The AI Revolution in Education, Part 3: Further Suggestions

No single policy will resolve the AI challenge in education. As technology changes, educators will have to change with it. Here are six evergreen practices that should be at the heart of instruction with AI.

1. Explain  the purpose of every assignment. If students are to practice independent writing, unrestricted AI assistance may defeat the purpose. If they are evaluating arguments, AI might provide useful material to critique.
2. Require students to disclose their AI use. This practice is no different from requiring students to cite their sources. In using AI, what did they request, accept, reject, or revise? Making AI use visible turns it from a hidden shortcut into an accountable part of the learning process.
3. Make AI itself an object of study. Give students an AI-generated response and ask them to find its factual, logical, or stylistic weaknesses. Through such an exercise, students can learn an important lesson: fluent language is not necessarily reliable knowledge.
4. Vary assessments. Discussions, presentations, drafts, demonstrations, reflections, collaborative work, in-class writing, and other teaching modes can provide evidence that a final product alone cannot.
5. Invest in teacher learning. Teachers need training to cultivate their AI knowledge, ethical understanding, pedagogical skills, and continuing professional competence. 
6. Create thinking spaces. The education system should place independent thinking at the heart of all learning. If students are to think for themselves, they must have facilitators ushering them into spaces, physical and otherwise, where AI answers are not immediate. Students and teachers alike must prize the uniquely precious human gift of abstract thinking. 

Not every problem needs an instant answer, nor does every sentence need technological assistance. Sometimes the questions are more important than the answers. Learning can be hard, and that's a good thing. Instead of removing all difficulties, add new challenges. Educators should not keep AI outside the classroom at all costs, nor to put it everywhere simply because it is available. They should include it where strengthens learning and exclude it where it replaces learning.