California College teachers divided the role of AI in education

“Be very careful with personal information,” said Valier. “Especially if you have sources or people you want to protect, be very careful by putting sensitive names and information.”

Validate sees a clear difference in the quality of the work produced by the students who combine AI with their own skills, compared to those that count entirely on artificial intelligence.

“You can say when the person uses the Chatppt and stays above, and when GPT takes over,” said Valier. “What really interests me is the student's point of view, so when GPT takes over, there is no point of view. Even if (a student) does not have the best writing, the ideas are always there. »»

Balancing the use of AI in class

Many instructors adapted to AI seek to find a balance between AID -enriched assignments and assignments without AI.

At the USC, teachers are encouraged to develop AI policies for each of their classes. Teachers can choose between two approaches, as indicated in the school Instructor guidelines for using AI: “Kiss and improve” or “discourage and detect”.

Bobby Carnes, Associate Professor of Clinical Accounting at the USC, adopted a balance between the two approaches while teaching the introduction to financial accounts.

“I use it all the time, so it doesn't make sense to say (students) that they cannot use it,” said Carnes.

Carnes uses AI to refine its grammar in personal and professional work and to develop questions for tests.

“I give Chatgpt the information I taught in the class, then I can ask:” What subjects have I not covered with these exam questions? ” He can help provide a richer or robust exam, “said Carnes.

It does not allow students to use AI in exams that test practical accounting skills.

“You need this reference base, but we are trying to ensure that the students are at this next level, to see the overview,” he said.

Carnes said he wanted his students to take advantage of AI tools that already change the field, while mastering the fundamental skills they will need to become managers and financial managers.

“The right thing about accounting is that jobs become more interesting (with AI), where there are not as many repair tasks,” said Carnes.

Preserve fundamental learning

Olivia Obeso, professor of education and literacy at California State Polytechnic University, San Luis Obispo, believes that the establishment of fundamental knowledge and skills of critical thinking by teaching without AI is not negotiable.

Obeso applies its own policy of use without chatpt / AI in its foundations of the teaching class of the literacy of the K-8 to prepare its students for challenges in their post-local life.

“The AI ​​is eliminating the opportunity to engage in this productive struggle,” said Obeso. “This means that my students will not necessarily understand the subjects so deeply or develop the skills they need.”

Obeso is also concerned about the environmental impact of Chatgpt: for a class activity at the start of the fall 2025 semester, she asked students to search for energy and water consumption of the software.

The energy required to electrify the chatpt emits 8.4 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year, according to Earth.org. The average passenger vehicle produces 5 tonnes per year. Ask Chatgpt 20-50 questions used 500 millliters (16.9) ounces of waterThe size of a standard plastic water bottle.

At the end of the exercise, Obeso said that his students had become “experts” on ethical considerations concerning AI, sharing their conclusions with the class thanks to a discussion on what they read, how they felt and if they had new concerns about the use of AI.

“You are a student and you learn to operate in this world, hold responsible,” said Obeso.

Jessica Odden, a senior specializing in the development of the child, said that Obeso's class had helped them understand the use of AI in class as a budding teacher.

“For people who use (AI) in bad manners, it makes people reassemble how people could use it, especially in classes like this where we train to become teachers,” said Odden. “What are you going to do when you really have the plan yourself?”

Odden ensures that it sticks to learning the fundamental principles of education so that it is prepared for its first job.

AI in programs

At the University of California of San Diego, some teachers echoed the AI ​​violation of independent learning.

The Eberly Barnes academic coordinator wishes to find common ground that integrates AI into programs where he completes the critical thinking of students, rather than replacing it.

Barnes oversees the analytical writing program, the creation of the modern world (MMW), where its responsibilities include the revision of the course of use of AI in students' work.

The current policy allows students to use AI to stimulate their reflection, reading and writing for their assignments. However, it explicitly prohibits the use of software to replace one of the above-mentioned skills or the development of the written piece itself.

Despite the encouraged use of AI, Barnes expressed his own hesitation as to the role of AI in the field of social sciences and the research and writing skills necessary to work there.

“One of MMW's objectives is to teach critical thinking and also to teach academic writing. And writing is integrated into the study program. You are not going to learn to write if you just go machine, ”said Barnes. “Politics is inspired by the fact that we do not think that there is a way to stop the generative use of AI.”

When Barnes designs the writing invites to the second and third series of the MMW program, she collaborates with educational assistants to make the invites to assignment incompatible with AI analysis and reduce the probability that students are looking for AI to pass the notes.

“Students feel absolutely obsessed with notes and are very in a hurry to compete,” said Barnes. “This is there. I mean that it is certainly worse here at the UCSD than in other colleges and universities in which I went. »»

A tool, not a cheat code

Celeste Pilegard is a professor of cognitive sciences and educational psychology at the UCSD. She has been teaching the research methods for introduction since 2019, focusing on fundamental subjects that will prepare students for higher level subjects in the field.

Educators like Pilegard find it difficult to adapt after the generalized adoption of AI tools.

“For me and many teachers, there is fear,” said Pilegard. “We hang on to the last vestiges, hoping that it will not become the thing that everyone uses.”

Pilegard fears that students are counting on AI tools to easily pass their intro-level courses, leaving them without firm understanding of the content and an inability to correctly assess the accuracy of the AI.

“It is difficult to notice what is real and what is false, what is useful and what is wrong,” said Pilegard. “When you have enough expertise in a field, it is possible to use Chatgpt as a reflection tool because you can detect your shortcomings.”

However, Pilegard thinks that AI can help learning. It compares the current situation with AI to the advent of the statistical analysis software in the 1970s, which eliminated the need to do calculations by hand.

At that time, many teachers pleaded for the importance of students who do work manually to understand the foundations. However, these tools are now regularly used in class with the acceptance and advice of educators.

“I don't want to be the stick in the mud in terms of artificial intelligence,” said Pilegard. “Maybe there are things that are not important for students to do themselves. But when the thing you discharge on the computer establishes the connections that help you create an expertise, you really miss an opportunity to learn deeply. “”