Educational apps and websites have integrated A.I. into their systems to keep up with the A.I. craze. They offer A.I. tools that help teachers with tasks such as grading.
Within a few years, A.I. has become a widespread phenomenon, so much so that schools are unable to keep up. With easy access to A.I. chatbots, such as ChatGPT, students can get answers to course work in seconds, making it impossible for schools to implement rules fast enough to ensure that learning is not compromised. Despite these challenges, a few teachers at Cathedral Prep have begun integrating the use of A.I. into their teaching to prepare students for an unpredictable future.
Computer Science Principals and Engineering Teacher Mr. McBride uses A.I. in his teaching to show students the capabilities of A.I. as a tool and encourages students to use A.I. when trying to answer a question that pertains to a particular issue.
”[I teach students to use A.I.] to resolve extraordinarily complex technical problems which are not a part of the content of an AP Manual focused on a discrete code architecture, not otherwise addressing a broader technical topology (e.g. data migration or interoperability of computing environments),” Mr. McBride wrote.
Mr. McBride also uses A.I. to create study tools and informational posts for students.
“I typically use [A.I.] to help create testing materials from previously used classroom content such as study guides and worksheets,” Mr. McBride wrote. “[I] also use Gemini AI for Canvas News in the Announcements section.”
Mr. McBride believes A.I. will change the overall approach to education.
“Education will evolve to a new standard of Personalization-At-Scale, generally meaning individualization of learning experiences [that are] not place-based or book-paced,” Mr. McBride said.
Students who “run the clock out on assignments and use A.I. for problem solving [as a result]” is the main group that Mr. McBride believes will be harmed the most by A.I.
“[Approaching academics this way] [creates] a huge barrier [in] growing [one’s] cognitive abilities,” Mr. McBride wrote.
Despite A.I.’s shortcomings and issues, Mr. McBride is “optimistic about how A.I. will shape [the] future.”
“There are some reservations for me personally, but any time humanity has advanced significantly, there were extreme views of potential dispositive outcomes,” Mr. McBride said.
Accounting and Entrepreneurship Teacher Mr. Pintea uses A.I. for many things, such as generating test material.
“One of the first uses I had for [A.I.] was coming up with the multiple-choice answers for multiple-choice questions. [A.I.] is very helpful [in that case],” Mr. Pintea said.
Another way Mr. Pintea uses A.I. is as an assistant when working on administrative tasks due to not having “a background in teaching education.”
“I rely on [A.I.] a lot to help me cut through the red tape of things I never learned, [which] help[s] me jumpstart my process of getting the different administrative tasks done,” Mr. Pintea said.
Mr. Pintea believes that A.I. helps teachers “meet students where they are” and has the potential to both help and harm students.
“[A.I. helps] with the learning process on the [teacher’s] end,” Mr. Pintea said. “[But] A.I. in the classroom from a student perspective is something to be very cautious with because it’s very easy to [over-rely on A.I. by using it] as a crutch.”
In his Entrepreneurship class, Mr. Pintea teaches his students to utilize A.I. by allowing them to generate images for their businesses so they can focus on developing the necessary skills to build a successful business rather than on tasks they could hire someone to do for them such as brand design. He also advises students to maintain a conversational format when asking A.I. questions to ensure that the learning process is like how it is in the classroom.
“Outside those standard uses, there are [many] grey areas for students,” Mr. Pintea said.
As an Accounting teacher, Mr. Pintea has noticed that A.I. is unable to explain connections between different pieces of information. Because of this, he suggests that students should focus on making connections between the concepts they learn in class.
“The key to success [in any job] is [being the] person [who] can connect information in ways [others] can’t,” Mr. Pintea said.
Mr. Pintea believes that schools will adopt a more traditional approach to education to combat the effects of excessive A.I. use.
“[A.I.] is creating zombie students, [and will continue to do so] if [teachers allow students to over-rely on A.I.],” Mr. Pintea said. “I see the high school setting, especially college preparatory schools like [Cathedral Prep], moving towards an anti-tech field as we go forward in education.”
At the beginning of the school year, Mr. Pintea tells each of his classes a story. During the summer, he saw a post about a seal pun. The “seal” in the image looked more like a sea lion, so he asked an A.I. chatbot if the subject of the image was a seal or a sea lion. Because the caption of the post stated that it was a seal, the A.I. chatbot assured him that the subject of the image was a seal. Skeptical about the A.I. chatbot’s answer, Mr. Pintea uploaded an image of a sea lion and asked the A.I. chatbot to compare the two images. After comparing the two images, the A.I. chatbot realized that the subject of the first image was a sea lion.
The entire point of this story is to emphasize that A.I., despite its impressive ability to answer a question in seconds, is fallible.
“Know that A.I. is a tool to use, but it’s not the end all be all [when it comes to] knowledge,” Mr. Pintea said.
