Joanne Jacobs
Studying Swift (Taylor, not Jonathan) in school
Studying pop-song lyrics in English class doesn't prepare students for college reading or writing.
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Joanne Jacobs
- Sep 2
- 2 min
AI is winning the war on cheating
A majority of students use AI to help write papers, and AI detection tools remain unreliable.
Joanne Jacobs
- Aug 18
- 2 min
The trauma of the non-traumatized student
It's the start of the college application season, and 12th-graders are searching their lives for subject matter for essays, writes Robert...
Joanne Jacobs
- Jul 5
- 2 min
The college pitch: How students write personal essays
Minority students are only slightly less likely to write about their racial or ethnic identity in college admissions essays, according to...
Joanne Jacobs
- May 26
- 1 min
Training (and restraining) an AI writing coach
A new AI writing coach will work from a student's notes, turning ideas into sentences.
Joanne Jacobs
- May 26
- 2 min
If teachers ban AI for students, can they use it for grading?
Can teachers ban AI for students' writing but use it for grading?
Joanne Jacobs
- Mar 19
- 2 min
Drop the admissions essay, and bring back the SAT
It's time to dump college admissions essays, writes Matthew Levey on The 74. Test scores and good grades in challenging courses are...
Joanne Jacobs
- Feb 20
- 2 min
Sympathy for the devil: What's the bad guy's point of view?
Novelist Rachel Kadish tells her creative-writing students to write a first-person monologue by a character with "abhorrent" views that...
Joanne Jacobs
- Jan 28
- 2 min
More than ever, college applicants are writing about race
Writing about race is more popular than ever for black, Hispanic and indigenous college applicants, writes Bernard Mokam in the New York...
Joanne Jacobs
- Oct 25, 2023
- 2 min
'A' is for 'awesome,' 'awful' and 'average'
"The most popular high school grade in America" is "A," writes Tim Donahue, who teaches high school English at Greenwich Country Day...
Joanne Jacobs
- Sep 23, 2023
- 2 min
AI will change testing: Can it grade essays?
Number 2 pencils and fill-in-the-bubble are out, writes Matteo Wong in The Atlantic. Standardized tests are going digital. In a few...
Joanne Jacobs
- Sep 5, 2023
- 2 min
Let AI do it: High schoolers don't need to write essays any more
"Good-bye and good riddance" to teaching students to write essays, writes Daniel Herman in The Atlantic. Herman, who teaches English at a...
Joanne Jacobs
- Sep 5, 2023
- 2 min
No tests, inflated grades and now AI is writing admissions essays (instead of Mom)
Colleges are trying to figure out whether to ban chatbots or see AI as a way to level the playing field for students who don't have Mom...
Joanne Jacobs
- Aug 11, 2023
- 3 min
AI can be a teaching and learning tool -- or a crutch
Bots powered by artificial intelligence are getting smarter and smarter. Will people get dumb and dumber? Rick Hess of the American...
Joanne Jacobs
- Jul 26, 2023
- 1 min
What works in teaching English (discussion) may not work in teaching math
The most effective use of class time depends on the subject, concludes a study conducted in high-poverty English high schools, reports...
Joanne Jacobs
- May 10, 2023
- 1 min
Red, green, yellow, blue: Write a thesis, show it's true
The 3-3-3 paragraph had a thesis sentence with a "subject and attitude," supported by three topic sentences, each of which was supported...
Joanne Jacobs
- Feb 26, 2023
- 2 min
Catching ChatGPT cheaters is tough: Is it bursty?
Open AI's program to catch chatbot cheaters is very unreliable, write Armin Alimardani and Emma A. Jane on The Conversation. The company...
Joanne Jacobs
- Jan 18, 2023
- 1 min
When the best paper in the class was written by a bot
Professors are changing the way they assess students to make it harder for students to use artificial intelligence to generate essays,...
Joanne Jacobs
- Jan 10, 2023
- 2 min
Teaching with AI: Can the bot be a useful tool?
ChatGPT can be a powerful teaching tool, argues Ben Talsma, who helps teachers use technology, on Chalkbeat. A learning specialist for...
Joanne Jacobs
- Jan 10, 2023
- 1 min
NYC schools ban ChatGPT
Is it real or is it artificial intelligence? ChatGPT, the new AI chatbot that"generates stunningly cogent and lifelike writing" has been ...
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