Teachers are giving up on at-home writing

AI is a better writer than most students and adults, high school and college teachers tell the New York Times. To ensure that students are doing their own work, many educators now "require students to write inside the classroom, where they can be observed, writes Dana Goldstein.

Sixty-two percent of middle school, high school and college students say they regularly use AI for homework, RAND reports. A third use AI to draft or revise writing. "Two-thirds of students said the technology harmed critical-thinking skills," writes Goldstein. But they use it anyhow.

“The standard curriculum was a thesis-driven research essay that students completed on their own time outside of class,” said Marc Watkins, who directs the A.I. Institute for Teachers at the University of Mississippi. “That is, unfortunately, gone.”

Jessica Binney, an AP English teacher in New York, used to assign three-to-five page papers, writes Goldstein. "Now, her students write in-class essays, either by hand or on a laptop with a locked-down browser."

At Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn, Matthew Gartner "has his freshman composition students write on paper in the classroom for 30 minutes, then share their drafts immediately in small groups," she reports.

AI detection software is unreliable, say teachers.

Many teachers now assume students won't read assigned books at home. If it's not read aloud in class, it won't be read at all. They have use class time for students to write, because many won't write more than an AI prompt at home. That doesn't seem to leave much time for teaching.