Commentary
As kids head back to school, parents should understand a new reality—the widespread use of artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping our education system, and not in a good way.
AI programs such as ChatGPT make it easier for students to solve complex problems and even write entire essays. Any student with a computer or smartphone can access a wide range of AI programs with little difficulty. Homework used to help students develop academic skills through practice. Now there’s no guarantee the assignments submitted by students are written by students—they may be merely the work of an AI bot.
According to a new Leger survey of teachers (grades 6-12) across Canada, 42.2 percent believe more than half of their students “use AI in their homework and other take-home assignments.” And teachers believe that an average of 55.9 percent of students “use AI inappropriately to actually do the assignments for them and therefore do not complete the expected and required work themselves.”
If students are using AI to complete their homework, we might expect the homework to be a great deal more polished than their in-class writing. Here, 78.6 percent of teachers “observed differences between the quality of homework and take-home assignments from some students compared to their performance on in-class tests and assignments,” (the in-class work being lower quality).
Of course, long before AI, some students got help at home and therefore produced higher-quality take-home work. But here’s the problem—an overwhelming majority (90.9 percent) of teachers who observed this quality difference per the survey said that “this difference in performance between take-home assignments and in-class tests has been increasing over time.”
Again, if students rely too heavily on AI, they will not acquire their own knowledge base or develop their ability to write well and analyze concepts. When an adult uses AI, they presumably have some knowledge foundation or even subject matter expertise, allowing them to root out what’s false when AI bots present incorrect or biased information, which happens often.
Perhaps the biggest concern around AI use by students is the effect on critical thinking. According to the survey, a stunning 83.6 percent of teachers “observed a decline in the critical thinking skills of [their] students in class over the last five years.” According to another recent study (involving 27,000 students aged 12 to 18), students who regularly used AI to help with their homework saw their average homework scores rise by 18 percent after six months. The average amount of time students spent on their assignments also dropped significantly. But AI use had the opposite impact on exam scores. Students who regularly used AI scored about 20 percent lower on their exams than those who didn’t use AI.
It’s not hard to figure out what’s going on. The more students use AI to complete assignments, the less able they are to complete tasks independently. Since students cannot use AI while writing in-class exams, exams have become the only foolproof way to measure the true academic abilities of students.
In response to the proliferation of AI, the question is often: do we adapt and incorporate AI into classrooms and teach students to “use it well,” or do we AI-proof classrooms and preserve a more analogue education that fosters foundational skills?
Clearly, we must ensure students do not become overly dependent on AI. For example, schools could limit the use of technology in classrooms, especially for younger students, regulate AI use for older kids, and make students complete more work in class. And provincial governments could expand the use of standardized testing, the only way to gather data on student academic achievement not tainted by AI.
Like other tools, AI must not be allowed to replace genuine learning. The academic basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic remain just as foundational now as they were in the past. If we expect students to use AI well, they need the knowledge base and critical-thinking skills to discern truth from fiction.
Michael Zwaagstra and Paige MacPherson are senior fellows at the Fraser Institute. MacPherson is the author of the Survey of Canadian Grades 6-12 Teachers on AI Use.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
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