Below, Britt attempts to summarize her understanding of the views that challenge her proposal in The Mentor’s Classroom:
The age of Artificial Intelligence is upon us. Try as we may to slow the creep of AI into our learning, it is here. Current students are using AI, and future students will also use it.
It seems unlikely, then, that current and future students will continue to be afforded academic and professional opportunities to ‘slow down’ their thinking and writing processes without possibly risking their positions as leaders or top-performers in their respective fields.
Many educators are turning towards AI in their pedagogy primarily because they don’t want their students to fall or be left behind. Rising concerns around paid artificial intelligence models have students concerned about this, too. More financially privileged students will soon have access to faster, more ‘capable’ artificial intelligence models, which will only widen the gap between users and non-users.
Traditional research article reading, paper outlining and writing, and reflective practices that are not delegated to artificial intelligence are taking students far longer to complete than their peers who are using AI. The current market and economy have students and professionals alike scrambling for more sense of job security. Oftentimes this either means embracing artificial intelligence wholeheartedly, or fighting it for a position.
The portfolio assignment resists the race to production in many ways. It asks students and teachers alike to do exactly what artificial intelligence strives to remove: more creation and thought towards the final product than is ‘required’.
Author's Response to LtA
Where I Agree:
I agree that the rise of artificial intelligence and the demand for speedy, nearly perfect final products is forcing many students to at least consider using AI in their learning. Paid subscriptions for more complex artificial intelligence models creates even more of a disadvantage for non-users. To me, it is completely rational that students feel compelled to delegate some of their educational work to artificial platforms.
Where I Disagree
An education is not just something that someone gets in order to secure a position. More and more frequently we see that a diploma and degree in a certain field does not guarantee a successful career (forbes). The traditional four-year college degree was designed for a slower pace of learning. It is meant to be a stepping stone towards an individual's personal and/or professional endeavors. The value of an education is not necessarily just the degree you receive, it is the time that someone has offered themselves for exploration and threshold learning opportunities.
Currently, for the sake of my students who are navigating a huge shift in their educational and professional reality, and for the sake of my own sanity, my pedagogical stance is something like this: occasionally using artificial intelligence as a thought-partner is understandable, and students who have elected to attend college are responsible for accepting the learning opportunities that they are offered.