Why Educators Must Embrace the AI Revolution Before It’s Too Late
The educational world is currently reeling from an unpredictable technological shift, prompted by the public release of large language models (LLMs) like OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
The educational world is currently reeling from an unpredictable technological shift, prompted by the public release of large language models (LLMs) like OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Since its introduction last November, this sophisticated artificial intelligence has fundamentally challenged the traditional methods of teaching and assessment, initiating what some describe as an "immediate existential crisis" among educators.
The Arrival
The first signs of this revolution appeared in classrooms, often characterized by "mild horror" and astonishment among teachers who witnessed the AI’s capability firsthand. One English teacher shared her experience of catching a student cheating after the program constructed an entire essay with the click of a button. Initial skepticism that AI could produce a "quality essay" was quickly shattered when testing revealed that the program could construct a well-written analysis essay in mere seconds.
ChatGPT rapidly became the most well-known of the text-generative AI programs, making it to the cover of Time magazine in February. This specific technology caught the world by storm because it represented a significant leap, being ten times smarter than its predecessors. At its core, ChatGPT is defined as a large language model (LLM), which functions through a network of neural pathway connections, allowing the program to learn, improve its language processing, and become more accurate in its responses over time.
When questioned about its capabilities, ChatGPT confirmed its ability to provide information across a wide range of topics, understand and respond to natural language, and generate creative and personalized responses. The immense power of this technology was quickly harnessed globally: doctors started using it to aid in diagnosing patients, businesses integrated it to create advertisements and blog posts, and common people used it for personal tasks, such as writing thank you cards,. Applications already familiar to consumers, including Snapchat, Instacart, Duolingo, and Quizlet, have also begun to integrate this technology into their respective platforms.
The Inevitability
The speed of innovation did not slow down. In March, OpenAI released GPT-4, the newest version of the system that powers ChatGPT. Unlike the initial version, GPT-4 is not restricted to text input; it can also analyze images and web links. This advanced capability immediately spurred intense competition among tech giants, leading to what is now known as the "AI arms race".
Microsoft swiftly began utilizing GPT-4 to power its search engine, Bing. More significantly for the academic and professional worlds, Microsoft also announced plans to integrate GPT-4 directly into their Office Suite products. This integration means users will soon have the capability to instantly convert a long, complex document, such as a "boss’s 20-page email," into a comprehensive PowerPoint presentation with just a single click. Shortly thereafter, Google launched its own AI system, Bard, ensuring that artificial intelligence would soon be incorporated into the Google Suite products as well.
This explosive, seemingly overnight, advancement in technology has caused educators across the globe to enter a state of panic.
The True Crisis: Student Development
While some generalized worries stem from popular culture depictions of AI taking over the world (like in Terminator or Westworld), the main concern for educators lies squarely with their students. Teachers have already observed severe declines in students’ ability to problem-solve and think critically at even the most basic levels following the pandemic. Now, with AI capable of performing the thinking for them, educators are worried, not merely for their jobs, but profoundly for the long-term development of their students.
However, the appearance of generative AI provides a critical opportunity for institutional introspection. As author and writing instructor John Warner notes, this shocking technological leap forces educational bodies to confront what they value, preventing the established status quo from "churn[ing] along unexamined".
Generative AI systems demand that educational institutions fundamentally re-evaluate three core elements: what they teach, why they teach it, and how they teach it. The focus must shift away from outdated, rigidly structured assignments—such as teaching students how to diagram a compound, complex sentence—and toward teaching students how to approach a concept, break it down, and organize it into digestible pieces. Educators must finally provide a concrete answer to the perennial student question: "When will I use this in real life?". If assignments fail to prepare students for real life, students will lack investment in the learning process and inevitably look for shortcuts simply to get the work done.
Why Restriction is a Failure
Despite the clear trajectory of AI integration into everyday life, many schools responded to the public release of ChatGPT by immediately blocking it and similar AI applications on all school-sanctioned devices. This restrictive approach is highly problematic and ultimately pointless.
Attempting to block the technology triggers the phenomenon of reverse psychology, especially among teenagers. If a teacher tells a student not to use AI, that student will be "itching to try it out" the moment the teacher’s back is turned. Furthermore, blocking the program in school is ineffective because educators cannot control what students do outside the classroom. Students can effortlessly access the program on their personal phones, or access it on different devices when completing homework.
The most compelling argument against blocking, however, is the inevitability of integration. Once Microsoft and Google integrate these AI models into their everyday Office Suite products, avoiding AI in the classroom will be impossible unless schools choose to "regress to the pre-internet age of paper and pencil". The technology cannot be fully and truly blocked.
Moreover, by blocking technology that is already being used in businesses across the country and around the world, schools are failing to prepare their students adequately to enter the 21st-century workforce. As Matt Miller from Ditch That Textbook stated, the current version of ChatGPT represents the "weakest, most rudimentary artificial intelligence of its kind our students will ever use". Teachers must recognize that students need training on how to interact with the world via the technology at their disposal, and how to do so safely.
The Solution: Working With AI
Instead of fighting the tide, educators must find practical ways to work with and around AI by re-evaluating material delivery and assessment methods. The focus should shift toward encouraging collaboration and promoting project-based and student-directive learning.
Examples from the classroom show that this shift can incorporate activities like creating posters, participating in rigorous debates to analyze literary work, group projects, presentations, and educational gameplay, such as escape rooms. When the curriculum is engagement-focused, the AI’s primary utility becomes a constructive "sounding board" for ideas.
Used correctly, AI technology can actively engage students in critical thinking:
Commerce Students can use the AI to find out the errors in the financial statements also to smoothening the process.
Math students can use the AI to test the results of math problems they create themselves.
Social Studies students can utilize ChatGPT to write alternative historical realities, which then become the basis for class discussion.
Science students can engage the chatbot to adopt the voice of a famous scientist, allowing for conversations about their discoveries.
Writing students can leverage AI for individualized tutoring, refining their research and ideas, editing their writing, and practicing vocabulary terms.
Beyond the student experience, AI offers transformative benefits for teachers, saving countless hours of preparation time. Educators have been quick to adopt it for writing lesson plans, creating discussion prompts, and developing tests and quizzes. A process that typically takes hours for a final exam was reduced to only 30 minutes with AI assistance.
Furthermore, AI enhances accessibility by adapting complex texts to meet the needs of all students. For example, ChatGPT can be asked to transform a challenging text into something readable for a fourth grader, or even convert classic literature, such as Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, into a modern-day telenovela.
The possibilities of AI integration are limited only by the user’s imagination. Students, just like their adult counterparts, express nervousness about AI's impact on their ability to become functioning adults who can make a positive contribution to the world. Teachers have the opportunity now, while many students are still learning about this technology, to establish clear times when AI should be utilized and when it should not, just as the internet before it wove its way into every facet of our lives, AI will become a staple in everyday routines. Schools must use this time to teach students how to use AI safely and effectively, launching education into a new era and ensuring that next year, educators are not sitting around a table in shock over the next form of cheating technology.
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