What pushes students to be creative, complete their assignments, and write their essays when there is a computer that can do it within seconds? Almost every student has used Artificial Intelligence (AI) in a school setting. Whether it’s used for studying, filling out assignments, or writing full essays, students take advantage of it for a variety of tasks. In surveys distributed by the College Board, more than 85% of students report using GenAI tools for schoolwork. AI is slowly taking away the creativity, individuality, and hard work in students’ work.
An important piece of this in-class crisis is the educators. Many educators claim to use AI for their teaching purposes in a classroom. There is a wide spectrum of perspectives on AI use in a classroom setting amongst educators, and not all agree on its purposes and limits. AI is a powerful tool that can be used for good and bad; many teachers believe schools should have a clear policy outlining its use.
Ms. Golden, the English department chair at dTHS, shared her take on AI. While Ms. Golden allows juniors and seniors to use it to find sources for research projects, she said that 9/10 students need to vet their sources better. She doesn’t fully eliminate the use of AI in all aspects of learning. She said, “An ethical use of AI includes full disclosure on when it is used.”
Many teachers, like Ms. Golden, agree that AI is useful to an extent. If a student is concerned about disclosing why they used AI, it’s probably not appropriate to use it at that time.
Mr. Weinhart, a dTHS history teacher, said “an ethical use of AI is when a student can acknowledge and prove they know the information they used it for. He said, “A student who uses AI should know that at the end of the day…they could have done it without AI.”
The dTHS’s parent-student handbook states the school’s overarching AI policy: “With the teacher’s permission, the use of AI resources and tools is permissible for research, assistance with analysis, and support for the understanding of course material.”
While at the end of the day, the use is up to the teacher’s discretion, the overall school standing with AI is open and flexible. Ms. Golden said, “I would love to see an all-school policy [that says]: any time anyone is using it, they should disclose their use.”
An AI policy as such would create consistency amongst all classes and AI use. This could be the basis for equal and fair AI use. Unfortunately, it would be difficult to enforce this policy amongst all students because not all its usage can be controlled.
The New York Times article written by Dana Goldstein, “Teachers Worry About Students Using A.I. But They Love It for Themselves” explains the do’s and don’ts with AI for help in classes. AI can be a useful tool for students when it comes to studying, creating additional practice materials, clearly explaining concepts, and summarizing notes. On the contrary, it should not be an abused tool and used for fully completing assignments or crafting essays.
On the students’ side of AI use in classes, many claim they only use it for studying purposes, while others disclose they used it to write essays, debates, and complete worksheets. Lielle A. (‘28) said, “I use it to check some of my work and quiz me for tests, and I think it’s a critical tool that can help me study.”
AI can be helpful, and almost no teacher bans its full use in every circumstance. Teachers’ own use of AI proves it has a helpful side to it too. So while it can be easily abused and create issues, it can also be useful when clear guidelines are set.
