top of page


Get computers out of class, and don't let AI in
Digitizing classrooms hasn't improved learning. AI will make it worse.

Joanne Jacobs
Jul 272 min read
Â


If AI kills the market value of a degree, how many colleges will survive?
AI is destroying the value of a college degree -- everyone's cheating -- and taking entry-level jobs from new graduates.

Joanne Jacobs
Jul 162 min read
Â


If AI is doing all the thinking, what's college for?
If a bot does the work for your college degree, the bot will get the job.

Joanne Jacobs
May 83 min read
Â


Writing by hand builds reading, writing and thinking skills
Handwriting is part of literacy, but many students never learn to write in cursive.

Joanne Jacobs
Mar 301 min read
Â


Is everybody cheating?
Cheating is common for college students. Many think A is the only acceptable grade.

Joanne Jacobs
Nov 14, 20242 min read
Â


Learning is hard, and cheating is easier than ever: What can teachers do?
Teachers can't turn every student into an eager learner, but they can make it harder to cheat.

Joanne Jacobs
Oct 3, 20242 min read
Â


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
Sep 2, 20242 min read
Â


'Credit recovery' relies on easy tests, lots of cheating
"Credit recovery" boosts graduation rates by letting students who've failed a traditional course pass very easy tests on which it is very...

Joanne Jacobs
Aug 6, 20241 min read
Â


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
May 26, 20242 min read
Â


Cheaters prosper: Why graduation rates are meaningless
High schools have been using online credit recovery (OCR) to inflate graduation rates, writes Jeremy Noonan. His former district,...

Joanne Jacobs
Aug 29, 20231 min read
Â


'They're here for the Wharton brand, a 4.0 GPA and to party'
Cheating has become the norm for college students, writes Suzy Weiss on Free Press. "Remote learning" during Covid lowered standards and...

Joanne Jacobs
Feb 28, 20231 min read
Â


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
Feb 26, 20232 min read
Â


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 18, 20231 min read
Â


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, 20232 min read
Â


Back to handwriting?
I don't write much by hand these days, and when I do it's a chore. Even writing a few lines on Christmas cards seems like hard work....

Joanne Jacobs
Jan 2, 20232 min read
Â


ChatGPT writes better than most students: What next?
Is writing over? The ability to write clearly and cogently has been seen as "a gatekeeper, a metric for intelligence, a teachable skill,"...

Joanne Jacobs
Dec 11, 20222 min read
Â


AI doesn't write well, but it's better than some students
Shakespeare it's not. However, a new artificial-intelligence technology called GPT-3, which understands and generates text, could help...

Joanne Jacobs
Aug 23, 20222 min read
Â
bottom of page