My Relationship With AI and Opinions on Ferlazzo, Galland, & Rettinge

What is your personal relationship to AI?

    I think AI is an extremely valuable tool, both today and moving into the future. The applications of artificial intelligence are endless, from medicine and engineering to education and many other fields. What concerns me most is that people may become too dependent on AI and begin using it for everything instead of thinking critically or developing their own skills.

How do the arguments of Ferlazzo or Galland & Rettinger feel to you?  Do they resonate with you? Alienate you? Scare you? Excite you?

    I agree with all three authors and the message they were trying to convey. Many schools currently view AI as the enemy because students are using it as the "easy way out." I think this connects directly to several points Gallant and Rettinger make in Chapter 1, Why Students Cheat. They explain that students often cheat because of factors like low self-efficacy, fear of failure, pressure to succeed, and procrastination—not simply because they want to break the rules.

As Gallant and Rettinger state, it's not simply just having access to AI that is giving some students the "confidence" to cheat. We have to try to change the ways in which we speak to students about their skills, build them up so that they see themselves as capable scholars and harvest their growth mindset. It is also incredibly important to try to create meaningful connections with individual scholars. Making sure that students can find truth within you and you can help the class to feel as though they can bond with one another as well. In doing so we hopefully eliminate more students caught in the middle who may find themselves tempted to cheat if the correct condition presents itself. 

As a society, we're clearly moving in a direction where AI is going to become a normalized part of our everyday lives. Instead of constantly fighting against it, I think schools should spend more time teaching students how to use AI responsibly and as an asset instead of a crutch. If we did that, I believe we would see fewer issues with cheating. 

Ferlazzo provides a great example through educator Bonnie Nieves, who uses a "hybrid approach" to introduce AI in her classroom. She uses Perplexity AI to help students better understand peer-reviewed research articles. At first, she provides guided prompts so students learn how to use the tool effectively. As they become more comfortable, she gradually removes that support and encourages students to create their own prompts. As she explains, this process "empowered them to take ownership of their learning."

I think this is a great example of how students can learn to use AI in a positive and productive way when they receive the proper guidance. It also connects to what we briefly discussed in class today about teaching students the appropriate and responsible use of media instead of assuming they already know how to use these tools effectively.