How teachers and students feel about A.I.

We recently asked educators, professors, and high school and college students to tell us about their experiences using A.I. chatbots for teaching and learning. We got a massive response — more than 350 submissions. Here are some highlights:

Teaching with A.I.

I love A.I. chatbots! I use them to make variations on quiz questions. I have them check my instructions for clarity. I have them brainstorm activity and assignment ideas. I’ve tried using them to evaluate student essays, but it isn’t great at that.

— Katy Pearce, associate professor, University of Washington

Before they even use ChatGPT, I help students discern what is worth knowing, figuring out how to look it up, and what information or research is worth “outsourcing” to A.I. I also teach students how to think critically about the data collected from the chatbot — what might be missing, what can be improved and how they can expand the “conversation” to get richer feedback.

— Nicole Haddad, Southern Methodist University

Studying with A.I. tools

I used ChatGPT and a math plug-in to help prepare me in geometry for next year. That was very helpful for me because you can ask it a million questions and it never gets tired. It was like my personalized tutor in math.

— Amedeo Bettauer, age 13, rising ninth grader, Brookline High School

A.I. chatbots are making it a lot easier for students to understand difficult concepts in a simple way. The tailored responses one can obtain through specific prompts are incredible. It can provide students with endless examples of how to outline essays, business plans and emails. It’s a real time saver.

— Sam Avery, recent graduate, University of Iowa

A.I. chatbots can give students an out. You don’t have to think about a text deeply or write about a connection that you had to find, you can simply just ask a robot to analyze a quote and it will do it in a matter of seconds. I don’t know the effects that A.I. will have on students in the long run but I just don’t want it to make students lazy, as the joy of learning is that “AHA!” moment that comes from figuring something out yourself.

— Emma Nazario, first-year student, Wheaton College