Artificial Intelligence has taken over countless aspects of college students’ lives, inside and outside of the classroom. Using it for a math problem, creating an essay outline and scanning and summarizing a PDF are just a few of its abilities. ChatGPT is an AI chatbot that gives answers to any question it is given. It is among the top sources of homework aid for students in the last year, 80% of college students to be exact. Many of Fairfield University professors’ syllabuses include a section covering AI policy for its use in the course.
On most of my syllabuses, the use of AI is prohibited and deemed “inappropriate.” This response is understandable. If I were to put myself in the shoes of a professor, the use of AI-generated work must be tiresome to read. So, I decided to reach out to a few of my current and past professors and a few department heads to get their opinions on the rise of AI in the classroom.
It seems teachers across the United States are at a crossroads in regard to their feelings about AI being used appropriately in their classrooms. Professor and Chair of Communication, Sean Horan, P.hD shares that he is “concerned about the over-reliance on AI because writing is an art – it is a learned skill that is developed over time.” Using AI to rely on when writing an essay, creating a project or working on a speech can sometimes be helpful to get creativity flowing, but using it for the entirety of your work takes away the humanity of the creation.
Gen Z is the predominant generation taking over the use of AI, using it to make memes, TikToks, fake news scams, edited videos, pictures and even songs. The use of this technology can be deceiving and misleading to older generations, blurring the lines of knowing if something is real or not. In my opinion, AI can be a very useful tool to create ideas, organize thoughts and create art or songs, but I worry that it will be harmful to our attention span and creativity as human beings.
Professor Horan and I agreed on this opinion as he said “By relying on AI, I worry that students aren’t able to develop their full potential as writers.” He continued, “This introduces concern over the generational impact this may have on the art of writing.” Horan proves an important point. Our generation is slowly becoming reliant on using ChatGPT or other forms of AI to create things we do not want to make by ourselves.
I spoke to Professor of Communication, Kandice Green, P.hD also shared her opinion about using AI and which forms of it she allows in her classroom. She stated, “at this time, I do not think of AI as good or bad.” She also shared that she does “not allow generative AI use unless noted.” Green did bring up the point of Grammarly and its usefulness for errors and aid for students, stating, “I think sites like Grammarly are great for helping students with writing, but I discourage using their generative AI tool.” For context, Grammarly’s AI tool will create an entire report, project, essay or anything of that caliber with the click of a button if you feed it details you would like to include in it. It is understandable to avoid such a tool, for it is extremely similar to using ChatGPT.
It was incredible to hear the opinions of communications professors and see how they believe AI can be a great tool but also a great threat to students’ creativity. It is important to ask not only students but also educators about their views on AI, because professors must adapt to this technology as well! Overall, professors’ insights highlighted the relationship between AI and education, emphasizing both its potential to change learning habits and the need to preserve students’ skills in the classroom.
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