Artificial Intelligence (AI) is becoming part of everyday life, especially for high school students. From essays to Algebra problems, AI offers students very powerful resources and information. However with any new technology, it’s sparked a debate about using AI as an unfair shortcut, or if it’s simply the next step in education’s future.
AI has the potential to revolutionize how students learn and how teachers teach. One of the biggest benefits of AI is personalization and customization through assignments. For example, an AI tutoring app could give extra math problems to a student struggling with trigonometry while offering a more powerful enrichment activity to another student who excels. This individualization can help all students learn more effectively.
Additionally AI encourages creativity and critical thinking. Programs that generate ideas, outlines or images can spark new ways of something like a project or an essay. Instead of replacing creativity, AI can serve as a creative partner, help students brainstorm, edit or refine their work. In a way, AI has become a very effective tool for exploration.
Despite these benefits, concerns about cheating are somewhat valid.
When students complete assignments and they use AI in those assignments without understanding the material, it shadows the learning process, and teachers could question the knowledge that is put into those assignments. Copying an AI generated essay may get a passing grade but provides no real educational benefit or value. This can relate to plagiarism—it presents someone else’s work and not your own.
However, using AI doesn’t automatically mean a student is cheating. It ultimately depends how you use it. When students use AI, they may think of it as a learning aid, much like a calculator or a grammar check. But, when AI is used for them, it crosses the question of dishonesty. As students we need to find a balance between using AI as a guide and preserving authentic learning. If you break it down, AI can be used as a powerful partner in education, if used with honesty and responsibility.
As AI continues to grow in schools, teachers will have to adapt in how they teach, and how they put their material, and assignments around the students and the technology they can use. Instead of banning AI all together, teachers in the future should be teaching them how to use it the right way. Learning to fact-check, personalize, and analyze. The real challenge in the future won’t just be cheating, but if the teachers can teach students to use it the right way. AI truly has the potential to be something big in the future, not just for high school students, but for anyone.
As for any student now, AI represents both a temptation, and a tool. It can make assignments a lot easier, it also can make learning more meaningful if used thoughtfully. The real question we should be asking ourselves isn’ t if AI is cheating. It’s whether, if we’re using it to cheat ourselves out of understanding. If we use it the right way, AI can help any student out there not only get higher scores on tests, or get better grades, but become better thinkers.