The AI-Infused Classroom: A Professor’s Dilemma
I remember cheating in high school physics. Our teacher, weary of his job, gave us multiple-choice tests with bubbles to fill. To make grading easier, he always arranged the correct answers in a pattern – sometimes an upside-down V, sometimes a diagonal slash. All I had to do was steal a glance at a smart kid’s answer sheet to get a perfect score. Students have always found ways to bend the rules, right? It’s a time-saver, not to mention the thrill of outsmarting the system.
It seems like skipping class, stealing tests, and other youthful antics are part of the comedy canon – think Animal House or the movie Cheats. Over my three decades at this university, which sometimes feels like a Gothic Wonderland, I’ve seen it all. I’ve had students copy from their seatmates, and then some, like when a men’s basketball star slipped a signed picture of himself under a colleague’s door instead of a final paper. That was more an attempt at bribery than cheating, though.
The pressure cooker of the Duke environment doesn’t help. Students are expected to get straight As, land a prize internship, or, if they’re athletes, dedicate forty hours a week to their sport. In that environment, cheating can seem like the only way to stay afloat. It might even free you up to watch some TikTok videos of miniature chihuahuas on water slides.
But AI changes everything.
I’m not a fan of tests, and my classes rely heavily on writing assignments. I consider it fine for students to consult AI while trying to understand concepts, but I ask my students to do the class readings and write their papers in their own words. I cling to the old-fashioned belief in the value of learning to read, think, and make an argument on your own. You’ll use these human skills whether you go into medicine, law, finance, education, or one of “the other classic Duke destinations.” You learn nothing by plugging a prompt into AI and uploading it as your essay.
That hasn’t stopped some of my students from using ChatGPT and Essay Genius. Despite bold prohibitions in the syllabus and stern warnings in class (in my best scary voice), the number of AI-generated assignments is rising. I’ve had eight cases (and counting) across my two classes this semester, and I’m sure I’ve missed others. Studies show the same AI-cheating trend nationwide.
At our university (based on my informal survey), most of the cheaters are men, whether due to a sense of entitlement, the infamous “lazy boy syndrome,” or what some might claim is slow or incomplete male brain maturation.
We professors are encouraged to embrace AI – to think “AI-positive” – in these changing times. “Consider how AI and humans can work together to create content,” advises our Center for Learning and Innovation. Those are wise words, and I have much to learn. But I do want students to get some practice writing the old-fashioned way, on their own. Even in these new times, this remains a world of words, maybe even more than ever, between the texts, emails, reports, applications, and social media posts by the gigabyte.
You’ll be better prepared and more successful if you’ve put in the work to hone your writing skills without relying on a digital master. Writing isn’t just any skill, like making duck decoys or patting your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time. As the poet W.H. Auden wrote, “Language is the mother, not the handmaiden, of thought. Words will tell you things you never thought or felt before.”
For me, putting words to a page is how I think something through. Often, I arrive at quite different conclusions from where I started. You discover whether your ideas hold up or crumble when you fill a blank page with something true to yourself.
Spotting AI-generated content isn’t terribly difficult, especially after wading through thousands of essays. Its pseudo-thoughtful voice, with its endless “furthermores” and “howevers,” often reads like a mediocre parody of a college essay. Some students use ChatGPT to refine a first draft, which eliminates both errors and individuality, resulting in empty words. Others paste machine-generated summaries of readings into their writing, or, even worse, turn the entire paper over to the platform, making sure that platform earns its monthly subscription.
I can get grumpy about the AI-ing. Although I like new cool technology, I don’t want machines doing everything for us, just like the catering robots in WALL-E. Having a machine write your paper isn’t fair to those students who put in the time and effort to do the work themselves. I often feel mildly offended that students have ignored my request to write in their own words, and it also makes me wonder if they think I’m too stupid to notice their AI drivel. And then there’s the pesky matter of plagiarism and its violation of our sacred honor code.
Still, it’s hard to stay too indignant. Many AI-users will disarmingly admit to their transgressions when I call them in for a chat in my office. They offer all sorts of real (and invented) excuses, but I seldom have the appetite to fulfill my threats about lowering grades, except for the most egregious repeat offenders. The small matters of war, poverty, and a melting planet matter more to me than whether a nineteen-year-old does a lazy job in their classes.
I remember my own history of cheating. I’m terrible at science, but I took another physics class to fulfill a college requirement. The professor was a funny, brilliant hippie, and I liked putting in the hours to learn the theorems and their applications – in contrast to my sneaky cheating from high school. Sometimes, those practices of learning, by way of paper, pencils, and human gray matter, were even fun, just like our kindergarten teacher told us. But that was then, and this is shiny, high-tech now.
I love that the majority of my students still like to dive into the messy work of reading, thinking, and coming up with their own ideas. I’m not quite ready to join the AI-positive crowd, but next year, I may try something new, like in-class exercises, or requiring draft submissions to get all my students actually writing.
Playing policeman stinks, and soon the AI-detection software’s going to be good enough to cover the AI-users’ tracks, making it harder to catch cheaters. As we plug ourselves into high-tech devices, data streams, and platformed networks, it’s harder than ever to draw the line between human and machine, virtual and real – or to be sure it exists any longer. You can’t stop technology and time’s floodwaters, and I’m not sure this strange world is heading anywhere good.
Someday, maybe, you’ll just plug a college education Q-chip into your cortex instead of spending four years on campus. You’d save a lot of tuition that way, at least.
