By Kyle Jackson
Artificial Intelligence has been at the center of education concerns for years. With so much being automated, we here at the Collegiate wanted to understand the relationship students and faculty at Grand Rapids Community College have with AI, and how it impacts teaching and learning.
There is no question that AI has become one of the most controversial topics in America. Everything from the construction and impact of AI data centers in small towns, AI models like Grok and ChatGPT being used to generate questionable content, environmental concerns, and more contributes to the controversy.
Some students at GRCC refused interviews or asked to remain anonymous due to the controversy.
One student, Sheridan Llewellyn, 21, and the vice president of the Foreign Affairs Club at GRCC, expressed her personal concerns and preferences when it comes to AI in school.
“I try to avoid using AI. I have concerns with the privacy impact and also the cognitive impact from using too much AI,” Llewellyn said. “I would prefer to do the research on my own. I feel it develops a better understanding of the subject for me.”
Llewellyn also mentioned that, as far as she could tell, her current professors don’t utilize AI for their classes.
Jeweliet Donley, 22, shared the same sentiment.
“I tip over, and I’m like, ‘oh my god I wish I could just look this up,’ or, ‘I wish I could just pass this test. ‘ I would almost just rather bite the bullet, get the bad grade, and just learn past it,” said Donley.
“I have one class that is… she (her professor) wants us to learn things, and she doesn’t want us to be dependent on something answering something for us, and then it comes to the end of the semester, and we don’t have any knowledge,” Donley explained. “But when it comes to idea forming, that it can be helpful in some areas.”
Humanities professor David Billings also spoke to the Collegiate on the topic via email, explaining his experience with how he sees students interact with AI.
“Now, if you ask if students are being “tempted,” that suggests you have illegitimate uses of AI in mind,” Billings responded when asked if he found students being tempted by AI for assignments. “In other words, do students use AI in ways that they understand to be wrong or that undermine the educational intent of the assignment? It is worth keeping in mind that many uses of AI may well be completely appropriate and even helpful for learning.”
“That said, new AI tools make cheating much easier.” Billings continued. “I think faculty have a duty to be clear about their expectations and also to design assessments with this in mind. Figuring out how to do this well is an ongoing challenge. It is important for me to both begin with an attitude of trust but also to think about how this technology can introduce new temptations. That’s not an easy balance to maintain.”
Billings is no stranger to using AI to better understand the technology and teach his classes about its impacts.
“Since I teach a course on Technology and Humanity, I mostly have used it to better understand the technology and where it is going,” said Billings. “I’ve found that it can be a useful way to jog my memory of something that isn’t coming to mind. I’ve used it to help me set up spreadsheets I use for teaching.”
Billings also expressed that AI is not perfect, as he has experienced AI creating multiple-choice problems without a correct answer.
Additionally, CANVAS has also added AI tools into their system for professors to use. These systems ideally serve as a way to make the process of creating courses easier.
GRCC, to the surprise of some students, doesn’t have a current campus-wide policy for student use of AI.
For some, not having one single standardised policy would be for the best for the school, allowing each individual class to have their own methods surrounding AI use.
“I don’t think (there should be a campus-wide AI policy),” said a language arts lab writing tutor at GRCC who asked to remain anonymous. “I think it’s more nuanced than that. I think in different subjects, professors have different stances on it. And I don’t have the perspective of someone in, just say, physics or like a math class. Because the math people I’ve talked to generally just view it as a tool. But for my subject area (writing), I don’t think it should be used at all, because it can also be inaccurate when it comes to research,” she said.
“As a writing tutor, I don’t think (AI) had a place in writing essays.I think overuse of AI can lead to not knowing how to structure an essay or find your own voice, or even know how an essay should look at the college level,” the tutor explained.
One of those students, Taylor DeBoer, 18, expressed that she does use AI for school, but not as a form of cheating. Rather, she utilizes AI as a way of coming up with ideas.
Billings somewhat shared his thoughts on it.
“Any standard policy would need to be very flexible,” Billings said. “Right now, I’d support more dialogue and education about how this technology works, rather than trying to come up with a policy that everyone is expected to follow. It makes sense to allow faculty to experiment with different things and ultimately see what works. Coming up with a policy too soon could undermine this experimentation.”
“That said, it makes sense to look at other policies to see how AI changes things,” Billings continued. “An obvious example here would be college policies regarding academic integrity and cheating.”
For those who stated that they use AI, they claimed that they don’t use it as a means of cheating or as a replacement for their own thinking, but rather use it for other aspects of schooling, like notes, finding ideas, or improving emails.
Currently, GRCC offers three programs surrounding AI and an AI certificate available for students to promote AI literacy, along with an AI incubator within Calkins Science Center.
While GRCC might not have a standardized policy for student use, GRCC does have an AI policy for staff and faculty use. This policy states that using AI is accepted, so long as its use doesn’t violate standard college policies, infringe on intellectual property, promote harmful or explicit content, abide by the Family Educational Rights & Privacy Act (FERPA), or break other laws.
There is a code of conduct for student use of AI rather than a policy, stating that professors have the say on what is and isn’t allowed for students to use, and some AI use could be seen as academic dishonesty.
Collegiate Reporters Rowan Elzinga, Izabella Blanchard, Sophia Helbling, Julian Wilson, Lydia Sing, Audrey Conrad, Litany Gaines, Janelle Xayamongkhoun, and Editor Ella Ware contributed to this report.
