From WXXI news.

This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour was made one day before a take home exam in an undergraduate psychology course at Wharton.

Professor Adam Grant recalls the story in The New York Times.

He writes that a few of his students sent him frantic messages because they were concerned that their peers were planning to use artificial intelligence to cheat on the take home exam.

Could there be another way to assess us?

They wondered.

Grant then writes in the New York Times, quote, when the 95 students logged in for the exam, however, they got a surprise.

I had ditched the multiple choice and short answer questions that I usually include.

Instead, I asked the students to write an essay using the principles of organizational psychology they'd been studying and how to motivate students to stop cheating.

Their responses shocked me.

Hardly any students saw cheating as a violation of integrity.

A majority made excuses.

We're under a lot of stress.

Everyone else is doing it.

We have no choice.

They sounded like Major League Baseball players in the steroid era.

ChatGPT was their performance enhancing drug, end quote.

And so Grant expanded his view as he then described, saying, quote, last year when I surveyed students at elite universities about their views of cheating, plenty of them admitted to doing it to get into college, and they signed the survey using their full names.

They were not embarrassed by it.

I hasn't just made cheating harder to catch.

It's made cheating so effortless, enticing, and available that many students no longer believe it's wrong.

One Ivy League student in my survey wrote, cheating is a creative expression and a form of problem solving.

If you can get around the restrictions put in place and not get caught, then good on you, end quote.

And so how can teachers assess their students knowing that some students may not all, but some will cheat.

Some might not even view using AI as cheating.

This summer, K-Through-12 teachers have discussed different ways to measure whether their students are truly learning.

They've talked about how to integrate AI into classrooms or not.

And I've asked them to come in this hour to talk about what this moment is in K-Through-12 especially.

And I want to welcome our guest here.

Julie Kopp is a curriculum and assessment coach at Brighton Central School District.

Thank you for being with us here.

Glad to be here with us as well.

Is George Goga, an English teacher at Geneva High School.

He's also an adjunct professor of English and education at Suny Geneseo.

Welcome back to the program to you.

It's great to be back.

Thanks.

Evan.

And George brought Lily Tym, who's a teaching assistant at Geneva High School and a senior, I believe.

Is that right?

Yep.

Welcome to the program.

Thank you for having me.

So, Julie, why don't you tell us a little bit about what you do as an assessment coach?

Curriculum and assessment coach, first of all.

So, my role is to work with teachers K-12 in developing and implementing, curriculum and designing assessments.

And, critiquing the assessments that are part of the programs that are given to ensure that they're aligned with the outcomes that the teachers are intending to teach to.

So you've been doing this for, in Brighton for 15, 16 years now, and the ChatGPT era is now just about 3 or 4 years old.

How much has changed in the ChatGPT era from what teachers are telling you about how to assess their students?

I think teachers are really concerned about, the student cheating and about whether they're getting, valid information from the students related to their to their learning.

Many of the teachers are at this point, shifting back to giving in classroom assessments where they can monitor that the students are doing the work in front of them with pen and pencil or with, if on computers, with locked down browsers, so that kids don't have access to I. And speaking of AI.

That's right, that's right.

Everyone's phones are on silent.

That's okay.

Julia, you're a first timer in the studio here.

That's no problem.

So.

But let me kind of follow that point here.

So a growing number of teachers are saying, all right, we're going to assess you in the classroom.

But isn't that more cumbersome for the teacher to say, we're going to have to write this out by pen and paper or on a locked down browser, as opposed to how we used to do it?

Does that take more time to assess?

I think like my concern, I think that that teachers are are I mean, in Brighton, what we talk about is having a balanced approach to assessment, which means that we have on demand, task, which would be the typical multiple choice short answer essay.

And then we also have teachers that we are in courses.

We want to have teachers to use performance based assessments.

And for those of you who don't know, a performance based assessment is an assessment where students are encouraged to engage in the creation of a performance or product that is, not on demand, that it's typically created over time and, that they get feedback along the way related to, you know, the parts of the process in order to build towards that product.

So, for example, if a teacher's, a health teacher in a middle school classroom might be to be teaching healthy habits and the teacher may in order to have the students demonstrate their understanding, have them research.

What are the habits that, you know, are coming up as issues within our student population, within our building?

Then the teacher may have the students research those issues and then, maybe create a public service announcement or a poster in the classroom or for the hallways where you have an authentic audience for the work that you're doing.

And so, when that's done, it's done over time.

So the opportunity for kids to access AI to support them with different parts of that project are, you know, they're out there and kids are going to use AI to support them in the process.

I think that teachers need to be clear about when teachers are going to use AI, and when they are not going to use AI, and I think we also have to rethink, the assessment in that the product that's created, for example, the poster on the wall is not the only piece of evidence that we collect that.

We're also collecting evidence that is showing the student thinking along the way.

And that evidence is likely to be collected during the formative part of the instructional process.

And it will be students when they're in the classroom, and the teacher can see them doing the thinking that, you know, that they're collecting the evidence of.

In a way, it seems like we're going back to how classrooms might have originally worked when there wasn't technology.

More discussion, more active participation, more interaction to demonstrate knowledge.

Is that fair?

You know, whether it's going back to, I think you're going to dispute the idea that this has not been happening in the, in the modern era anyway.

I think clarity around what your outcomes are.

I mean, I think, I guess I want to go back and, and say that I think when we talk about assessment, you can't talk about assessment without talking about learning.

And I think when you talk about the discussions that you're having and what's happening, the discourse that's going on in the classroom, that's where you see evidence of the student thinking.

And, when the students are, you know, writing to think, which is a strategy that's used in a lot of the, humanities classrooms in our district.

They are showing the thinking that's going on in their heads at this point in time, when teachers have the opportunity to give feedback and help them refine their thinking.

So I think that, like, what might, have changed is that we're going to be focused a lot more on gathering evidence and making judgments during the formative part of the process than we are just looking at the end product when it comes to a performance based task, when you're looking at the on demand task.

I think that, you know, the on demand task and getting evidence of student learning during that 40 minute period through the multiple choice or short answer, will has always been and will continue to be the type of assessment that teachers are.

It's the go to because to be honest with you, it's it's in some senses the easiest.

And I think I, from what I've seen in Brighton so far, as teachers are more willing to use AI to help them craft, a good assessment.

So, for example, this summer, there's been a shift in the New York State Regents exams so that they're doing what they call cluster questions where there's in the science exams.

So there's a number of questions that are built around, a stimulus which might be a paragraph or two, and then data, data, data graphs and charts that the students are having to interpret, interpret and they're having to respond to sometimes multiple choice but sometimes constructed response questions related to those prompts.

And we, you know, unpacked what the thinking demands were of the types of those questions, the way those questions were written.

And then teachers used a AI to begin the process of creating assessments.

And obviously, any AI that we use, you know, we recommend it be, you know, there's a human in the loop, so to speak.

Yeah.

Exactly.

Yeah.

So they were, you know, I think, Optimistic about the, the, the, the potential for AI to support them in creating robust tasks for students.

You know, that would give students the practice, that they would need to be successful on the higher stakes assessments that are going to be part of those, you know, part of their lives.

If New York continues to offer the Regents.

Well, let me turn to your colleagues.

Co-panelists from Geneva.

So, George Goga, you teach English?

I do.

How much have you had to alter your view on how to assess students, given what students can do with ChatGPT and other forms of AI?

In many ways, summative assessment has changed those traditional term papers that we're all familiar with writing and preparing throughout the course of a semester, and then submitting to an instructor for a grade.

In many ways, that final product has shifted.

In many ways it hasn't.

You know, I think good teaching and the research certainly supports this involves a process.

And so even though the product is shifting, my expectations for the product is shifting the ways I need to go about teaching and preparing students for that is shifting.

I'm also still interested in the process that students are putting together as they prepare, let's say, these term papers as one example.

On the other hand, the humanities and English language arts in particular have always been focused on things like oral defense, process analysis, proposal evaluation cycle.

So in many ways, we are returning to some of the basics of assessment.

And in many ways, we're also opening up the fact that assessment has shifted.

But these best practices have been best practices for a while now.

Do you think more of your colleagues are assessing, if not exclusively, a lot more in person?

So, for example, if there would have been take home either homework or quizzes or exams in the past, those are now administered entirely in the classroom.

I think that shift is starting to occur.

As for the specific number, the specific data, I'm not entirely sure, but that shift is starting to occur not just in our community, but across the US as well.

As we get these more in class, in person types of assessments, whether that is in the humanities or outside of them.

I also don't want to spend this hour sort of painting a picture of Lilly's generation as, you know, some sort of like flawed, eager to cheat when they are coming of age at a time when this technology is coming into the world.

There's no generation that's ever been in school that probably wouldn't have been in the same situation that they are in.

So this is not a condemnation of anybody.

This is an exploration of human nature and an understanding of how schools need to operate now that these tools are out there.

I say that because when I read Adam Grant, who is a a psychology writer, that I've long really appreciated, he was, in his own words, shocked at how many students don't view it to be cheating if they can get ChatGPT or other forms of AI to do almost all or all of the work for them, they view it as a, a clever shortcut that doesn't fall into the category of cheating.

And in my brain, I still think of it as cheating.

How do you see that?

You know, how do you kind of find that line?

George, I think there's two things there.

First of all, that that Adam Grant article is phenomenal.

When I read it, you know, he's talking a lot about moral identity as a way to prevent some of these issues from occurring, because we see things like these honesty pledges that you mentioned at the beginning not being as effective as we hoped they would be.

So I am in favor of some of what he's advocating there in terms of preparing students to understand moral identity and the ethical questions behind these issues as well.

But to your question directly about plagiarism and cheating, I think there is a huge shift in how today's generation thinks about things like cognitive offloading, taking this task and outsourcing it to AI.

And again, as you mentioned, I don't think this is to blame the generation.

I think this is an opportunity to better educate and instill some of these questions.

In other words, to to teach them about what is and what isn't acceptable.

If this is the world that they're truly inheriting or even building at the same time?

Yeah.

And, Julie, I know you want to jump in.

Go ahead.

I just want to say, in addition to teaching them around, you know, the consequences of it and the the moral piece of it, I think it's an also an opportunity.

And I like the way you speak, George, about it being the an opportunity.

But it's an opportunity for us to help kids to understand and become metacognitive cognitive thinkers, which is something, you know, having kids be be self-directed learners so that they're aware of what the cost of offloading is going to be.

Yes.

I think is a really important thing, that we will become, I guess, more emphasized as we move further into this world of AI integration in classrooms.

Because the only way I think we're going to get kids to see the, the, the issues with offloading is for them to see the consequences of offloading.

And I remember reading an article, last spring where a student, had offloaded again and again and again across the year.

And when it came time to do a final, which was us sit down, you know, final, whatever, you know, longer to our final 1.5 hour final, the student failed the course and came back and said, why did you let me offload?

You know, the assignment all year and blamed it on the teacher, and it was the teacher's fault.

And so I think that notion of taking responsibility and helping students to take responsibility for when they know that they're thinking when they need to be engaged in that what we call productive struggle in the educational world, that is part of, you know, solidifying and internalizing the content and that you're working with, it's a huge part of the learning process.

Well, let me let me bring in the voice of a senior in high school.

This is Lily Tym, who is also a teaching assistant at Geneva High School.

How much I. You use it in your day to day life?

Day to day.

I think that I use AI to kind of help me organize.

Sometimes I think that's the biggest thing I use is for organization.

I don't particularly use it on assignments, but I know, like, I can't speak for everyone because I think I'm kind of an outlier, especially in my grade in my school.

I think a lot of people do use AI every single day, constantly.

I think they use it even for things that aren't with school.

They just ask it questions, chat to beauty or Claude or whatever they prefer to use, and they kind of just have it as an assistant, a personal assistant.

But I think it gets to a point where you have to realize that it can't be used for everything because of, like, what we said about cognitive offloading.

But I think that, like, you can kind of tell when you're talking to someone if they do use AI for simple tasks, like they don't know how to think for themselves, if that makes sense.

I mean, you're 17 years old.

Yes.

Yeah.

And you're already able to look at your peers and go, they are.

They do not appear to be a critical thinker on their own.

Yeah.

And also about AI writing, a lot of people talk like AI.

Now that makes sense.

Even when reading writing, you know, you can tell the patterns of charge a bit like it's not X, it's why like we see that a lot.

To me it's like it's not X, it's not Y, it's Z. But often it's how did this incoherent set up?

And it's this overdramatic.

Yeah.

Oh boy.

We need not adopt.

GPT or kludge bugs in that way, but I, I also appreciate a point that I think Lily and really Julie are making about, too often when I think about cheating in school with AI, we think about.

Okay, you got a paper?

Okay.

ChatGPT writes it.

It's not always as simple as that.

Sometimes it is the question of how much you do offload.

If it's data collection.

If it's research, if it is organizing thoughts and it's not, I don't think everyone would always agree.

I would hope there's an agreement, although apparently the research says there's not among students that if you just ask ChatGPT to write your essay for you and you give it a prompt that that is cheating.

But I do think it's murkier than that.

And I want to ask you where you draw the lines.

Lily, wait, what does cheating look like, and when does it look like an appropriate use of AI?

Well, this kind of reminded me of my friend who's writing their essay for college right now, and he said that he used AI to help him reword some things and decide a topic.

And in my opinion, I don't think that that's his original work anymore.

Once AI changes any words, even if it's something that sounds better, like for example, Grammarly rewards what you're saying.

I just don't think that that's your work.

It's not your brain.

Even if I thinks it sounds the best or the most professional, it's not your own voice and it's not your own writing.

And I think at the end of the day, you can tell that it's not your writing.

You can tell that it's written by AI.

Okay, I really want to endorse this.

I really like where you're going, Lily, but I also understand that a lot of your peers may feel differently, and you used to speak a lot of your peers in school do feel differently.

I definitely think, and I think that there is a way to use AI, even not with writing, because I think I talk about the humanities a lot, but I think for math and science specifically too, I think you can use AI to say, create questions to help you understand something, because I think it it knows patterns a lot.

So it can help you with formulaic questions in that way.

But I do think that when it comes to writing and your own voice, I think I think it's cheating.

But I do agree.

I don't think a lot of my peers would say the same.

Okay, so let's ask, I'm going to ask Julie and George about this.

Lily gives us a really important I think, way of thinking about this.

Let's say you write an 800 word paper on something, and then you ask AI to clean it up for you or to you know, is this the best way of describing a point here?

And the AI suggests a different way to Lily.

Even that is out of bounds.

You're no longer submitting what is truly your own work.

Even if you created the original 800 words or a thousand words, I should not be intervening to clean it up for you.

And it's okay, I think, to make mistakes, right?

And to learn.

But that's there are a lot of students, George and Julie, who would say, come on, I wrote that thousand words that these are my ideas.

All I am trying to do is find out sharper ways of describing the points that I want to make myself and Lily has an unfair standard here, which I actually agree with.

Okay, but where are you on that?

Well, I agree as well.

I think in that scenario, AI is out of bounds, especially in the context of a writing course or a course where our goal is to get students to think and then produce thinking on the page.

I think ultimately the burden of proof exists with the student and the fidelity of the writing process needs to be carried out such that there are opportunities for struggle, there is opportunity for friction and for mistakes.

And then ultimately, at the end of that learning process, something that's more polished should emerge.

If the learning process is from your own pen or keyboard, yes.

Okay.

Okay.

Well, Julie Kopp, curriculum and assessment coach at Brighton Central School District, let's take that example.

So I submit to you in a thousand word piece of which I did write a thousand words.

And then I asked an AI program to clean it up or to give me better words or language, or change a phrase, or maybe reorganize a couple paragraphs and it does that, and I submit that in bounds or out of bounds.

You know, I really struggle with it because I know that my daughter, when we sat at the table and, you know, the night before an essay would do, would write a writer draft of that, that paper, and she'd come to her parents and say, so, can you read through it?

Can you help me out?

Sure.

And I think it's a matter of, you know, when we were when my husband and I were asked to help her, we were not giving her answers.

We were giving her feedback and saying, here's what's problematic.

You could try it like this.

Or, you know, you know, we weren't doing the work and rewriting it for her.

But so I think feedback is a part of the writing process in the writing was going to get stronger because I had that feedback, because she had that, hopefully it was going to get stronger because she had the feedback.

From from her parents on that particular essay.

And I think from my own experience professionally, I can, I could I take, you know, a PowerPoint that I'm doing where I'm presenting for professional development, I shoot it to I and say, I feel like this isn't, you know, it's not tracking, it's not on point.

Where did I go off kilter?

I gives me feedback, you know, when it's 11:00 at night and I don't have somebody to bounce it back on because it's last minute.

And I'm going to use that feedback.

And I don't consider that cheating.

Right.

So I think your students would say if you're using that in professional development and that's not cheating to you, then I should be able to write a thousand words and then ask AI to clean it up and submit it.

And that's not cheating.

I think there's a difference between asking AI to do the work for you, and I think it's asking AI for feedback.

And I know it's, it's it's it's sort of splitting hairs even.

But I, I do think in one situation AI is cleaning it up and I'm not having to think about anything that you just that, that it's cleaning up.

It's, it's cleaning up my run ons.

It's doing everything for me.

Good feedback is going to make the student work harder than they would otherwise.

So when I, when my when I, when, when Megan would, my daughter would come to me and say, help me with this.

I wouldn't tell her where the mistakes were.

I would say, Megan, there's some issues within this paragraph with your sentence structure.

Where is it?

Can you find it?

You know, and and can you can we move on?

I know not every parent approaches it that way, but I, I. We want to teach learners how to be learners.

Yeah.

And if we're using it as a tool to support our learning, I don't know that that's a bad thing.

Okay.

And so, George, then what if a student makes that kind of an argument that says, look before the ChatGPT is of the world, people would just talk to other people, sometimes their parents, sometimes friends, and they would get feedback, just as a songwriter would have a collaborator to give them feedback before the age of pseudo.

So, what's the difference?

It's the same thing.

It's just feedback.

It's my original work, and then it's aided by the feedback of, I, you can't tell me that's out of bounds.

I think from a compositional point of view, you're talking about prescriptive ism versus descriptive ism.

You know, on the one hand, I might be prescribing that you make a series of grammatical changes.

Julia, you gave that example of the essay, for instance, and then it might go ahead and make those changes as well.

Or as a more descriptive ist approach, a more holistic approach might be saying there are indeed mistakes in the first paragraph.

The transitions that you're using don't seem to line up.

The overall argument isn't as cohesive as you imagine, and it is with that more of a descriptive approach that you might find similarities to, let's say, a writer's workshop or a conference where you're sitting and working with a Ta on your essay as a student.

So I think there's a fine line there.

You know, to your question specifically, I would need to see that as evidence of the thinking that the student actually did as evidence of the productive struggle.

I have a question here that I wrote down who is doing the consequential thinking?

Is it the student who's still doing the thinking?

Yeah.

Is it the teacher?

Is it both?

Is it the platform?

And I'd like to see evidence of that where it happens.

I think that's the core of all of this.

And, to to Julie's point earlier, it's easy for me to talk about a 14 year old in my household versus a teacher who's got 25 students, and you've got to do assessing, and you have to really understand who's doing the consequential thinking.

One of the reasons I have never used any AI to to write one word of connection script nothing for this program.

It out of my mouth has ever been generated by AI is because I don't want to lose my own voice.

And when I hear Lily say she's got peers that sound like they're they're already using AI so much, they're kind of talking and communicating in the way that some of the clunky, kind of cliche AI writing is.

That's what scares me.

This homogenous future where the thinking, the writing, the expressing is homogenized.

I think when you're getting feedback as a songwriter or a writer, from a person, from your parents, from people who know you and your styles and your proclivities, that's one thing.

But when it is AI and it puts in the words for you, then it becomes really homogenous and we get a lack of diversity of ideas and thoughts and expressions and ways of expressing.

And I don't, you know, no offense to Lily's friends, but I don't want I don't want people talking like Claude or ChatGPT.

Yeah, I think that's a major issue is that AI isn't a person and it's run on one code.

So it's not thinking there's no diversity at all, like there's no variation.

So if you use AI for feedback, it's never going to be the same as a real person feedback.

Because an AI doesn't have experience, it doesn't have an opinion, it doesn't have emotion.

So it's just different than human feedback.

But we anthropomorphize so much that we've convinced ourselves that a lot of AI does have emotion, or that it is worth friendships or even romantic relationships.

I mean, it's a very different world that we're in, and that's why we're having this conversation.

I see Ethan on the line.

I've got a couple of emails already that I want to read, so let's take the only break of the hour.

Ethan, I'll take your call first.

And then we got some emails.

And listeners, you can join the conversation as we talk about, cheating and assessment and understanding.

You know, who owns the work in the age of AI, especially in our k-through-12 classrooms?

With Julie Kopp, a curriculum and assessment coach at Brighton Central School District, and from Geneva, George Goga is an English teacher at Geneva High School.

Lily Tym is a teaching assistant and a senior at Geneva High School.

It's 844295 talk.

If you want to call the program (844) 295-8255.

Your your emails should be your own not from ChatGPT please.

Connections a cyborg although I cannot probably screen them fast enough.

Okay, let's take this break.

We'll come right back to your feedback.

Text.

Coming up in our second hour, we bring back a conversation with a psychopath.

James Fallon is a neuroscientist who only learned that he has psychopathy.

When he had to study his own family's brain scans, he realized something looked a little off, and he started to try to understand his own actions and his own life.

He wrote a book called The Psychopath Inside.

It is a fascinating conversation.

Next hour.

Support for your public radio station comes from our members and from Bob Johnson Auto Group.

Believing an informed public makes for a stronger community.

Proud supporter of Connections with Evan Dawson focused on the news, issues and trends that shape the lives of listeners in the Rochester and Finger Lakes regions.

Bob Johnson Auto group.com.

This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson and this is Ethan in Rochester.

First on the phone.

Hey, Ethan, go ahead.

Thank you.

I was interested to hear the comment of the panelists discussing her use of AI in a professional environment, as opposed to her daughters for educational purposes.

I think that's a very important distinction, because the professional application is intended to communicate information and persuade, whereas as a student, the purpose, the primary purpose is a learning experience and the effectiveness of communication is judged in fulfilling the educational purpose.

But it isn't necessarily to succeed fully.

And so I differentiate between using it in that environment when it is being used in place of the learning experience, I feel something is being diminished.

Ethan.

Thank you.

What do you think, Julie.

Ethan I hear what you're saying.

But I. Again, I think it goes back to who's doing who's doing the thinking.

And if the thinking is still being done by the students, as they're responding to, as they're using it, you know, I as a feedback tool, then, and learning is happening.

I'm not sure that I have a problem with that.

Okay.

But I, I want to make sure I understand, you know?

So, Ethan, what is the what's the key takeaway for you here in where that line needs to be?

You know, you referenced a professional setting versus an instructional or an educational setting, but in general, for students who are in K through 12, especially in high school right now, where do you think the line needs to be?

Are you there, Ethan?

And I'll go ahead.

Do you think?

Yeah.

Go ahead.

Yeah, I, I don't object to careful application of I. My concern is that, for one thing, because teachers are so overwhelmed with workload that there is a, desire, ability to find pathways that may relieve some of that pressure.

And if AI is used, I don't want to say inappropriately, but it's understandable that there might be a desire to, use it in that application, in which case, I think, you know, I guess what I'm saying is that in the ultimate application and the best case scenario, it has usefulness.

But will it always be used in the best case scenario?

And how much of that will be used in that sense versus, shortcuts for both the student and the teacher?

Yeah, I, I appreciate that.

And that, first of all, the phone call in the idea is there.

The shortcut for the teacher is interesting.

If I'm a student in the class, do I have a right to say, hey, are you grading me using I absolutely, yeah.

Yes.

George, you agree with that 100%.

Have students asked you if you use AI to grade?

They have.

And what do you tell them?

I don't use AI to grade.

I did a trial run using AI to provide feedback in the past, but I don't use it currently for feedback or for grading in the assessment capacity.

Well, I find that it's very good at the pattern recognition that we've been speaking about a little bit, but I also find that it struggles to connect on a fundamentally human level with the learner in your class.

And while I sympathize with the fact that we certainly are overwhelmed within the profession, we certainly do teach a lot of students.

I also need to acknowledge the fact that good writing and good thinking is a human to human relationship.

So while its feedback might be cursory and might certainly be useful within an immediate sense for students who are seeking review of their own thinking, I still do enjoy the process of giving feedback to students directly.

Lily, would you be bothered if you found out as a high school senior that, your teachers are using AI to grade your work?

I would be very bothered, yes.

Why?

I feel like it shows that you're not putting in a lot of effort and you don't care about the students.

That's kind of extreme.

But I also think that there's an argument to be made about students feeling overloaded with work, like people are saying here that the teachers feel overloaded with the work that they're given and they have to grade.

But I think that in the same way students feel that as well.

And I also think that's a reason why students don't feel like using AI is cheating, because they think it's right.

They feel like entitled to that.

Well, an extension of that, an extension of Ethan's point about what is the purpose of school, why our students in school?

Kate writes in to say, schools are not about learning anymore.

Schools are about, she says, the rat race or preparing for college or your transcripts.

And part of what Adam Grant wrote about in the New York Times is on this point.

He writes that cheating increases as pressure increases.

He writes the following across a series of studies in a wide range of contexts, psychologists have found that as the stakes of a competitive challenge go up, cheating does to some people are largely immune to this effect.

They don't follow a logic of consequence by calculating whether the benefits of cheating would outweigh the costs, but that is not true for everyone.

So Adam Grant is just pointing to the data that says if a test, if a semester, if your high school experience is about learning, great.

But if you feel that it is all about the transcript and the chance to go to a certain school and the outcome and the competitiveness, and being a valedictorian or being a salutatorian, the the research says you're not definitely going to cheat.

You're just more likely to cheat because you feel that pressure.

And Kate wrote in to say, like, she don't even think schools are about learning anymore.

She thinks it's about giving the students a transcript.

So how do you deal with that at Brighton?

Trying to make sure that the student experience really is about learning.

And it's not just about a really competitive atmosphere that says that transcript is all that matters.

You have a wry smile.

It's hard.

It's really hard because I think there is a lot of pressure.

And I think there's there's pressure that that that comes from the family.

There's pressure that comes from peers and there's pressure, you know, that comes from the community.

For, for, for some of the students.

But that's, that's not all of the students, that are, that, that, that are you know, going to school.

How do we deal with the focus on learning?

I think we are always I mean, teachers are always trying to figure out how to make the learning that students are engaging in more relevant, to the students lives.

So they see the purpose, that's behind it.

I also, believe that if we are really clear about what the learning is, that we need to prioritize and help students to see how it applies in the real world, which is part of the relevance and authenticity that I talked about early, earlier with the performance based assessments, they're more likely to engage in the work of school.

And I think part of that is based on going back to the human interaction that you were talking about, George, and how important that human interaction in the learning process actually is, is that students want to be part of a learning community where they're being connected to each other, and to that the the teachers.

And that comes through the exploration of the content and the building of the skills that are necessary to, to be built.

So we can't we can't go back to having all of our assessments be on demand.

Paper and pencil task in a 40 minute period.

We have to figure out how to honor the notion of creating performances, of understanding where students are engaging in real world, real world work.

And as we design those, being responsive to the students who are sitting in front of us.

I read a study, actually, yesterday, it came into my inbox of, you know, the the issue around this is the pace of change is so fast you can't stay on top of it.

And, there there are schools of thought where, where students are now in schools, and half the day is, the students are in front of a computer and they are, being taught and learning through AI.

And then the other half of the day, they're engaged in, you know, performance based type learning that, that I've been referencing.

And one of the things that the study said and I didn't read, you know, into it to find out, you know, how, how big the study was and that kind of thing.

But it was a study that was done by a reputable, reputable organization.

And they talked about the fact that the students, you know, played along with it and were engaged in it for a period of time.

And I don't remember exactly the period of time.

And then the kids began to say, no, I don't want to do this anymore, and they don't want to do it anymore because they don't have the human connection that is a part of the learning process.

And, this morning is our first day of school in Brighton, and, we watch videos of, of graduates, as part of the, the welcome back talking about how, what they valued about their Brighton experience and many of those graduates in their, you know, in their hats and gowns, after graduation last spring talked about the friendships that they built, the community that they were a part of, with their teachers and the, sports you know, performances based activities or, you know, arts, arts activities that they were engaged in.

And you can't underestimate the importance of that.

That was a long winded answer to your question.

No, I even I know I, I but I appreciate all of that.

And you know George can you and to on Kate's point that she feels almost cynically that she doesn't even see K through 12 is about educating anymore because of how competitive it is.

And it's all about that.

Transcript.

Well, I think it's a great question.

And and I actually spoke a little bit about it as we were getting ready for the segment.

I think there are a series of fundamental tensions right now, the one being what we're talking about today, how schools should or shouldn't ask students prepare students to think about artificial intelligence, given the fact that future employers are almost expecting new graduates to be able to demonstrate those competencies.

That's one, on the other hand, is the discussion about teaching and learning that we've also been engaged in as well.

So to the point about, you know, school and the collective kind of value and efficacy of it and what it looks like in the age of AI, I will say that it's fundamentally disrupted some of these centuries long traditions, expectations about knowledge, about performance.

And I would also add to what you're saying here, Julie, about knowledge and performance, about mastery, and about what it means to know a body of knowledge and to be able to work off of that body of knowledge, whether it's for a career, whether it's for something else, whether it's for college or whether it's for something else, it's fundamentally disrupted some of those comfortable traditions.

How much pressure do you feel as a student, about where you're going next and what your final grades are, etc.?

I feel a lot I feel like because I'm a senior, I'm kind of thinking about the future in college, and I'm also considering, like where I go, how many people around me will be using AI.

But I think more about final grades.

I don't feel too much pressure about that.

I think it really depends teacher and teacher, but I know when I was in English class with Mr.. Over here, he made us write our finals on paper sometimes, and I felt like that was easier for me because I didn't have to think about even like the thought of using AI.

I think in that way, like if we are going back to an original on paper assessment, I think that would be easier for some students because there no temptation to use AI at all.

I have a lot of emails.

We just probably do this all day.

Can you all just stay for a few more hours?

We've got a lot.

So Jane wrote in to say, what is AI voice and can your guess demonstrate it?

All right.

Lily, so you mentioned earlier that some of your peers are starting to sound like the AI is that you communicate with, and Jane is saying, I don't know what that means.

So what does that sound like?

Oh, I think it's saying a whole lot of nothing, but that's AI voice.

So that's what I sounds like.

Yeah, I think it's like using big words and being very vague.

I would say.

So, for example, oh, this means a lot.

There's a lot to unpack here.

Phrases.

Oh yeah.

Yeah.

And then you said there was the, the x and y. Or if it's not X it's y. It's not.

It's us.

It's that and I think yeah, I think that's what I sounds like.

So if I were to say, for Lilly, using AI is not just cheating.

It's a destruction of our moral code.

Like, that's what it's like.

Super dramatic is really good.

Like, that's how'd I do on a very ChatGPT.

All right, Jane, that we did the best we could there.

But you're going to see more of it.

You're going to see it.

I mean, for now, it's really it pops off the screen to me when I see it.

I can't believe some people share stuff like that.

David writes to say I read Adam Grant's piece, too, and I think he's wildly two up but optimistic.

He says, my experience, sadly, is that it's very hard to convince the great majority of people to behave ethically.

If the unethical act would benefit them.

And if they think I won't be caught and it's all the worse if they see the others doing it.

What David is referring to is part of what Adam Grant wrote about.

But how to change students minds on cheating?

He said, you got to change students ideas about what cheating is.

And he wrote in the New York Times, quote, as schools confront this problem, many teachers are switching to in-class essays and oral exams.

Creating obstacles is never going to be enough.

We need to get at the root of the problem by changing students underlying motivations.

And David is basically saying in his experience, that's too optimistic that you're not going to succeed with most people on that.

What do you think, George?

I'm not sure if it's too optimistic, but I will concede the point that it is extraordinarily challenging.

And it is within that challenge that I put together.

A course last semester at Geneva High School was called Artificial Intelligence From Basics to Breakthroughs.

And I was a guest on your show last year, and we spoke a little bit about it.

Lily has taken the course and the entire idea behind the course was not, here's how to teach students to use AI in ethical and unethical ways.

The entire idea of the course was an ethics course to get students to understand the history of it and what it's doing, both at an educational level and a civilizational level.

And I will say, some of the conversations we had, some of the lessons that we engaged in and some of the final projects that students produced were some of the clearest pieces of evidence that I have of exemplary young people thinking about their own position in the world and providing answers to that question, that yes, it is tempting to use these technologies to cheat.

Yes, it is difficult to prepare students to engage with that world, but it's also ultimately also necessary to do so.

And that's something that I, you know, I'm extraordinarily, passionate about.

It's it's difficult and meaningful and beautiful and important at the same time.

I like your optimism.

I understand David's pessimism.

Yeah, but I appreciate that.

Phone's ringing off the hook here again.

We could probably do this for a while.

We're down to our last ten minutes or so.

Okay, Stephen says.

Stephen Rochester says, saying that having ChatGPT clean up your writing for grammar and such makes it not your own.

What is the difference between that and having a professional copy editor do the same with minor grammatical spelling.

Run on sentence editing.

That is Steve Rochester.

Okay, the teachers and instructors in the room.

Julie, what's the difference?

I don't know that they're you know, I think it's it's it's a ChatGPT doing it rather than the human.

So I think there's that human interaction that we've, we've spoken to.

But, I think it has to do with, with context, if that's all you have access to at a certain point in time.

I think using Grammarly to complete the job, and get the feedback you need, depending on your context, and what the learning goals are, is.

Okay.

Well, I just feel like in this case for Steve, I understand Steve's point, but, like, if I'm a student, I'm not turning in an edited piece professionally.

I'm turning in my work.

That and then it opens up to the teachers professional editing and my learning from that editing, my learning, my in intake of the critique as opposed to I'm my goal is to turn in something that needs nothing.

That is perfect.

It's a marble.

There's no rough edges to it in professional settings.

There's it's a different standard.

You're not producing something for learning sake.

Now you're producing it for mass consumption and you've got professional editors for that reason.

But I think and I kind of think, George, you're the editor for me, if I'm the student, I shouldn't be pre editing.

I should be giving you my work.

That's I mean that's again, I'm too much of an idealist is what I'm finding at this hour.

But go ahead.

I think that's part of the struggle.

That's part of the productive struggle that we want students to engage in.

And I will also differentiate between content that I create for my colleagues as part of a professional development session that I'm running, and content that students in my class are being asked to create, that are moving along that same mastery trajectory that I'm tasked with preparing them to encounter and engage with.

So I think there is a fundamental difference there as well, especially when we're part of the learning process.

It's okay to get edited by a teacher, isn't it?

Lily, you got to learn something, don't you?

Yeah, I think that's a part of the writing process is messing up.

And I think the mistakes are what make writing human.

And I think it's more interesting and it's just better to read human writing.

I think everyone would agree with that.

Well, you're giving us so much hope.

This our, Emily says, isn't an AI response basically already plagiarism?

AI has scraped human work without permission or attribution.

Yeah.

I mean, so as we've talked about on separate programs, there are lawsuits about this.

It's possible I read from the new York Times two musicians are suing over this.

You're going to see more of this.

I don't know if the courts will block it.

But in a sense, yes.

Yeah.

AI is taking existing work.

AI is not, quote, thinking on its own, but it's taking such fragmented ideas of it that you'll never really be able to peer under the black box and find out.

So the question then becomes for you, Emily, does that cross the line?

A lot of people are saying it does not cross the line for them, but I understand why people would say that that's not okay.

Chad wants to know, why we didn't have ChatGPT on this program.

Chad says.

Has anybody asked the AI models how they feel about being used to cheat?

Have you considered having AI models on as part of a live panel?

No, I'm not, and they don't feel anything about it.

Because they don't have feelings.

We can convince ourselves they do because they're very good at approximating it and they're only going to get better, and that's going to mess with our relationships.

It's already messing with our relationships.

But how do they feel about being used to cheat?

I appreciate that, Chad, but no, that's not a concern that I have.

Richard in Rochester.

Hey Richard on the phone next.

Go ahead.

Got to keep it tight.

Okay.

I've worn two hats and two critical fields.

I like one version only of my print communications, both inside.

People in the outside world get the one version now.

I'm pleased by all for the color, clarity and logic of what I write.

I should be praised because after graduate work at Penn, under professors with wielding pencils, two feet long, but even before.

Yeah, yeah, I chuckled at your efforts.

Microsoft Word made you crack my style.

I think it's never going to work.

Frankly.

It's true.

Even before ChatGPT, there were products out there correcting and underlining your mistakes, etc.

I mean, what do you make of that?

George briefly, I don't think that's primarily an issue when we're talking about easy grammar, easy spelling mistakes.

I use that all the time.

I think most writers do.

Okay.

Same.

Julie.

Yes.

Okay.

Thomas says he wants to amplify Ethan's point about learning being the fundamental purpose of being in the classroom.

And then he says, using AI to avoid the learning that is meant to happen.

Misses the whole point of class is strictly a practical approach.

There's no moral element.

Any cheating is the student cheating themselves of the learning that they spend time and money to obtain?

Yeah.

I mean, yes, for sure.

But you're also cheating the student to your assets.

We're competing with yours.

You're cheating a lot of the cheating isn't just the student.

I think Thomas's foundationally correct, but cheating does have tentacles, okay?

And I think everybody agrees on that.

Part two.

Thomas, thank you very much.

Final thoughts from you.

Your teachers are back in class here getting ready to go.

What do you want to leave with the audience about 20s or so.

I've got to keep it.

Go ahead.

Julie.

I just think that what we need to do as teachers is to continue to engage in the conversations around AI.

We are.

And George and I were talking downstairs before we came up about the fact that we still have people that, you know, ethically do not want to use AI to people who are fully embracing it.

And we're all over the continuum, and we need to keep because our students are doing it, and we because we are graduating people into an AI world, we've got to keep going.

George the last message I have is to engage in these conversations and also be able to think critically about how we engage young people in them as well.

They are the future.

They're here with us today and they are what we have.

Lily, I know that anything that you send me going forward are going to be your own thoughts, and I really appreciate that about you.

Good luck to you.

Thank you.

Enjoy your senior year.

And thanks for coming on the program today.

Thanks for having me.

Well, it's been absolutely illuminating.

I will say I couldn't get to all of the feedback from listeners if I didn't get to your comments this hour.

We will keep talking about this with students, with teachers, with professors at different levels.

And so that conversation continues.

More Connections coming up in just a moment.

This program is a production of WXXI Public Radio.

The views expressed do not necessarily represent those of this station, its staff, management, or underwriters.

The broadcast is meant for the private use of our audience.

Any rebroadcast or use in another medium without expressed written consent of WXXI is strictly prohibited.

Connections with Evan Dawson is available as a podcast.

Just click on the Connections link.

At WXXI news.

Dot org.