🗑 Student writing in the AI age

📢 I’m keynoting OKSTE in Oklahoma!

Attention is the electricity that drives learning in our classrooms.

How can we flip The Attention Switch for our students and make learning memorable? ⚡️

I’ll share my keynote speech, The Attention Switch, at the OKSTE Conference, and I’d love to see you there!

What: OKSTE Conference
Where: Cox Convention Center, Tulsa, OK
Dates: November 6 & 7, 2024 (my keynote: Thurs. Nov. 7)
Register here // Get conference details here

Want Matt to share The Attention Switch ⚡️ at your school, district or event? Email [email protected] for details, availability, and pricing. (We respond to requests quickly!)

💡 THE BIG IDEA 💡

✍️ Student writing in the AI age

ChatGPT arrived in November 2022 — almost two years ago.

Since then, teachers, students, school leaders — and pundits with no education experience — have discussed AI and its place in education.

The discussion about student writing hasn’t been the same since.

It underlines some of the big pieces we’re trying to figure out in a world relying more and more on AI …

• How much AI use is too much … too little … just right?

• How do we preserve student thinking?

• What is the role of writing in education … in learning?

• Does that role change when AI support is everywhere?

I’ve thought about this a lot. Used AI tools to teach in my own classroom. Talked to lots of educators. Read from a lot of the AI developers and prognosticators.

Here are some things we need to consider …

1️⃣ AI detectors are not the answer

We still have lots and lots of educators who are using AI detectors to determine whether students have used AI in their writing.

Two concerns I have about this:

One is that AI detectors are terribly inaccurate. Published academic research has backed this up …

• From professors in Qatar: “the tools exhibited inconsistencies, producing false positives and uncertain classifications.”

• Another study: “… available detection tools are neither accurate nor reliable …”

• Yet another: “These error rates raise doubts about relying on AI detectors to enforce strict policies around AI text generation …”

• And the kicker: AI detectors are biased against non-native English speakers.

The second concern? We lose the nuance of asking “how.”

How are they using it? Just simply “using AI” doesn’t equate the cheating. But not all uses are alike.

I shared this spectrum of “how much AI use is OK?,” which you can read and access here.

I would have lots of questions I would want to ask the student during and after the assignment. (More on that below.)

But that highlights an important shift we’ll need to make …

2️⃣ Process over product

When AI can write essays for students, we can’t just focus on the end product anymore. (Honestly, there were lots of problems with that in the first place.)

Instead, we need to refocus on the process.

Asking students questions about the process of doing their classwork helps us to see their thinking. We see the growth and development of their skills.

And that’s the good stuff. That’s what we want as teachers.

Here are some questions that help us look at the process …

• This assignment was easy/difficult for me because …

• Ideas came quickly/slowly because …

• The writing was easy/difficult because …

• I was really proud of this sentence/paragraph/idea because …

• I wish I could find a better way to ____ in this part because …

• If I wrote this again, here’s how I’d do it differently …

• I would like to do more/less of this type of writing because …

• In the future, here’s what I’d like to write about …

In this case, students talk about HOW they did the work instead of just turning in the work itself.

(PS: I’m working with Dr. Elliott Hedman from the MIT Media Lab to develop a tool to support students in this very process. It’s called Bonafide and we’re in the very early stages, but it looks promising!)

A focus on the process can help. But that’s just one solution …

3️⃣ Or just reimagine the product

“For tonight’s homework, I want you to write this essay …”

Unfortunately, this statement is fraught with complicated issues now — issues that even go beyond “copy/paste with ChatGPT.”

If that traditional student product — the traditional student essay — isn’t getting us the results that we want, maybe we reimagine it.

What if, instead, we have students …

• Change the type of writing — to a TikTok video script, or a top 3 analysis, or a Snapchat-style “This or That”

• Scaffold and chunk the writing — to defeat that mindset of “there’s no way I can do this myself”

• Pair students with a writing coach chatbot who can talk them through the process (example: SchoolAI Spaces)

• Invite AI to the brainstorming process to get students ready to write

• Show what they’ve learned creatively — like an Instagram Stories activity with images and/or videos

4️⃣ Key question: Why do we want students to write?

As we consider the role of writing in learning, AI is going to force us to go back to the beginning.

We’ll have to ask: Why do we want students to write in the first place?

• Is it to actually practice their writing skills?

• Or is it to show understanding of new content?

• Or is it to demonstrate a line of reasoning?

• Or is it to practice their creativity and divergent thinking?

Two more important questions to ask when we ask students to write:

• What do I want the STUDENT to get out of this writing?

• What do I, the TEACHER, want to see/learn from the student from this writing?

5️⃣ Using AI = Preparing for an AI future???

Not necessarily.

Be careful. Because there are lots of folks in education right now screaming, “AI is the future! It’s not going anywhere, so you’d better get on board.”

There’s some truth to that. But it’s also nuanced like a sledgehammer.

Having students use AI doesn’t necessarily prepare them for an AI future.

Today’s AI tools can help students to think critically and develop skills.

• But they can also stand in the way of thinking, too.

They can prepare students for the future.

• But they can also serve as mindless tasks that don’t do anything.

This is why … (ready for it? forgive my shouting …)

WE 👏🏻 STILL 👏🏻 NEED 👏🏻 HUMAN 👏🏻 TEACHERS. 👏🏻

We need you. We need you to think. We need you to use your expertise and teaching experience.

We still need you to chart a course for learning — and develop the right environment for students to learn and grow.

Students still need to write — because writing assignments, when designed well, encourage students to think.

Student writing in the AI era is going to look different.

It’s going to require some change.

We’re just at the beginning. Let’s figure this out together.

(More to come on this in the future.)

🎯 QUICK TEACHING STRATEGY 🎯

😥 Help students cope with test anxiety

Midterm tests and projects are upon us.

And that means it’s anxiety season.

What can we do to help our students out?

In her Retrieval Practice newsletter (fantastic … you should subscribe), Dr. Pooja Agarwal recenty shared lots of tips to help students reduce test anxiety and also engage in retrieval practice to improve their memory.

A simple one: Add a picture of a golden retriever to your lesson slides. 🐕

She writes: Dogs are cute and everyone can use a moment to smile. Plus, the picture serves as a cue to you and your students to do a quick retrieval (get it?) with a brain dump or two things. (A big thanks to Spanish teacher Andrew S. at Episcopal Academy for this idea.)

A meatier one: Engage students in retrieval practice. Get them recalling what they’ve learned without the use of notes or textbooks.

In a research study she participated in, middle school students reported that retrieval practice helped them learn (92%) and made them less nervous for unit tests and exams (72%).

Read the whole research study here. And you can learn more about retrieval practice with practical strategies at RetrievalPractice.org.

👋 How we can help

There are even more ways I can support you in the important work you do in education:

1. Read one of my six books about meaningful teaching with tech.

2. Take one of our online courses about practical and popular topics in education.

3. Bring me to your school, district or event to speak. I love working with educators!