By: Lucia Gabriel

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become increasingly accessible and prevalent in its usage in the lives of many these days. It’s utilized everywhere, from professional businesses to educational classrooms, it’s now everywhere for people to use. As it continues to grow and evolve at a very fast rate, its effects on education, professions, medicine and classrooms will likewise expand. Its effects can bring both advantages and disadvantages in all these areas, including education.  

AI is used in a variety of ways by students, such as giving instant feedback on problems about different topics, and customizing its answers based on the different learning styles of students. Lexi Fitzgerald, a junior at Ponte Vedra High School (PVHS), said, “AI helps me because it creates practice problems and explains things in a way that makes sense to me.” She explained that she uses it to clear up concepts that she doesn’t understand because it formats its explanations perfect for how she likes to learn. According to education.illinois.edu, “Through AI-powered platforms, you can create lessons, activities, assessments, discussion prompts, and presentations simply by providing a short prompt with keywords.” 

It is important for students to use AI responsibly in order to help them. Fitzgerald said, “When I use it to create explanations I put it into a Word document, add to it, and highlight what I need to know. This helps me more than just sitting in class or reading a textbook.” Claire Peak, a junior at PVHS said, “If I don’t understand a topic I learned in class, I have ChatGPT explain it to me in a way that helps me better understand. When I am studying, I ask it to make a quiz for me so I can see how well I’m doing and see where I need more practice.” 

AI is also able to speed up the time it takes to perform certain tasks. Ms. Menard, an English teacher and Dual Enrollment professor at PVHS, said, “Many research tasks that would previously take a long time now take less time.” There are many AI writing programs, such as Grammarly, which check for spelling, punctuation, and grammar errors. They are designed to rapidly produce information and finish tasks in a short amount of time. 

Although there are some benefits of using AI for educational purposes, there are also some downsides. Ms. Menard said, “I found that students have a tendency to automatically default to using AI to generate ideas, and it has limited their development of their own critical thinking abilities.” It has the power of weakening the skills of students when they depend too much on it. There is an ongoing worry that as students rely more on the skill and speed of AI, they will neglect to sharpen their own problem-solving abilities. According to nsta.org, “Studies have indicated that when individuals rely heavily on AI for information retrieval and decision making, their ability to engage in reflective problem solving and independent analysis may decline.” Students even use it to write essays, do their homework, and complete other assignments for them. However, there are now detectors that teachers use to find out if a student’s work is truly from them. AI can both help and hurt students’ problem-solving skills. If they rely too much on AI to solve problems, it can be harmful. 

AI can cause students to lack proper social skills. According to education.illinois.org, “Relying more and more on AI may reduce the teacher-to-student interactions and relationships and take away from the social-emotional aspects of learning. If those interactions diminish, students’ social skills and interpersonal development will suffer.” If a student is only learning from AI and not having human interactions, they may lack proper social skills that they need.  

AI may not always give accurate information, and teachers can often detect when an assignment is completed by AI. Ms. Menard said, “In college level courses there’s software installed in assignments that detect plagiarism and AI. When students know that they tend to not use AI for their assignments.” She also explained that students who automatically have AI generating ideas for them will lose the ability and motivation to come up with ideas on their own.  

When it is used for the right purposes, AI can make a difference and help students who are struggling. However, like any other technology, it has its limits. While it can provide information in an understandable manner, it can also diminish human creativity. The same technology that can provide quick answers to a student in an attempt to cut corners on a given assignment, it can be used by instructors to catch students cheating. Similar to how technology that came before AI is used, it can be utilized for either good or bad.  

Graphic done by Phillip Berkwit