The increasing rise in use of Artificial Intelligence “AI” in education brings both positive and negative outcomes. AI can help make everyday tasks become easier and create learning plans that are just needs. It shows how helpful technology could be, but this rapid increase means we need to think carefully about its long term effects. Although AI can be beneficial, many people are concerned it might affect the way humans think and their decision making plans.
Even though AI has a lot of positive benefits to bring in education, using it without thinking can make it harder for students to process information in their brains and can cause them to slowly lose their self-confidence. We need to make sure teachers and parents still help and guide students by encouraging them and helping them learn to think critically, so they try to not rely on AI.
AI is becoming a bigger part of our lives, especially in areas like engineering, healthcare, and driving. However, there is concern that we might rely on it too much and lose important thinking skills. As Berg stated “ the ability to determine what is being argued for and how is not dispensable. No aspect of cognitive understanding is perfunctory” (Berg). If we use too much AI, students will not develop the skills to think critically and solve problems independently. This backs up the idea that “Our students are about to turn subcognitive” (Berg).
AI can also affect students’ confidence. For example, in group work, students might feel discouraged if AI tools seem more accurate or efficient than they are. Research shows that being “ outvoted by AI teammates affects human confidence” (Hu,M.,Zhang, G.). This is a major problem because it can possibly stop students from taking risks with their ideas or fully stop trusting their own problem solving skills. Students shouldn’t have to feel like this. Students should feel empowered, capable, not taken over by technology.
AI is becoming a huge part of schools, helping teachers grade and create lesson plans. In an article about AI in education, Bogen reports that there’s “73% [Believing] AI can improve students’ learning.” (Bogen). However, when AI helps make big decisions in important areas like healthcare or driving, we might lose the ability to think for ourselves.
When we let robots do our thinking, especially in really important jobs, it can slowly make us less able to make good choices. This article talks about the importance of critical thinking in education, Berg argues that “ the ability to determine what is being argued for and how we understand the weight of cognitive skills is perfunctory.”(Berg).
When we let AI do the work, we really miss out on the chance to learn something new. Some are worried that students will become too dependent on technology, which makes their problem solving skills less creative. When students depend on too much AI, they might just go along with things instead of really thinking hard about what they are learning, which means they won’t understand things as well.
“What matters now is whether we use it to deepen learning or to avoid it.” (McQuiston). This creates a lot of responsibility on teachers to show students how to use technology, especially AI, correctly. We need to learn to ask questions to AI, check the facts AI provides us, not just believe everything it tells us. This means teachers need to guide students to become smart about using AI, encouraging students to be active thinkers not just people who let technology do all the work.
Even though “ We are seeing that if we use appropriately, tools like AI can use generative AI to enhance students’ we have to make sure AI is helping us learn more deeply, not just helping us skip the learning part.”(Bogen).
AI is changing quickly, and it is very important for students, teachers, or those in charge at school to be careful and think wisely about how we bring AI into the classrooms. If we are on track with making sure teachers are guiding us, continue using our thinking skills, and we need to remember to see how important it is to figure things out for ourselves, then AI can be a really cool helpful tool that helps us learn. However, if we are not careful, it could make us less smart.
