Teachers embracing artificial intelligence call it a game-changer and time-saver. As a recent Gallup/Walton Family Foundation survey of 2,200 teachers nationwide found:
- 30% use AI weekly.
- 60% use AI to give students detailed feedback, create personalized lessons, email parents, and return home from work earlier.
- 28% oppose its use.
Like those 60%ers, veteran special education teacher Heather Gauck says, “This year alone, I’ve used AI to help with lesson plans, differentiating materials, writing parts of IEPs (Individualized Education Programs), communicating with families, and all that adds up to an entire planning day that I get back.”
But hold on …
Says renowned author and educator Alfie Kohn: “When powerful institutions announce their intention to impose—and profit from—a radical transformation of our schools, our workplaces, and our daily lives, we have an obligation to ask whether what they’re unleashing is really in our best interests. If, instead, we just shrug and accept it as inevitable, we are shirking our responsibility and, indeed, surrendering our autonomy.”
As high school teacher, Thomas David Moore, writes, “…Companies like Oracle, SoftBank, and OpenAI are projected to invest $3 trillion in AI over the next three years. In the first half of this year, It contributed more to real GDP than consumer spending…”
Plus, Sam Altman, OpenAI’s CEO & creator of ChatGPT, estimates that AI will eliminate up to 70% of current jobs.
As for those educators who have not jumped on the artificial intelligence bandwagon, they say, for instance:
** “The trouble with chatbots is not just that they allow students to get away with cheating or that they remove a sense of urgency from academics. The technology has also led students to focus on external results at the expense of internal growth. The dominant worldview seems to be: Why worry about actually learning anything when you can get an A for outsourcing your thinking to a machine?” ~ Ashanty Rosano, high school senior
** “Educators shouldn’t fall for the fallacy that AI is inevitable. I would rather do my own lesson plans. I have an idea of what I want the students to learn, of what’s interesting to them, and where they are, and the entry points for them to engage in it… Teaching and learning shouldn’t be replaced by machines.” ~ Elizabeth Bacon, middle school teacher
** “After experimenting with AI tools to generate materials (like many teachers), I will do a better job just doing it myself and probably take less time.” ~ Dylan Kane, middle school math teacher
** “I will be going back to pencil and paper this year, and most writing will be done in class. I don’t want to waste time or squander relationships in trying to determine whether a student’s writing is their own. I want them to practice and grow in their skill and confidence… I may integrate AI periodically if I feel it can meet a need in my classroom, but I want to make this choice myself and not let the current zeitgeist make it for me.” ~ Lauren Boulanger, high school English teacher
** Moreover, as human resources and career strategist Madeline Mann explains, “AI is lacking in one critical workplace quality: soft skills–highly transferable skills that power most of our day-to-day interactions, things like collaboration, communication, creativity, and the ability to learn.”
Then there’s this: MIT scientists recently divided 54 18-to-39-year-olds into 3 groups and had them all write a short essay:
- The large, long model group used Chat GPT for help.
- The second group used a search engine.
- The last group used no external tools.
The Results:
- The ChatGPT group showed the least brain connectivity.
- And when that ChatGPT group then had to write another essay unaided by external tools, they continued to show less connectivity than Group #3 which wrote their essays unaided.
Some game changer…
~ With my thanks, Carol
