Does AI Have a Place in the Classroom?

As Artificial Intelligence (AI) becomes more readily available, educators are faced with a challenging conundrum.

In the 1970s and 80s, using calculators in the classroom was controversial. Some feared that they would impair a student’s ability to perform basic mathematical functions, while others thought that calculators would allow individuals to solve more complex equations and further explore the field of mathematics. Now, there are Artificial Intelligence (AI) chatbots that can generate essays using simple text prompts. This has educators debating whether this is just a new kind of “calculator scenario” or something new altogether.

Generative AI is a type of Artificial Intelligence that can generate text like essays, reports, emails, blogs, and most other types of written text, all from a simple prompt. Generative AI that produces written text are called Large Language Models (LLM) and are trained on massive amounts of written text scraped from the internet.

This technology is tempting for students who are given writing assignments. Instead of researching and writing a paper about Missouri’s tallest mountain, a student could ask a chatbot like ChatGPT or Claude to “write an essay about Missouri’s tallest mountain,” and in a matter of seconds, a uniquely generated paper about Taum Sauk Mountain’s elevation, location, and other information will be produced. The quality of the writing does vary, as does the accuracy of the topic, but with advancing technologies, these chatbots will only improve.

To discourage students from using AI, some teachers are employing software that can check papers to see if they were written using AI or plagiarized from other places. Unfortunately, these programs are not always accurate, and there have been instances of the software getting it wrong and labeling a student’s original work as the product of AI.

Oddly enough, chatbots themselves may be guilty of plagiarizing. The companies behind them are very unclear about the source data on which these models have been trained, leading some high-profile newspapers to file lawsuits alleging their publication’s articles were fed into these databases without consent.

Some educators are more open to students using AI within certain parameters. Chatbots can also summarize large amounts of text, which might help condense ideas and give overviews on a topic. Other chatbots allow students to upload PDFs of books and then have a “conversation” with the text. Using AI for brainstorming, as a collaborator, or as a starting point are other ways some are employing the abilities of these chatbots.

While the application of AI technologies is up in the air, the Library has a fantastic selection of credible resources to offer students, teachers, and parents this school year on our Back to School page.

If you are interested in learning more about emerging technologies, check out the Facing the Future event series, where authors, journalists, and other tech experts give lectures and lead discussions on these timely topics.

Brad Smith
Digital Innovation Department