As A.I. becomes increasingly prevalent in schools, students often use it to do math homework or write essays. While some teachers don’t support A.I. use, others are considering using it to help them with grading or coming up with assignment ideas.
AP World History and Ethnic Studies teacher Amira Sani is confident that A.I. can help rather than harm. “I would love to figure out a way to get A.I. to help me grade written assignments like essays. It’s always nice to be able to get a second opinion or a second read to make sure I am being fair when grading, and sometimes it is not possible to have another colleague or person to look at the student’s work for a second opinion,” Sani said.
Still, Sani believes there are limits to A.I.’s usefulness. “I don’t think A.I. alone could be sufficient in grading assignments and tests. I think it could be used to assist a teacher. We all make mistakes, so having multiple ways to catch any grading mistakes would help. I’ve heard of teachers using A.I. to build worksheets and slides—I’ve tried using A.I. to make slides, but it just didn’t work for me.”
Photography teacher Sarah Frivold has encountered both the advantages and shortcomings of A.I. “I found out that you can Google, ‘What are the top 10 assignments that AP Photo teachers give in the first week of school?’ and [Google A.I.] provides you with a list and links. When I did this, it saved me two and a half hours,” Frivold said.
“As a photo teacher, unfortunately, A.I. cannot help me with grading because it is not subjective. I’m looking for certain things like focus and composition, which A.I. is not yet able to recognize,” Frivold added.
“There is a website called Magic School A.I. for teachers, which has a lot of tools that help,” math teacher Carlos Martinez said. The website generates lesson plans and assignment creation. Although Martinez said he didn’t use the website personally, he knew other teachers who did and was considering using it.
English teachers Lisa Otsuka and Jason Hunt explained that A.I. is insufficient for grading or creating assignments in English classes. “Because everything in this class is exceedingly human and very personalized, I don’t use A.I.,” Otsuka said.
“My students are competing for admission into the top colleges and universities in the world. I would feel guilty if I, as their teacher, was not the one scoring their work,” Hunt said.
During a staff meeting, teachers used A.I. to structure a lesson but concluded it was much lower quality than their work. “I feel like there were some helpful nuggets, but we ended up revamping pretty much everything from the A.I. lesson because our knowledge pulled together was superior to the more diffused knowledge we were getting,” Otsuka said.
“If there are places where it can augment our thinking instead of replacing our thinking, I’m a fan of that if it can enhance our humanity and not replace it,” Otsuka said.
“If we rely on A.I. to hand us answers immediately—if we skip the process of productive struggle—we risk losing the very spark that makes us human,” Hunt said.
