AI fuels cheating concerns in schools, mistrust between teachers and students: report - KATU

AI fuels cheating concerns in schools, mistrust between teachers and students: report

(TNND) — Student use of artificial intelligence is not only fueling concerns over cheating in school, but it’s also driving a wedge of suspicion between kids and their teachers, according to researchers.

AI is reshaping relationships in the classroom, and not for the better.

Beck Tench, a co-author of a new report from Harvard’s Center for Digital Thriving, said students feel pressure to use AI so they can keep up with their workloads and prepare for their futures. And she said students admittedly use AI to cheat.

Meanwhile, a quarter of teachers say they’ve dealt with an AI-related dilemma. And the vast majority of them, nearly three-quarters, described an AI dilemma that had to do with student cheating.

Tench said distrust is growing in classrooms, turning teachers into AI-use referees who expend energy trying to catch AI cheating. Some students, meanwhile, spend their energy trying not to get caught letting AI do their homework, while other students deliberately underperform out of fear of being unjustly accused of cheating.

The new report from Tench and her colleagues draws on surveys and interviews with students and educators. Tench said the interviews allowed them to explore the nuances in how AI impacts the learning environment.

The report found that under 20% of teachers work at schools with specific generative-AI policies. But they also determined that more rules alone won’t solve the problems.

“If the policies disallow it, and there's no room for conversation, it's just going to be a ‘secret cyborg,’ as (University of Pennsylvania AI scholar) Ethan Mollick calls it, where we're just sort of hiding our AI use,” Tench said.

She warned that school policies framed around distrust or suspicion could simply drive student AI use deeper underground, and the risk is that that drives students away from the guidance of their teachers.

When students find it easier to turn to ChatGPT instead of their teacher with their curiosities or struggles, teachers might miss critical signs of students in need of more help.

That’s how Tench said AI can make students “invisible” to their teachers.

Tench said both the actual cheating and the suspicion around it matter, but she said the suspicion is easier to address.

And it starts with communication, she said.

The Center for Digital Thriving report, “An AI Policy Isn’t a Playbook,” includes resources for teachers to address tough topics around AI with their students. That includes lessons on how to navigate gray areas of use and how students can leverage the power of the technology in ways that align with their goals and values.

Tench said teachers, who sometimes feel they have little say over how they approach AI in their classrooms, "are often kind of caught on their back foot with this technology."

But she said educators don’t need to be AI experts to be effective AI “coaches” for their students.

Tench said teachers can lean into their existing relational strengths and start the conversation with a focus on their students’ goals and pressures.

“And when teachers ask about those things, AI will inevitably come up,” Tench said. “And they can relate to their students through a common relationship to values and goals and pressures and start to guide behaviors based on that anchoring.”