With the era of AI infiltrating our lives, from social media platforms like Instagram and Snapchat to replacing jobs, it’s not hard to imagine that students would take advantage of it. Many people have already tried their hand at using ChatGPT to write papers or just generate answers to their homework. Consequently, AI sites have been set up to determine if a student’s work is AI-generated. Mr. Pohl, who teaches AVID and Writing 121-122, has taken a different approach to this AI plague. Instead of working against it, he tries to integrate and work with it.
“I think the more it’s normalized and the more students understand that teachers aren’t oblivious to how it can be used, the better off we’re going to be,” says Pohl. Pohl uses AI by writing up a grading prompt and allowing students to paste their essays into ChatGPT with the prompt in order to get a grade. From this grade, students know what areas they need to work on, thus boosting their grades and allowing them to fix their work without a physical third person.
What are student’s takes on this? Ylianna Gutierrez, a Barlow senior student in Pohl’s Writing 121/122 class, says that it’s a strength instead of a weakness.
“You’re never gonna get rid of it. We’re evolving into more tech-related stuff, so you might as well use it to your advantage.” Senior Addison Corey says “I think it’s kinda useful and it’s convenient to get it scored, but also kinda dumb. On my last paper, ChatGPT graded me zeros and ones, and my actual paper scored a B. It’s not reliable, and it’s definitely not my die-hard.”
Personally, I love the idea of getting a grade before it’s official. Oftentimes, when I re-read my work, I can’t tell where I’m making mistakes, and I don’t know how else to improve my work. Having a chance to put my work into ChatGPT on the exact guidelines my teacher wants it to fit allows me to become a better writer and get the grade that I want my energy and time to reflect. Although I would agree that ChatGPT can be inaccurate with the scores themselves, having a baseline layout that I can work on is a beneficial tool, and I appreciate knowing where my essay lies before it gets uploaded to the grade book.
We are headed towards a technologically-dominated future, and we will have to find ways to work with AI or work against it. Artificial intelligence will only continue to get better; it won’t go away anytime soon. Our best bet moving forward is to embrace the changes and use them to become academically better. Artificial intelligence should be used as a resource, and as Mr. Pohl said, “Students need to know that we can tell if you’re cheating, and it’s not hard. We’re using AI against AI as well.” It’s easy to tell when work has been falsified, but that doesn’t mean you can’t take pointers from AI! Overall, don’t lose your voice as a writer and remember that your work is the best work you can put out.
