Current students at Whitman have witnessed many different stages of technological development in schooling. As we’ve grown up, so has technology. From computer labs shared with a whole elementary school to ChatGPT in our back pocket, we’ve seen a lot of change. Adapting to those changes has been tricky, to say the least.
Since starting this school year, I’ve already had two assignments where using AI was not only suggested, but required. These assignments were introduced shortly after the sudden accessibility of AI to all Whitman students, and the growing feeling that we must learn how to incorporate it into our lives.
With AI previously having been a subject of taboo in my classrooms, this was surprising — it required me to completely shift my perspective. More importantly, however, it felt morally wrong. I was at school to learn how to use my brain, not to make someone (or something) do the thinking for me. For assignments that involved critical thinking and creativity, using AI felt like taking a step backward rather than a step forward.
So understandably, the requirements to use AI in my classes created some cognitive dissonance. Even more, it made the blurry line between what is and isn’t okay when it comes to AI even blurrier — when AI can be used, or is even required, in some classroom settings but not others, it’s hard to know which is which.
One reason that professors were able to assign projects that required AI use was the decision to provide Google Gemini and NotebookLM to all students for free.
According to David Sprunger, Whitman’s director of Instructional and Learning Technologies, this decision was two-fold.
“[It was] primarily based on two factors: demand from the Whitman community and contractual assurances from Google about the security and privacy of our data,” said Sprunger.
However, this decision has complexified the already heated debate around using AI in the context of higher education. How to use AI in a productive way and when to abstain from it are questions both students and faculty at Whitman are asking.
Associate Dean of Faculty Mary Raschko is heavily involved with addressing AI use on Whitman’s campus. She is a part of the AI team in Whitman’s branch of the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U). This team of six faculty members does all they can to adapt the academy to a new world of AI.
“[We] interact with hundreds of other colleges across the country to [ask], ‘How is AI reshaping teaching and learning? How do we react, how do we lead, what do we do?’” Raschko said. “[We want to guarantee that] faculty at Whitman [are] the ones driving how we think about AI in teaching and learning, and making sure it’s not conversations at an administrative level.”
She also said they are aiming to collaborate with students, especially ones that have a variety of attitudes on AI. She said that the AAC&U is not actively advocating for or against AI, but instead focusing on making it possible for students and faculty to make informed, productive decisions about how they use it.
One student that is working to provide information about AI use is Zizia Da Conceicao Teme, who is the Video Maker and Student Manager in Whitman’s Digital Fluencies program.
Digital Fluencies is a student-run group that aims to teach other students how to work with different types of technology in a college setting.
“We’re not experts,” Teme said. “[We] use a specific technology, and share with other students what we found useful … and how [they] can benefit from what we’ve learned.”
Teme said that while Digital Fluencies hasn’t been able to reach a consensus on when exactly it’s okay to use AI, what’s most important to them is keeping students informed on the implications that come with using it.
ChatGPT, for example, doesn’t work the way some people expect. It gives the user the answer that it determines to have the highest probability of being helpful. That means it doesn’t always end up answering the question how a student would like it to, and it can lead them astray if it misunderstands what the student wants to get out of the conversation.
“ChatGPT doesn’t think,” Teme said.
If students are properly informed about what using AI really means, there’s not necessarily a right answer to whether it’s something that should be used or not. Raschko emphasized that it’s important to hear all sides of the debate.
“Being someone who adopts AI a lot, or being someone who abstains from AI a lot — these are both really important dispositions … that need to be a part of the conversation,” Raschko said.
She added that we should trust students and faculty to make informed choices.
“I want to support faculty in the way that they teach,” said Raschko.
When discussing accessibility of AI tools to students with both Raschko and Teme, the issue of equity came up a lot.
Raschko described some faculty members creating what she called “sanctuary spaces,” or classrooms that fully abstain from using AI.
“If we didn’t have [those spaces] at Whitman,” she said, “this would not be nearly as good of a place to learn.”
However, she added that at the same time, it’s not realistic to limit all classrooms that way.
“There are students in certain fields where the ways that information is processed is changing,” said Raschko. “And [without access to AI,] they wouldn’t get to participate in the discipline in the same way [as others in the same field.]”
Teme said she has noticed this as well — especially in the context of searching for jobs. She said she recently looked through Handshake for potential jobs for after graduation, and seven out of 10 of the jobs she found required knowledge of how to use AI.
“Some jobs prioritize time efficiency, rather than quality,” she said.
This growing norm of expecting knowledge of AI in certain fields is one reason why providing AI resources to students promotes equity. If the jobs students are competing for require skills in a program, certain students shouldn’t get an advantage over others simply because they can afford to practice using that program.
Teme also told me that as a work-study student, access to AI can help her balance time spent on homework and working at her job. There are some ways in which AI can make schoolwork more efficient, she said.
“I couldn’t figure out how to study for my math exam, and it helped me generate practice questions,” Teme said. “It’s so helpful when it helps with studying, [rather than] doing my work for me.”
When some students have more on their plate than others, providing Gemini and NotebookLM to everyone can help level the playing field. They can reduce the amount of time students spend on extraneous endeavors like searching the internet for practice questions, leaving more time for jobs, athletics or other responsibilities.
While this new accessibility is creating more equity on campus, it has also caused confusion about how professors expect students to use it.
AI is a completely new genre of technology — there’s no precedent to follow when determining how to adapt to it. This has led to ambiguity at Whitman and across college campuses on rules regarding its use, which has sparked new feelings of confusion and stress in students.
“There’s not a set guideline for whether we can use it or not. I want to experiment and know how to use it, but I don’t know if that’s ok,” Teme said.
When one day you are required to use AI on an assignment, and the next you risk consequences for using it in a similar way, it’s stressful to decide whether to use it. And the fact that it’s so easily accessible can make the decision even more confusing.
Whitman’s guidelines on using AI adds some clarity, providing tips like avoiding sharing personal information and following Whitman’s Academic Integrity Policy, but it can still be unclear what the rules are in specific situations.
In addition to ambiguity, future implications of AI use in schooling can be overwhelming. If students begin to rely on it for things like reading and writing, more than just those skills are threatened. The process of learning reading and writing teaches critical thinking and problem solving. If we don’t learn how to read and write, we don’t learn how to think.
“[School] is a place where we learn to be more human … we need the kind of education that centers curiosity and creativity,” Raschko said.
How to be more human is something AI will never be able to teach us. If we are going to decide as a society to prioritize the use of AI, we must also make sure we are teaching the skills that Raschko described.
