SAN DIEGO (FOX 5/KUSI) — According to a study done by the Higher Education Policy Institute, 92% of students use artificial intelligence in some form.
That surge in users has pushed the San Diego Unified School District to create new guidelines on how to use AI platforms in the classroom while preventing plagiarism.
“People rely too much on technology, and they don’t actually get that social connection,” Larissa Buckel, a local teacher and parent of two daughters.
Nevertheless, the new school year brings new technologies.
“It’s really a moving target. AI’s changed so quickly,” said Derek Suzuki, the program manager for instructional technology with the San Diego Unified School District.
Suzuki says the quick development of artificial intelligence created some new concerns for teachers.
“What everyone was worried about was how are kids going to use this to cheat,” he said.
Getting artificial intelligence platforms like Chat GPT to do your homework can be as easy as typing in a prompt, but once it’s done, it’s not that easy to get away with.
“It’s not how I taught them how to do it, so then you can tell, and if you ask them like how did you do this, they’re like uhhhh, so yea I can tell,” Buckel said when asked if she can tell when her students use AI.
AI business expert Azita Arvani says it won’t be long before it’ll be nearly impossible to tell the difference between human and AI-generated work.
“It’s a game of cat and mouse,” Arvani said. “The AI tools get very powerful, so it’d be harder to catch them.”
So Buckel encourages her daughters to learn the skill without cheating.
“With AI you can ask it to be the teacher and how do I do this like explain how to do it, so they at least get a step by step,” she said.
Last year, San Diego Unified School District launched a taskforce create guidelines on how student and teachers should use AI.
“It turns that narrative from fear to how do you leverage this tool that everyone is going to be using into something that our students use responsibly,” Suzuki said.
As employers increasingly look for applicants with AI skills, those guidelines will help students learn without using it irresponsibly.
“When they’re writing their letters to colleges, I’m sure they’ll use it, but again I’m going to persuade them to try and do as much of it on their own,” Buckel said.
The district says they’re still receiving feedback on the guidelines, but they expect to present it to the board for approval by early October.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
