How will schools react to Artificial Intelligence?

By Peter Finney Jr.
Clarion Herald

The three Rs of “reading, ‘riting and ‘rithmetic” have a nostalgic glow for parents and grandparents of a certain age, but the cutting-edge ABCs of Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) have the potential to revolutionize education in ways still not fully grasped, a national media expert and several Catholic educators in the Archdiocese of New Orleans say.

“We’re all so busy with so many other concerns, but we need to start talking and thinking about this as individual school leaders as well as Catholic school systems in general,” said Salesian Father Steve Ryan, director and head of school of Archbishop Shaw High School in Marrero. “I’m sure everyone’s expressing the same thing – that we’re behind the 8-ball on this. It’s jumped up on us.”

In a brave new world where, with a few keystrokes, software programs such as ChatGPT and its growing number of techno-intelligent cousins can spit out a 750-word essay on Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” within a few seconds, educators are wondering how that type of computing power will affect obvious aspects of learning, not the least of which is identifying the true owner of the work.

“We had a leadership meeting a month ago to consider what kind of policy do you come up with and how do you govern it to ensure that students are doing their own work?” said Marc Milano, president and principal of Archbishop Rummel High School in Metairie.

On guard for plagiarism
In the not-too-distant past, most Catholic school teachers used software programs such as “Turnitin” to help them detect whether or not sections of essays submitted by their students had been plagiarized from online or other sources.

“When a student does a paper, he has to submit his work through this program, and the program tells you, ‘All of these things are repeated, and there’s a 99% probability that it’s plagiarized,’” Milano said. “Well, if a student uses A.I. to do his paper, it’s actually a newly generated thing, so it’s not in this (data) bank and hasn’t been submitted yet. How scary is that?”

Which, of course, could create massive challenges for teachers trying to decipher if a student is actually assimilating and learning the material taught in class or simply using the coolest, 21st-century version of CliffsNotes to become a suddenly facile writer.

So, what’s a teacher and a learning community to do?

“This is the point where we are right now,” Milano said, admitting that discussions are ongoing among his archdiocesan colleagues.

More in-class work?
There are no immediate, clear answers. One idea Milano and the Archbishop Rummel faculty have been considering is to place a greater emphasis on students’ in-class writing and the intermediate drafts they use to create their finished product.

“Do we have the students do an original work at the beginning of the school year in the classroom so that you then have a baseline?” Milano asked. “But, then, you put teachers in the position where they have to make a judgment call – is this the same (quality of) work or is it not? Maybe the student didn’t have a vocabulary like this at the beginning of the year when he wrote his baseline paper.”

Milano said one possible solution sounds “almost prehistoric” but might work: Have students do more of their work in class and commit those ideas to writing.

“Think about writing compared to math,” Milano said. “When you turn in your math homework, you have to show your work, and you can’t just put down the answer if it’s a 10-step math problem or equation. We may have to consider having students do drafts in class so that we’ve got all the work that goes with it.”

Challenges, possibilities
Shannon Hauler, academic vice principal of St. Mary’s Dominican High School, said she expects A.I. to create “some interesting challenges in teaching – and there could be some good things and some challenges.”

When whispers about the power of A.I. were growing louder last year, Hauler led a faculty discussion by showing teachers how she had asked her A.I. engine to “write an English II essay on (Victor) Hugo’s ‘Les Misérables’ – because I know that’s a novel that we teach.”

“It produced an essay within seconds,” Hauler said, recalling her colleagues’ shocked faces. “And then I went back in and said, ‘Include citations.’ And it did that. But what we’re finding is that the citations aren’t always accurate. So, it’s asking students and teachers to do more.”

Ethical conversations
While Dominican continues to define its A.I. policies, Hauler said undergirding every message to students will be ethical considerations.

“We want students to understand the difference between using something as an aid versus presenting something that’s created by A.I. as their own,” Hauler said. “We want to encourage our teachers to really have conversations with the girls and help them understand that they are standing on their own two feet and recognize what they are capable of doing.

“When a teacher suspects something, we want that teacher to have that conversation with the student and not just jump to conclusions. We’re focusing on helping our students develop critical thinking skills and build on their knowledge. Letting the computer do the work for you just defeats that purpose.”

Daughter of St. Paul Sister Rose Pacatte, a media literacy education specialist and the founding director of the Pauline Center for Media Studies in Culver City, California, teaches an online course, “Collaboration and Community,” through the University of Dayton.

Foundation of trust
While the university has asked online teachers to be vigilant about students’ homework and whether or not it should be flagged if the content looks as though it was aided by A.I., she is operating from a foundation of trust.

“Why would you even bother taking a course like this, which is all for your own advancement in ministry, if you’re going to cheat?” she said. “I try to imagine myself in a classroom with kids in fifth or sixth grade, who probably would be the ones most likely to try it out, and just ask them to be honest. Honesty is how we learn, and that comes from character education, too. So, maybe we have to do some long-term planning – and by that I mean in kindergarten and first grade – to really hone in on those values of honesty and integrity.

“I’ve asked Catholic school principals before, ‘Are you doing character education?’ And they’ll say, ‘Well, no, we have religious education.’ And I’ll say, ‘That’s not good enough. We have to do human formation, too. We can’t let it just come from the home.’ We have to teach character education at every level.”

Teachers should experiment
Sister Rose says teachers and administrators who feel threatened by A.I. should experiment with the various platforms themselves so they can become more familiar with students’ behavior.

“They need to be able to recognize the kind of answers they can get,” Sister Rose said. “If a sixth-grader is putting out an answer that sounds like a theologian, you know something is going on. Control doesn’t work. If they’re going to cheat, they’re going to find a way. But why throw that out there to students immediately – like ‘we’re going to be checking your work’? That’s like throwing a bone to a dog, and they’re going to try to outwit you. When you say you’re going to trust them, that has a much better outcome.”

Kasey Webb, associate superintendent for academic excellence for the archdiocesan Department of Catholic Education and Faith Formation, said her office hopes to guide schools “as the world of education evaluates” how A.I. will impact student learning.

“This is something we need to be talking about in our schools,” Webb said. “We want to balance using A.I. as a tool to prepare for the future and also make sure we’re moving forward in a way that is safe and secure and protects our students.”

Teachers could use A.I. to save time on duties such as grading or sending out email communications, which would free them to provide for more instructional time, Webb said.

Father Ryan at Archbishop Shaw is concerned with the human factor. Like everyone else, he’s seen students mesmerized by their phones, perhaps to the detriment of their social and communication skills.

“How can these young people ever learn to express themselves?” he asked. “One of the beautiful things in life is to be able to think and express yourself logically.”

Milano of Archbishop Rummel said as more is learned every day about A.I., new approaches in how it can be used to help student learning are sure to emerge.

“There’s a lot of opinions, but there’s not a prescribed ‘best practices’ or a hard prescription out there,” Milano said, smiling. “Maybe we could ask A.I. to make one for us.”

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