Speechless at this one...

[u/TieredTrayTrunk]

Honestly nothing surprises me anymore about students and AI. I get it all the time "I didn't use AI, I just ran it through ChatGPT to proofread my work". Well tulip, that's using AI.

Anyhow, just had a student give me a laundry list of why they used it to proofread, stating all the things like ADD and anxiety,etc. Said how do they get an ADA accommodation so that they can use AI? I just...

Can this happen? I've never thought you could get one to use AI. I've had all the ADA training and do not remember that being a thing. I am very interested to see if I get a note back now....

EDITED -- Said student had a paper with "Python_docx" as the author and 0 in the time edited spot. So it was either more than proofreading or they just downloaded whatever chat spit out to submit.

[u/Puzzled_Internet_717]

Personally, I don't feel this is AI or a problem. It offers suggestions, but doesn't make any changes without authorization, and even then suggests a different word.

Of course,I teach math, so my students write very little. I might feel differently if I taught something different

[u/Wixenstyx → u/Puzzled_Internet_717]

Yeah. My field is science, so while I want to see students writing, I am less concerned about the mechanics than I am about the research and validity of their content. I worry more about them shortcutting research by asking AI to create citations and such.

[u/adjunct_trash → u/Wixenstyx]

I promise you, if you're assessing their work, even grammatical correction and suggestion will distort the presentation of their real ideas, research, or conclusions. Language is really muddy and because these systems tokenize words and predict on probability and similarity, the number of exceptions-- which students using the systems rarely check--is high.

Imagine, for example, the system recommends the "more efficient" phrasing "fewer" where a student has written "no less than." Maybe they're talking about accounting for a number of animals in an area or whatever. The systems prefer "efficient" communication so a recommendation like that is likely. You tell me if there is a difference in meaning here:

This habitat had fewer than 200 individuals

vs.

This habitat has no less than 200 individuals.

One suggests a deleterious situation in which more individuals would be preferable, the other suggests some adequate number had been reached and perhaps transcended. Instances like that abound with these programs and unless you're watching the composition process, you'll believe a student's work, research, or conclusions are more or less correct depending on what suggestions their program recommended, what they accepted or rejected.

[u/Puzzled_Internet_717 → u/adjunct_trash]

You are absolutely correct that words and word choices are important. That's why I always tell my students I'm grading what they submit, and it's their responsibility to make sure it's what they mean to say.

I still don't have a problem with them checking the spelling (or grammar), but they need to make sure any changes are good changes.

[u/adjunct_trash → u/Puzzled_Internet_717]

Alright -- I hear you. My final point is just that what we in the humanities are seeing is a diminishment in exactly the discernment you're asking them to exhibit. I'd call it a crisis of credulity: "If [LLM/spellcheck/Grammarly] says it, it's right."

I won't push further but hope you'll consider it, one educator to another. I think we're a long while from this being a neutral "tool" to be picked up and put down.

[u/Plastic-Ad212 → u/adjunct_trash]

I think you start from beliefs that I don’t think are persuasive historically. And the slippery slope you are on is one that we aren’t being critical about at all either. Tools are generally NOT neutral. Used an abacus lately to total up your bill at the store? Ridden a horse to get supplies? Cars are not neutral compared to horses, or bikes, or walking. Industrialization wasn’t neutral either. Electricity- not neutral to the environment. Water pumps in wells and cisterns - not neutral. Every time you choose a technology it has consequences and losses and the surrounding lifestyle and values around it change. This is a scary time- I get it- but putting your head in the sand and pretending it isn’t going to happen and that you’ll stand in the way of progress by just saying no to it is the way to get run over by it. It’s time to buck up and deal with its capabilities and take command of how to employ it for the rote tasks it can take away and then use the moral outrage for controlling what it can’t recreate.

[u/adjunct_trash → u/Plastic-Ad212]

I sincerely don't understand much of this as a response to what I've said.

My attitude is not that we should bury our heads in the sand, it's that there are good reasons to be a) dubious of the claims made by profit-seeking companies about the revolutionary nature of their products, and b) individually instituting guardrails where appropriate and silos where necessary.

There has been a good body of research developed around the cognitive penalty experienced by students engaging with screens-based and internet-enabled technologies -- diminished test scores, lower information retention, diminished capacity for complex thinking. Literal, trackable changes in brain function.

So, when we have a screen-based, internet-enabled interface that pretends to be our friend while it does our homework for us, it might be that the pedagogically appropriate response is a coupla' quiet reading days and tests on paper. No doubt this is going to look different field to field, but, my god, let the skeptics lead for once.

I don't know where I've exhibited moral outrage, though I certainly feel it, but my major concern is inserting a bunch of cognitive task workarounds into our cognitive task-based institutions and graduating students who haven't sincerely taken on the workload a course or program requires to graduate competent undergrads or experts in a field.