that AI can be a useful tool within education, but we should be taught how to use it responsibly. A great way to check this is through the University’s Academic Skills Kit on AI.
AI can be powerful as it can; simplify explanations, create practice questions for revision and brainstorm ideas with you. Although, there is a huge difference between ‘do my work’ and ‘help me understand.’
Nick urges students that, “If you know how to do a task already, generative AI may help with efficiency. If you don’t know how to do something and you’re learning, it is going to hold you back.”
He’s right. AI is surprisingly not always correct but rather uses the somewhat limited information it has access to, to then form probable answers to your prompts. This is why algorithms such as ChatGPT often provide assumed information, make logical mistakes and even invent inaccurate sources.
... we should instead be challenging AI and aiming to be more intelligent...
Having then spoken with Senior Lecturer in International Political Economy & Politics of Global Development Dr Burak Tansel, I learned that we should instead be challenging AI and aiming to be more intelligent rather than simply using it as a shortcut.
Burak explained that “Many students who rely on AI in preparing their assignments, end up producing highly generic responses (often with weak data/evidence), which get middling grades in return.”
To further this argument, Burak directed me to recent studies that highlighted the difference between grades of those students using AI among those who are not. This paper on ‘Your brain on ChatGPT’ opened my eyes to how while the students felt they has this upper hand by using AI, their end results were much lower.
Without using our own minds, creativity is diminished.
Without using our own minds, creativity is diminished. Furthermore, the struggle we have is part of the learning process, meaning that just copying AI patterns and words will not ultimately be the saving grace it may feel it is.
Academic Officer and Trustee with Newcastle University Students’ Union, Anushka Sonwane builds on this with a more forward-thinking approach. She believes that there may need to be a change in how students are assessed. Anushka explains, “If we want to assess judgement, analysis, creativity, communication or the ability to apply knowledge to a new situation, then our assessments should be designed to test those things.”
... prepare students to think critically in these times where AI is more prevalent than ever.
As a university, therefore, we shouldn’t be in an ai-proofing education system but rather prepare students to think critically in these times where AI is more prevalent than ever.
Anushka then provides some guidance for students, stating that, “I would encourage students to keep their own notes, drafts and working where appropriate.”
In this world where AI is only growing, students should not misuse AI and thereby this advice can be useful if questions are ever raised about a student’s uses or assessments produced. We need to be exposed to and understand AI but not have us become dependent to the point where thinking becomes unnecessary.
The question isn’t whether students will use AI as they already are. The question is whether we are using it intelligently.