Students Cheating With AI? Maybe Students Are The Ones Being Cheated?
I hear about students cheating with Artificial Intelligence (AI) and other methods?
Maybe they are not the cheaters.
Maybe they are the ones being cheated by an old-school curriculum that fails to inspire learning?
For sure, there are people who cheat because they don’t want to put the work in. But I think this requires broader thinking in education.
We need to ask why so many students are compelled to cheat — or at least take the easy way out.
I often have discussions with instructors about assessment and I advise them that they should grade students on every assignment, even the practice ones. At a minimum, grade them on participation. Because many (most?) students will only do what they are graded on.
“Is that going to be on the test? No — ok then I’m not doing it.”
Have you ever heard or said that?
Again … why?
The reality is that many (most?) students don’t go to school for an education, they go for the credential — the path to a job. And they go for the social experience.
Some people have a romanticized view of education where students go to school to discover new information, open their minds, and be challenged. If students ever had that expectation, sadly, for many it’s long gone by the time they finish high school.
By the time they get to college, many students want to do the least amount of work on academics so they can spend more time doing everything else that college offers.
Some may believe this is a cynical view of education. But I tend to think of it more as a fair observation. And an important one to consider when the college dropout rate is thought to exceed 30%. Not to mention the consequences of student loan debt.
The reality is that students don’t look forward to (or fondly back on) sitting through lectures, cramming for assignments, and being subjected to stress-inducing exams. That's just accepted as the price of admission (on top of the real $ price of admission).
So, what’s the solution?
Is it to lower the standards and expectations of students?
No. A better option is to raise standards by improving the curriculum to provide students with experiences that are more meaningful and inspiring.
Buckets of money are spent on fancy new buildings, but very little on changing the curriculum. Improving curriculum only takes a tiny fraction of the money spent on infrastructure — yet it seems to always be at the bottom of the list.
Perhaps because there's no celebration or ribbon cutting when an instructor upgrades their course experience from good to great. Yet, this is where the real work happens.
Curriculum Matters
And better curriculum already exists for nearly every subject. We just have to look for it.
And be willing to try something new.
Here's a personal example — For the past 20 years, I've been designing and selling educational games and simulations to schools. Occasionally, some educators and administrators have told me that they are not interested in my type of products because they believe that there is insufficient empirical research to demonstrate the benefits of this type of learning.
The irony is that these same people choose to continue to use lectures, textbooks, and other old-school learning methods that we already know don't work well. They would rather stay with something that doesn't work well than take a chance on something new — even when the upside could be transformative.
I also encounter educators who are willing and eager to try something new, but tell me that their administrators would never approve of it. (Probably the same administrators working on that fancy new building.)
The moral of the story here is that if we want students to be more engaged in their learning, then we have to reconsider how education is delivered, measured, assessed, and credentialed. And this all starts with the curriculum.
Fun fact — Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been used to power educational products for decades. It's not new, it's just now available more directly to students.
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I'm Mathew Georghiou and I write about how games are transforming education and learning. I also share my experience as an entrepreneur inventing products and designing educational resources used by millions around the world. More about me at Georghiou.com