As part of the rise of technological advancements, artificial intelligence (AI) has become a powerful tool, and some at Arlington High School are feeling its impact.
Consider one AI option: ChatGPT, a language-processing and -generating tool with the ability to respond reasonably to just about any question.
The platform, launched last November, performs with an intelligence and functionality that has attracted both praise and criticism.
AHS to date has, for the most part, essentially adopted the latter stance. A firewall blocks ChatGPT on the public schools’ network, said Patricia Sheppard, chief information officer, making the resource inaccessible to students when they are on campus.
What is the program’s danger? Cheating is one fear.
ChatGPT has the ability to respond to various kinds of questions with essays and written responses, using information pulled from across the internet. It is quick and efficient — and therefore may appear to be an easy way for students to “borrow” work rather than doing their own.
Navigating the use and management of such AI tools is a rising challenge and topic of discussion for teachers and students.
English teacher Matthew Cincotta said he “[doesn’t] want to discount the possibility that ChatGPT could be implemented in an educational way.” The technology on ChatGPT can serve to help students research their ideas and interests in a fast and accessible manner.
Similarly, biology teacher Alexander Hajdukiewicz explained: “If a student is confused, and I am not in the room, or they’re at home, you can ask [ChatGPT], ‘Explain this to me,’ and it will give you answers. If you use it effectively, perfect.”
On the other hand, Cincotta said, “I have found that it’s most commonly used to cut corners and do people’s thinking for them. It isn’t good for helping students to develop their own voice and opinions.”
This form of plagiarism, like any other, can limit a student’s skills development and learning processes and essentially take the place of them doing their own original work. He has also found that “students have used ChatGPT for shorter-length writing assignments, like journal entries.”
Indeed, searching for the definition of “plagiarism” at Merriam-Webster online results in finding this example:
“Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction Peter Tragos said because the use of ChatGPT to write English essays or complete homework is considered plagiarism, existing student policy would prohibit it.
— Alex Hulvalchick, Chicago Tribune, March 27, 2023.”
An AHS student recently was willing to comment about the issues raised but declined to be identified: “I think ChatGPT would be most helpful for assignments that need to be completed quickly and are not being graded for developing a sophisticated argument, such as short-response questions pertaining to subjects like history or science.”
ChatGPT is a resource that is easy for students to plagiarize from in a pinch, according to those interviewed. While they might not be caught or incur a lower grade, the platform nevertheless allows them to submit work without experiencing the learning process. Teachers believe that the platform has the potential to shape how future work is assigned and assessed, and they and administrators now face the challenge of establishing rules and guidelines for the ChatGPT.
The anonymous AHS student explained how this is a challenging issue: When “teachers use tools to detect when students use ChatGPT, the software will often claim that ChatGPT was used for original writing.” While there is already technology used to detect AI writing, they can be faulty and cannot always distinguish between original and plagiarized work.
Cincotta echoes, “It isn’t easy.”
He explains how he has regulated ChatGPT: “During longer writing assignments, like essays, I try to monitor each step of a student’s writing process to make sure the work is their own. If I see that a student hasn’t done work during the initial stages and then submits a full-length essay at the end (which I can see through Google Doc’s history), then I have reason to be skeptical that the work is 100 percent their own.
“Also, if I see a serious divergence in the tone of a student’s writing, that’s another reason I may question the ownership of a student’s work.”
However, Hajdukiewicz believes ChatGPT can play a role in learning without cheating: “It can help with things that are research based, and it can cut a lot of time in a way that is not cheating.”
He explained, “If used correctly, it can be a personal assistant that helps you get ideas; it is just a better Googler than you.”
The powerful technology should not be neglected, he suggests; it has the potential to shape the learning experience.
Hajdukiewicz illustrated the helpful nature of ChatGPT and its potential benefit with an example of its legitimate use; he has used the program to create a case-study assignment. He says he “made 10 case studies, but to write them myself would have taken hours, and that is not a valuable use of my time. It is not impacting the [students’] learning, and I was just using [ChatGPT] to pad out the assignment, and then I made sure it had all the components.”
The challenge of controlling the platform is likely to be an ongoing question throughout Arlington Public Schools.
Hajdukiewicz said, “We will always have to manage the use, but right now it is just banned and not usable on the school WiFi. But it really is an impressive tool, and, if used right, it can be super helpful.”
Boston.com, April 5, 2023: BU department unanimously adopts new AI policy BostonGlobe.com, April 30, 2023: Months after ChatGPT’s noisy debut, colleges take differing approaches to dealing with AI
This news summary by Cayla Kwok, YourArlington’s AHS intern for spring 2023, was published Monday, May 1, 2023.
