When was the last time you used A.I.? If you are reading this on a Google web page, chances are, it’s more recent than you think. Google uses Artificial Intelligence [AI] to understand exactly what you are searching for based on your language and find personalized results based on this. There is no way to turn this feature off. The same is true for if you use Bing, Brave Search and dozens of other search engines. A.I. is unavoidable, and school is no exception.
Teachers have been attempting a new method of preventing students from using A.I. to avoid doing assignments: telling them to use it in a constructive way, such as making practice tests and generating ideas for assignments. However, this strategy has proved fruitless. We are not going to persuade students to forgo using A.I. in an inappropriate way by simply suggesting they use it appropriately. That is like telling an insomniac to spend their time awake knitting; it is ineffectual and counterproductive. The only way to thwart students off using A.I. in a harmful way is to make it impossible: enter the flipped classroom method.
A flipped classroom is a teaching model that inverts the traditional teaching model by having students first learn the content at home, usually in the form of watching lectures or reading from textbooks, and then devoting class time to interactive learning activities, such as problem solving and group discussion.
The traditional method just does not work anymore. If a teacher tells students to go home and solve 10 math problems, or make a presentation or do a book report, many students will use A.I., and there is no way for the teacher to stop them. However, if a teacher tells students to go home and watch a lecture and take handwritten notes on it, sure, they could still tell A.I. to write the notes for them. They could skip the lecture entirely, even. But at the end of the day, the A.I. has only spit out what to write, and yet the student is the one who actually has to write it down. And just that act of writing down the notes on a physical piece of paper will do wonders.
And come class time, they will be forced into a situation where they have to apply what they did at home without having A.I. telling them what to do. For math and science, it may be practice problems. For English, perhaps a class discussion, or they may even be tasked with writing an essay. No matter the subject, no matter the assignment, they will not be able to use A.I. if it’s done in a classroom, monitored by a teacher.
All of this to say, the ends no longer justify the means when it comes to the traditional teaching method. Students are no longer learning, because traditional teaching methods are no longer teaching. I believe we need to implement the flipped classroom immediately. Of course, it will be hard at first. Students have become over reliant on AI. Teachers have become overly attached to the traditional teaching method that has been in use for centuries. But we will have to adapt eventually. Just like we adapted when the pandemic hit and everyone was forced into virtual learning and endless monotonous zoom calls, and just like they adapted 600 years ago with the invention of the printing press. This is no different.
