We talked in class about using AI for students in an ethical way. As an English teacher, I think it’s important that we show students how process is so much more important than product. AI is helpful in showing students how they can take some early information and create topics and prompt that they can use and adapt for their own writing. Getting away from staring at a blank page is the biggest step for most emerging writers because the task itself is too daunting. Using AI to scaffold the writing process can be an extremely useful tool to show how to organize ideas and synthesize resources in a way that is accessible and available to younger minds.
When we walk about plagiarism, we have to have established rules and regulations ahead of time to avoid any unfortunate circumstances with our students. Especially now with AI becoming more and more prevalent. My high school had a strict “no take-home essays” policy so everything was done in class time, with pen and paper. I don’t think that’s feasible nowadays with how much students rely on tech (chromebooks, tablets, etc.). That said, having the student observable during their work is beneficial so you can see what they’re doing and how their doing it. As well, I think it would be prudent to require students to show any instances that they did use AI, so that it’s in the open. If I, as their teacher, determine that it’s too heavily relied upon in an assignment, I can have them re-write certain parts so that it’s more reflective of their learning, and not how good they are at fooling the system with CTRL+C, and CRTL+V.
