AI programs like ChatGPT forcing change in schools

With every assignment that they turn in, students must abide by an honor code. But with the benefit of artificial intelligence being a click or tap away, educators are facing a need to adapt.

Elliott Derr, a social studies education major at Rock Hill’s Winthrop University, says he’s learned as much from his professor.

“She told us one student just copied and pasted a whole ChatGPT article and he failed the class,” Derr told Channel 9′s Education Reporter Jonathan Lowe.

AI has even crept into the classrooms at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and Wingate University.

“Our faculty as a whole have had a lot of situations where students use ChatGPT,” said Susan Harden, the president of faculty with UNC Charlotte.

Wingate University even sent out a message warning four students that TurnItIn, a service that detects plagiarism, found that their papers were 100% generated by AI. But professors like Marshall Jones at Winthrop say ChatGPT is still so new, detecting it can be tough.

“Conventional plagiarism checkers, no, there are artificial intelligence detectors that are out there,” Jones said.

Despite the concerns about cheating, some say there are appropriate ways to use AI like ChatGPT.

“If you have a student that may struggle with their writing, that may be an advantage to them,” said Prof. John Bannister with Johnson C. Smith University’s Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning.

Local schools say they’re updating their codes of honor. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools’ Code of Conduct says a student will be honest and submit their own work and that ChatGPT is blocked on student devices. Queens University said given the ever-evolving landscape of education, they’re continuously evaluating policies and procedures. Central Piedmont Community College says its Board of Trustees is meeting in May to review and approve their plagiarism policy that would bar the use of ChatGPT to complete assignments.

Harden, a professor of education at UNC Charlotte, said new technology can be useful.

“You have to say I’ve used this in my response, it’s only when you try to deceive your professor and pass that off as your own intellectual work that it becomes a problem,” Harden said.

For students like Derr, they say using AI comes down to intentions.

“It’s accurate and helpful as long as you don’t lean too much into it,” Derr said. “Use it sparingly.”

The creators of ChatGPT, OpenAI, have acknowledged the temptation to cheat -- so they released a new tool called AI Text Classifier to help educators tell if a paper is their students’ work or the work of a machine. But even OpenAI admitted its not fully guaranteed to catch all instances.

Meanwhile, the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction is hosting a summer conference to teach educators how to effectively and safely use AI in student learning.

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