Trinity Chapin
Staff Writer
AI has been incorporated into the Millersville University education system, but what does this mean for students and professors: the loss of humanity, or a new chapter for human development?
The progression of AI has been a persistent field, beginning from as early as the 1950’s when Claude Shannon created the world’s first Artificial Intelligence named Theseus, a robotic mouse made from Bell Labs’ telephone wires that could solve custom labyrinth-like-mazes through trial and error. The invention of Theseus made a huge breakthrough in the AI industry, which set off the currently ever-growing field of AI.
However, from the release of OpenAI’s GPT-2 in 2019, AI became aggressively more advanced in its’ capabilities. Students attending Millersville University began to use ChatGPT for writing their essays and doing their homework, and now some instructors in the English Arts and Writing fields are afraid of AI’s influence on the education system and their classroom environment.
An interview with Dr. Emily Baldys, a highly acclaimed English professor with a specialty in nineteenth-century British Literature at Millersville University, had shared her perspective on this, saying “My initial reaction was definitely concern. Like, are my students going to rely on this tool to do all of their thinking for them?” The growing concern of AI being used in the educational system was also expressed in another interview with Dr. Caleb Corkery, who is another highly acclaimed English professor at Millersville University, saying “It’s such a central part of our mission, yet it is directly undermining the value of what we do.”
Yet, despite the growing fears of professors, University College released a statement of guidelines to incorporate AI into the university’s academics, which forced Millersville University’s professors to adapt and create an entirely new environment for the continuation of Millersville’s tertiary education. The previous concerns now became extremely amplified in the field of writing, but in spite of this change, professors decided to take on this change as an opportunity instead of a disparity.
Dr. Baldys had provided some insight for how professors can adapt their way of teaching students, saying: “I think with most tools, once they’ve been introduced, they’re not gonna go away… But I think the approach that I have taken to AI which feels most helpful to me right now is just talking to my students about it.” Dr. Corkery also reinforced this approach, saying from his experience “I talk about it at the beginning of the course, and just in the ways we’ve been talking about it, and that it’s easy to spot, and so I just tell my students that I want to hear their voice- I want to hear what they think.”
Along with knowing the challenge and changes that are needed going forward, professors have taken the approach of including AI in their classrooms with caution and indifference. However, despite this change, most professors and instructors have come to terms with the new seat that AI currently occupies within education. Dr. Baldys provided her own personal experience with this instance, saying “Some of the research around AI that I’ve read recently is pretty clear that students tend to use it when they feel an assignment is not meaningful, or at times they would cheat for other reasons like they’re stuck or its late or they have a crisis.” This has uncovered that there may be more of a story behind the usage of AI amongst students, and Dr. Baldys adapted to this with her approach of talking to the students about it. She stated her results, saying “I’ve talked with my students about like ‘how could we make those discussion replies meaningful or more fun,’ and they came up with some really interesting ideas- like ‘reply as a character’ or ‘write like a caveman would’… using ways of making the process of replying to each other feel more authentic and interesting and engaging and not only ‘I agree with what you said.’”
Even with such a bleak look, Dr. Corkery and Dr. Baldys have found that there are some good uses and benefits to AI usage, specifically with research into a class’s subject, with Dr. Corkery saying “As a tool for pulling together information, its really great, and I do encourage students to use AI- especially in preliminary research stages, to see what’s out there… so, yeah, it can be really helpful.”
While professors may have concerns and are afraid of the usage of AI, there are definitely ways that AI can be a beneficial tool, which would include research and adaptation to discussion in the classroom environment, but there are still some ways that AI should be monitored carefully in its usage.
