TeachLab with Justin Reich

Students today grapple with the allure of AI tools like ChatGPT for schoolwork, often blurring the lines of academic integrity. Amelia's struggle with a new English class leads her to rely on AI, impacting her relationship with her teacher. Meanwhile, high-achieving students face ethical dilemmas as they navigate the complexities of AI usage. As graduation approaches, the phenomenon of senioritis exacerbates cheating tendencies, highlighting the need for open dialogue about trust and support in education.

In this engaging discussion, Joe O'Hara, a high school chemistry teacher from Chicago, tackles the challenges of AI-assisted cheating in classrooms. He shares clever detection strategies, emphasizing the importance of evidence-gathering like screen monitoring. O'Hara explores the moral dilemmas teachers face between punishment and education, advocating for clear communication with parents to build trust. His innovative approach includes AI-proofing assignments, designing projects that promote ownership, and adapting to the evolving landscape of education.

ChatGPT is the most well known of the Large Language Models (LLMs) but what is an LLM? We go deep into how this remarkable new technology is built, and why their performance is inconsistent — or jagged — across similar tasks. We dive into the techniques AI engineers use to align these tools’ behavior with our values, and explain why they don’t always work, and sometimes we get hallucinations or biased output.  This episode was produced by Steven Jackson and Jesse DukesEditing:  Alexandra Salomon and Ruxandra Guidi  Reporting and research from Holly McDede, Natasha Esteves, Andrew Parsons, Andrew Meriwether, Marnette Federis, and Chris Bagg.Sound design and music supervision by Steven Jackson. Production assistance from Yebu Ji and Nathan Ray. Data analysis from Manee Ngozi Nnamani and Manasa Kudumu. Special thanks to Josh Sheldon, Camila Lee, Liz Hutner, and Eric Klopfer. Administrative support from Jessica Rondon. The research and reporting you heard in this episode was supported by the Spencer Foundation, the Kapor Foundation, the Jameel World Education Lab, the Social and Ethical Responsibility of Computing initiative at MIT, and the RAISE initiative, Responsible AI for Social Empowerment and Education also at MIT. We had support from Google’s  Academic Research Awards program. The Homework Machine is a program of the MIT Teaching Systems Lab, Justin Reich, director. 

Educators and students are grappling with the arrival of AI tools like ChatGPT in classrooms. High school teachers reflect on their changing environments and student writing qualities after a long hiatus. The mixed reactions to AI integration highlight both challenges and opportunities in academic integrity and student support. Personal anecdotes reveal schools navigating this new tech landscape, addressing resistance while recognizing the potential benefits for learning in a rapidly evolving educational sphere.

Generative AI is not like other education technologies, which schools often invite into the classroom. This one crashed the party. And then, it started re-arranging the furniture. We wanted to learn more, so in a little over a year, the Teaching Systems Lab has talked to over 90 teachers and 30 students about the impact of Generative AI. Some are excited about AI's potential to transform education for the better. Others are troubled by the temptations of a machine that can quickly and convincingly do many homework assignments. And some think AI is just a shiny object – a distraction from the much larger problems facing education.Over the next seven episodes, we'll try to answer the question: Is AI a game-changing tool, a threat to critical thinking, another ed tech fad? … or something else? Media requests can go to jpd009@mit.edu.  

School leaders, education researchers, and others often point to a study conducted by Stanford researchers that suggested the arrival of generative AI in K-12 school has not meaningfully increased the percentage of students who acknowledge some kind of academic dishonesty. Sometimes, school leaders or experts suggest it means there’s “nothing to see here” when it comes to tools like ChatGPT and worries about students bypassing learning. Researcher + Journalist Jesse Dukes joins Justin to dive into the specifics of that study, and compare it with anecdotes from interviews with students and teachers.  This episode was produced by Andrew Meriwether and Jesse Dukes. We had additional reporting from Holly McDede  and research help from Natasha Esteves and Manassa Kudumu. Thanks to the Spencer Foundation and the Social and Ethical Responsibilities of Computing Initiative at MIT for funding our ongoing  research into the arrival of generative AI in schools. And thanks to the Kapor Foundation for funding Jesse’s work in California with KALW public radio. Thanks to all of the teachers and administrators who have talked with us.  If you want to take our survey, or learn more about our research into Generative AI and K12 education, head over to tsl.mit.edu/ai and if you want to volunteer for the sister study, in California, visit Jesse’s Linktree.

Justin Reich and researcher and producer Jesse Dukes argue that AI in requires a new theoretical framework. Generative AI, unlike many teaching technologies, is an "arrival" technology, meaning it will be present in school environments regardless of what choices school leaders make about whether to adopt it. Their new preprint Toward a New Theory of Arrival Technologies: The Case of ChatGPT and the Future of Education Technology after Adoption explores the idea of "arrival technologies"But rather than summarize it, hey, why not let the arrival technology do it? So we turn to Google's new tool, Notebook LM for a "Deep Dive Conversation" to summarize the article. Thanks to the Spencer Foundation and the Social and Ethical Responsibilities of Computing initiative at MIT for funding our ongoing  research into the arrival of generative AI in schools. Thanks to all of the teachers and administrators who have talked with us.  This episode was produced by Jesse Dukes. We had research help from Chris Bagg, Manasa Kudumu, Natasha Esteves, and Andrew Meriwether. If you want to take our survey, or learn more about our research into Generative AI and K12 education, head over to tsl.mit.edu and if you want to volunteer for the sister study, in California, visit Jesse’s Linktree.  

Jesse Dukes reports from a two day training one school district offered its teachers, all to help them adapt to the arrival of generative AI in schools. That training proved helpful to teachers, but it’s not clear how much professional development most American teachers are getting, and it appears many are getting little or none.  Episode produced by Jesse DukesResearch by Chris Bagg, Andrew Meriwether, and Natashas Esteves. Editorial support by Natasha Esteves. Additional research from Manasa Kudumu. Thanks for the school district that let us visit (you know who are!) Thanks to all the teachers who talked with us for our ongoing research into the arrival of generative AI in school environments. Learn more at tsl.mit.edu/AI. 

We've just wrapped up a school year, so our team researching the arrival of generative AI in classrooms shares  some fun and inspiring moments of teachers adapting to the new reality. We hear from teachers who role modeled the use of as a tool or resource for students, or to generate amusing and weird curricula. This episode was produced by Andrew Meriwether and Jesse Dukes, and features research by Natasha Esteves, Chris Bagg, Andrew Meriwether, and Jesse Dukes. Original song "The AI is a Hummin'" written by Jesse Dukes with help from Bing CoPilot, and performed by Jesse Dukes. To learn more about our ongoing research, take a survey, or volunteer to be interviewed, visit https://tsl.mit.edu/AI/.  

The Arrival of AI powered tools like ChatGPT (now GPT4) in schools has generated concerns that students would use the tool to bypass cognition, or, “cheat” as we colloquially call it. And, it appears many students are doing just that. Early on in our research project about generative AI’s arrival in schools, it seems that English, ELL, and Social Studies at upper levels are particularly likely to encounter students using AI, without permission, to complete assignments. Justin talks to Jesse Dukes who shares a few examples of how teachers are managing this new challenge, and they discuss the wider implications for teaching, ethics, and student well being. This episode was produced by Jesse Dukes. We had research help from Natasha Esteves, Andrew Meriwether, and Chris Bagg. Thanks to the Spencer Foundation for funding our research, and to all the teachers and administrators who agreed to speak with us.