Following up on last week's post, Everyone Is Cheating Their Way Through College. What Happens When They Get To Law School?: Wall Street Journal Op-Ed: How to Stop Students From Cheating With AI, by John J. Goyette (Vice President & Dean Emeritus, Thomas Aquinas College):
Eliminate online classes, ban screens, and restore Socratic discussion as education’s guiding model.
Since OpenAI released ChatGPT in November 2022, the world of higher education has been turned upside down. Most of the pedagogical and assessment tools that have dominated college classrooms since at least the 19th century—and especially those that emerged during the Covid-19 pandemic—are no longer effective.
Cheating is rampant. Students turn to generative artificial-intelligence chatbots to do their readings, complete their take-home exams and write their papers. A January 2023 survey from Study.com found that 89% of college students had used ChatGPT to complete a homework assignment. Nearly half admitted to using it on at-home tests or quizzes, and 53% had turned in an AI-generated essay.
A student who aces a quiz without studying the material has learned nothing. The same is true for a student who completes an essay without performing research, contemplating the subject matter, refining and ordering arguments, or painstakingly choosing the exact words to express the right idea. These students fail not only to retain knowledge, but also to develop their capacities for creative and critical thinking. …
Today’s academic incentive structure rewards cheating and rarely punishes fraud or dishonesty. Such an environment destroys students’ character formation, creating long-term consequences. …
It’s time to take a step back from technology and return to pedagogical tools that have served educators for centuries. Start by eliminating online classes and banning screens in the classroom.
Colleges should also institute a more personal and in-person approach to assessment. Take-home exams, which were ripe for abuse long before AI, should be retired. Schools should instead administer in-class evaluations such as blue-book essays, oral exams and chalkboard demonstrations. …
More important, colleges and universities must restore conversation to its position of prominence in the classroom. … Oral communication has for centuries been the guiding model for higher education. The Socratic seminar exposes students to rational discourse that actively engages the mind. …
Education is meant to liberate us from bias and ignorance. By hindering the development of students’ critical faculties, AI is setting up future generations for the opposite. Technology has its place in higher education, but not at the expense of learning. Real students deserve a real education.
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