Artificial intelligence (AI), especially generative AI, is a rapidly evolving technology that promises to transform many aspects of education as we know it.
As such, we want to give parents and students some guidance on how to navigate AI both within and outside of the MEK classroom.
What AI Should Be Used For
At MEK Review, we recognize that generative AI will continue to be a part of students’ educational reality, and thus, do not advocate for students shunning this technological tool entirely but using it to their best advantage when appropriate.
Here are some things that AI can do for students:
- Help you create a study schedule or study plan
- Summarize existing materials or notes
- Reinforce lesson plans
- Generate extra practice or exercises for students
However, it’s highly important that students consider the following when using AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, Grammarly or others for their schoolwork:
- What are your schools or teachers’ policies regarding AI use?
- Generative AI still regularly gives out false or incorrect data; can you verify independently the information it has given you?
- Are you asking AI for help or to do the work for you?
What AI Should Not Be Used For
AI cannot learn for a student. It can be a tool but should not be a way of circumventing his or her own learning or development of skills.
- Any time you are asking generative AI to complete an entire assignment for you (e.g. write this essay, answer these math questions), then you have crossed the line from using an educational tool to being academically dishonest. In other words, you are cheating.
- As mentioned above, AI generated information is still routinely incorrect, so it should not be used as a source for research or as the sole generator of your study material. Rather, you can gather your study material from class or other resources, give it to an AI platform and ask it to synthesize that information or use it to generate study guides or outlines, etc.
- Also, as mentioned above, you want to follow your school or teachers’ policies. For example, some schools might encourage you to use AI platforms like Grammarly to help edit or check your writing. Other schools or teachers will consider this cheating.
MEK Review’s Policy on AI Use
Although MEK does see generative AI as a potential tool for students in their educational journey, our own AI policy is quite strict.
- Students are not allowed to use AI for any portion of their essay writing assignments. They cannot use it to help them brainstorm, write, or revise their essay. They must do all of this completely independently.
- Students should not use AI to generate practice problems for subjects they are studying at MEK. The problems are generally inferior in quality. Instead, they should reach out to their MEK instructor for guidance on extra practice or drills.
- Students are not allowed to use AI for help with their homework assignments or assessments. We want students to struggle through the assignments. The struggle is where the growth happens! Also, they can reach out to their MEK instructor if they feel lost or overwhelmed by an assignment.
Why such a strict policy?
- Many students come here to get better at the very skills that they want to then turn around and ask AI to do for them. We are teaching students not just math, science, and English but educational skills they will need for the entirety of their academic lives and careers:
- Writing
- Organizing
- Brainstorming
- Critical Thinking
- Problem-Solving
- Number Sense
- Reading Comprehension
- Analysis
If a student asks AI to do any one of these skills for them, they are losing a vital opportunity to learn that skill themselves. The very reason they are here!
- Also, many of our students are here to prep for official tests such as NJSLA, SSAT, ISEE, HSPT, BCA/BT, APs, SAT, and/or ACT. All these tests have one thing in common: it is impossible to use AI on them! So we don’t want students using AI during their test prep as it will harm their progress and stop them from excelling on the official test.
In the future, won’t AI use in education be the norm?
Maybe. Maybe not. We can’t be sure how AI will be used in the future. But we do believe the skills we are teaching students to do without the help of AI are timeless and will always be needed.
Also, as AI use does become more common and sophisticated, so do AI detectors and blockers. Students don’t want to come to rely on a tool that they could be increasingly penalized for using in their academic journey.
