The start of the new school year is just around the corner, and the role of artificial intelligence (AI) in education is back in the spotlight.

In a recent survey, the BC Teachers’ Federation (BCTF) found that over 80 per cent of its members are concerned that students may become overly dependent on AI platforms like ChatGPT, with many saying they feel that AI may negatively affect their critical thinking skills.

“Students can put their learning off to the side and have something else do it for them, and that learning goes away,” said Simon Worley, business economics teacher at Handsworth Secondary School.

“If someone just does your work for you, that learning disappears.”

Gurpreet Bains is the head of the Languages department at L.A. Matheson Secondary. She says it is the responsibility of educators to prepare kids for their future and to teach them how to use AI.

“In my personal experience as a teacher, as an educator, I am seeing with a lot of students that there is a lot of academic dishonesty happening, and it is on the shoulders of the teachers to investigate and figure out which assignment is an AI assignment,” Bains said.

“If we totally take AI away from our kids, we are doing a disservice. We need to teach our kids how to use AI, but responsibly.”

Worley says he has already implemented the use of AI in most of his assignments.

“This is the most powerful tool of our time,” he said.

“As a teacher, I feel responsible to get them prepared to start using these tools correctly, so that when they go off to university, they don’t have a rude awakening.”

Worley says the use of AI is inevitable, and he’s taught his students how to use it for brainstorming or as a tutor when preparing for exams.

“We don’t want to replace the thinking,” he said.

“We want the student to think and for it to enhance the thinking or to give you extra ideas on top of that.”

He says teachers need to be strategic in their lesson plans to prevent the misuse of AI.

“How do we teach them how to use the tools properly and incorporate them into the assignments and tasks we are creating for them?”

But to properly integrate it into the classroom, the BCTF wants educators to be more involved in policy-making at the provincial and district levels when it comes to digital literacy.

“We want teachers at the table,” said federation president Carole Gordon.

“Teachers want to be at the table. They are the ones closest to the students in the classroom, so any development of policy that will impact teaching and learning needs to have teachers there.”