Students are headed back to school armed with AI. Here's how some colleges are adapting.
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Students are headed back to school armed with AI. Here’s how some colleges are adapting.
Three college students fixated on their laptops and smartphones.
“The age of AI has begun,” Bill Gates boldly proclaimed in a blog post dated March 2023. By then, ChatGPT had reached 100 million users. Alternatives like Anthropic’s Claude and Google’s Bard (now called Gemini) were also launched. Gates predicted artificial intelligence would change how people work, communicate, and learn. He called it “revolutionary.” Indeed, McKinsey’s 2024 Global Survey reported that 65% of organizations were already using generative AI tools, which are algorithms that can create new content like photos, videos, and text. That share increases to 72% when counting organizations that have adopted AI in at least one function.
Students, often at the forefront of change, have similarly embraced generative AI tools. Nearly 9 in 10 (86%) students are using AI in their studies, according to the Digital Education Council’s 2024 Global AI Student Survey, which gathered 3,839 responses from students across 16 countries.
While educators have included AI in their curriculum, using AI tools is another matter entirely, according to Oxford University Press. In Hong Kong, a curriculum has already been developed in public high schools that includes 10 to 14 hours of learning about AI, including ChatGPT and ethics in AI. India has also included AI as an optional learning area at the high school level, and a recent education framework suggests the country is open to using AI tools to complement learning. The U.K. has taken a more cautious approach, first assembling a global summit on AI in 2023. Institutions in the United States have been similarly gradual, it seems.
In a survey of provosts conducted by Inside Higher Ed and Hanover Research from February to March 2024, only 1 in 5 said their schools had a written policy governing the use of AI for teaching and research; however, 3 in 5 said one was being developed. Additionally, only 1 in 7 provosts said their school had reviewed its curriculum to make sure it was preparing for students to be able to use AI in their careers.
With colleges and universities facing the development of AI, Numerade analyzed survey data and news reports and interviewed educators to see how they are adapting.
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AI’s acceptance in the classroom
A professor addresses a group of college students.
Different teachers have approached AI in different ways. Diane Gayeski, a professor of strategic communication at Ithaca College in New York, requires her students to use AI, knowing that they will have to show proficiency in AI tools in the corporate communications world. “[AI] is an expected part of the portfolio in the same way that [students] are expected to use PowerPoint or Excel, right?” Gayeski told Stacker.
A survey of nearly 2,700 U.S. instructors by education research group Ithaka S+R found that 3 in 5 teachers allow or encourage students to use AI. Some of the more accepted applications include brainstorming ideas, drafting or editing written assignments, and creating outlines.
When Leslie Layne started teaching with ChatGPT, a language model trained to write text using vast information on the internet, she had her students ask for articles to back up the information provided—and the chatbot obliged. But there was a problem: Most of the articles weren’t real, said Layne, an associate professor of English at the University of Lynchburg, Virginia. Moreover, she told Stacker that all of the information wasn’t accurate because ChatGPT is a writing tool, not a search engine. A Purdue University study published in May 2024 found it still offered incorrect information 52% of the time. Layne’s experience serves as a cautionary tale as colleges and universities grapple with the rise of AI tools at breakneck speed.
One of the most salient concerns about using AI is its effect on the quality of education. In the same survey of provosts by Inside Higher Ed, more than 7 in 10 respondents said they were worried about the threat to academic integrity.
AI has inspired bans from several educational institutions, including one of France’s top universities, Sciences Po, and Bangalore’s RV University. In Australia, a few jurisdictions have blocked ChatGPT on school networks. In the U.S., schools in New York City, Los Angeles, and Seattle have done the same.
Professors interviewed by the Associated Press in August 2023 described wanting to “ChatGPT-proof” test questions and assignments, with some requiring students to show their drafts. One writing professor, Timothy Main of Conestoga College in Canada, told AP that he had recorded 57 questions of academic integrity, about half the result of AI. That was up from eight in each of two earlier semesters.
Despite the increased concerns about AI use, the levels of misuse have largely remained stable even after its grand debut. A Stanford Graduate School of Education study found that rates of cheating had stayed the same—between 60% and 70% of students engaging in “cheating” behavior in the last month—or even decreased slightly after the introduction of ChatGPT.
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Rethinking education in the age of AI
Students with laptops and tablets receive instruction from a professor.
It can be easy to spell out AI’s pitfalls in education. “The college essay is dead,” The Atlantic stated in December 2022, pointing to the further collapse of humanities. Although supporters also see its advantages, its applications should be nuanced.
Layne likens ChatGPT to a calculator, a tool that can help brainstorm points to support a premise, for example, or create an outline. “It’s quite bad at the actual writing,” she said. ChatGPT’s weakness in writing presents an opportunity for students to develop critical thinking. Layne asks her students to grade a ChatGPT-produced essay. Gayeski requires her students to document how they approach AI, their prompts, and their final results.
Not only students but educators stand to benefit. The same Ithaka S+R survey found that nearly 3 in 4 teachers had experimented with AI for instruction. The most popular use was in designing course materials, though less than a quarter (22%) said they used AI to do so. AI was also an extra resource for administrative tasks (16%) and creating visualizations (15%).
As revolutionary as AI is, it also presents the need for education to be just as adaptable, upending the typical top-down teacher-student relationship to be more collaborative. The World Economic Forum points out that AI can radically personalize learning, which benefits everyone with access, including neurodiverse students and those with disabilities.
At Boston University, the computing and data sciences department has adopted a student-designed policy that openly acknowledges AI use and encourages transparency from students and teachers.
Azer Bestavros, associate provost for computing and data sciences at Boston University, told NBC Boston: “We decided that [AI] is something to embrace, and to use actually to elevate the game for everybody. It’s about making teachers better teachers, and making students better students.”
Story editing by Carren Jao. Additional editing by Kelly Glass. Copy editing by Paris Close. Photo selection by Clarese Moller.
This story originally appeared on Numerade and was produced and
distributed in partnership with Stacker Studio.
