by Colby L.

AI has changed the world miraculously, and it has especially impacted education in both good and bad ways. Students should be taught how to use AI and shouldn’t use it for test answers.

“AI is just a very powerful tool that I think, honestly, will probably transform education as much as anything has in the past,” said Dr. Guthrie. AI is only growing faster, and it is a huge advantage for students.

“I do want to make sure kids know how to use it, how to use it responsibly, and how to use it safely. I also want to make sure that the access is monitored, especially at the younger ages,” the principal explained.

Ms. Tadlock strongly agrees with Dr. Guthrie. She said, “I think students should be taught how to use AI, and I think it should be used to help get new ideas, or make our work better, and it should not be used to do your work.” Then she added, “I think AI can help our kids learn things faster, or learn things in different ways.”

AI should be used at specific times, and teachers should teach their students when to use it. The principal explained this: “I don’t think AI should be used to generate work. Students should read the material, try to understand the material, and get different points of view from different citations.” Later, Ms. Tadlock agreed: “I think AI can be used to generate or brainstorm ideas, like for you with journalism, you can get ideas for topics. It also should be used to revise your work,” Ms. Tadlock said.

AI can teach students very powerful ideas. However, it is very easy for students to cheat on tests. “It’s just like any other kind of way. It’s just probably a better way to cheat than what has happened in the past. In the past, if you were gonna cheat, you still had to go find the answer and then write it down and somehow, you know, use it on a test or something. Now it’s right there at your fingertips. And so there’s going to be a lot of risk, and there’s a lot of temptation, I think, for students to go home and just start to use ChatGPT to answer questions. Those are not good uses of that technology at this age, in my opinion,” Dr. Guthrie explained.

Ms. Tadlock understands this disadvantage, and she states, “As educators, that’s one thing we’re talking about: ‘How do we AI-proof our work?’ And it’s so forcing, as a teacher, to be better about the types of questions I’m asking students, or the assignments I’m having them do, that they are hard enough that it’s not just so easy to look up an answer on AI.”

Despite the risks of allowing AI, it is a very powerful source of learning. To prevent the downsides of AI, educators need to teach students how to use it and when to use it. Dr. Guthrie and Ms. Tadlock have shown the consequences and advantages of learning from AI and question whether our school should have AI, or if we should not.