Dive Brief:
- While educators have raised concerns about students using artificial intelligence chatbots for writing assignments, they are now also watching if mathbots are causing learners to sidestep valuable lessons in another key area of the curriculum.
- One reason students may turn to AI options is because they’re given homework that feels potentially confusing, said Robert Barnett, co-founder and chief product officer of the Modern Classrooms Project, a nonprofit that promotes blended learning, self-pacing and mastery-based learning. A better solution, he said, is to have students show their thinking and work while in-person.
- “If you know that you're going to have to show me you understand lesson one to do lesson two — and I don't mean take an online quiz, I mean do a problem on paper and sit down and show it to me — you’re not going to take shortcuts, because it's not going to help you,” said Barnett, a former high school math teacher in District of Columbia Public Schools and author of “Meet Every Learner’s Needs."
Dive Insight:
By requiring students to show their work before they’re able to move to the next level of math, they will try to learn the material rather than lean on AI to generate answers, Barnett said.
Barnett also encourages educators to focus on keeping math challenging, which can require different lessons or approaches depending on where students are on their learning pathway.
Though he’s aware that educators may feel that creating different levels of work for students could take up more of their time, he suggests they can instead focus on a single curricular approach that allows students to do the same work at their own place. In this way, the differentiator is time.
“The advanced students are moving faster, and the students who need more time have more time,” Barnett said. “I only need to create one quiz, but I don't give it to every student at the end of the day. I let each student take it when they're ready for it. That's how the classes differentiate.”
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