The Tamalpais Union High School District (TUHSD) has enforced a strict rule that no longer allows students to bring their personal devices to school. Along with this, ChatGPT has been blocked across all district Chromebooks, and GoGuardian is being used to monitor students’ screens. These district policies send a clear message: students are not allowed to use artificial intelligence (AI) for any reason. This policy however, is unfair because while students are being strictly banned from using AI, their teachers are able to use this technology to help them create assignments, plan lessons and even grade student work. If students are prohibited from using AI to complete their assignments, why should teachers be allowed to use AI to grade them?
The New York Times reported that the initial concerns about students misusing AI has now shifted to a larger issue: teachers using AI to save time in the classroom.
Dana Goldstein wrote, “Teachers are increasingly using AI tools themselves, both to save time on rote tasks and to outsource some of their most meaningful work, like grading essays and tutoring struggling students,”. The use of AI is an act of academic dishonesty for students but seems to be a convenience tool for teachers.
Despite what the TUHSD policies state, AI has enormous potential to be a learning tool in classrooms. It can be used as a resource in ways that would not erase students’ critical thinking, but instead provide support for learning enhancement. To ban all use of AI reinforces the idea that it can only be used dishonestly and further pushes students toward using it secretly, having a negative impact on their learning.
At the University of South Florida, education professor Zafer Unal launched TeacherServer, an online platform created to help teachers create assignments, prepare lessons and even manage grading. A survey of 40 K-12 teachers in Florida and Georgia was created to gain more information about TeacherServer, and revealed that teachers were already using AI tools to improve their teaching and learning strategies for students. This survey shows how AI can be beneficial for learning in classrooms when teachers use AI for curriculum help. If teachers are allowed to use AI to strengthen their teaching, then students should be given the same opportunity to expand their knowledge using this resource.
CBS News reported that Microsoft, OpenAI and Anthropic spent 23 million dollars in AI training for thousands of teachers through the American Federation of Teachers. The money was used to give teachers structured training about how to incorporate AI into their curriculums which provides teachers with ways to incorporate the expanding technology to improve learning in classrooms. On the other hand, students are being banned from using AI tools for all purposes.
The article, Teen and Young Adult Perspectives on Generative AI by the Harvard Graduate School of Education provides data from a survey of 1500 teenagers ages 13 to 17 on the use of AI for completing their work. The study showed that many teenagers use AI tools to help them learn outside of class instead of cheating, calling AI “the modern approach to learning.” This positive example of how AI can be used to improve students’ learning shows that students can use AI in a beneficial way.
Instead of restricting students, TUHSD policies should benefit both teachers and students and allow AI to be used responsibly to benefit students’ learning. AI technology isn’t going away, so students and teachers should work together to use it effectively.
