Should My Student Use AI to Help With Homework?

August 2, 2023 byConnections Academy

4 min to read

A high school student is typing on his laptop

In recent months, one topic has dominated discussions in schools: artificial intelligence (AI). It’s a term that brings to mind wide-ranging interpretations of the future of machine learning, from the helpful and accommodating Rosie in The Jetsons to the clever NS5s in I, Robot.

For students and their parents, however, the sudden surge of AI in the education sphere has also brought up many questions: Should a student use AI for homework and other types of school work? How accurate is the information given by an AI chatbot? What is considered plagiarism in a world where AI is so commonplace?

Many of these questions don’t have definitive answers yet, but there are steps you can take to help your child navigate this learning frontier in a way that doesn’t interfere with their intellectual development and educational growth.

What is an AI Chatbot?

AI is not a new innovation; it has been around since the 1950s. If you’ve used almost any search egngine in the past couple years, you’ve been interacting with a tool that is at least partially driven by AI.

The primary element that makes chat-based AI programs such as ChatGPT different is that they can imitate a variety of human conversational styles, which allows them to more effectively tailor their responses to users’ requests. When given a prompt with specific wording, an AI chatbot can produce an array of outputs: a five-page essay on the theme of The Giver, an in-depth exploration of the various theories of evolution, even dozens of lines of computer code. The writing is convincing—though not always 100% factually accurate—and often contains very few, if any, grammatical errors.

But while it can write an essay, can it really help students with their homework?

Chatbot or Cheatbot?

Academic institutions of all levels are still grappling with how to identify and handle student work that includes AI-generated ideas and writing. Ethan Mollick, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, describes some of the challenges facing teachers and students in regards to AI in an interview with NPR in which he says, “I think we are just barely starting to get our hands around this. You know, is it ethical to have the AI write you a draft that you modify? Is it ethical for you to paste in text and ask it to improve it?”

Some educators feel that allowing a student to use a homework AI bot is essentially giving that student permission to plagiarize. After all, if a child is consistently using AI for doing homework, then they aren’t really learning much, except for how to copy and paste answers that were written by someone (or something) else. Banning AI from the classroom seems like the simplest solution in the short-term, and several institutions and school districts have already taken this step.

However, a growing number of experts believe that a blanket ban may not work in the long run because of one undeniable fact: AI might be here to stay. Today’s students may be using these types of tools in their future jobs, so they may need to learn how to engage with them in an effective and ethical way.

“The technology is already being rolled out into consumer and business software,” writes Will Douglas Heaven, senior editor for AI at MIT Technology Review, in his article “ChatGPT is going to change education, not destroy it.” He continues, “If nothing else, many teachers now recognize that they have an obligation to teach their students about how this new technology works and what it can make possible.”

For parents and teachers, the key may be to not outright ban AI, but instead hold students more accountable for generating their own thoughts and analytical skills by enphasising the benefits of having those foundational skills in the first place.

Homework AI: A Helper, Not a Handholder

When asked about how to use AI to do homework, ChatGPT’s own response contains an insightful caveat worth noting: “Remember, while AI can be a valuable tool for assistance, it’s essential to understand the concepts yourself and use AI as a supplement to your learning process, rather than a replacement for your own efforts and understanding.”

Researching, finding valid sources, and weaving those sources into an original thought are the types of skills that are called upon when a student is learning how to write a strong essay. And, at the end of the day, there is no easy AI homework helper that can assist a student with an assignment without inhibiting their learning growth. Even using AI for brainstorming ideas or finding new sources during the research stage is a diservice to students as the information an AI chatbot can find is not always relevant, original, accurate, or even real.

Technology, even in its most advanced forms, is not human. Despite the rapid progress of AI in recent years, doing homework the old-fashioned way remains vital for children to hone their critical thinking, collaboration, and creative problem-solving skills in school because these are human capabilities that a machine cannot replicate, let alone teach.

Want to learn more about how responsible technology use can enhance your child’s learning experience? Check out this list of essential computer skills every high school student must master.