17 Quotes from Articles Comparing Generative AI to the Use of Calculators in Classrooms
/Is this moment more like the invention of the calculator, saving me from the tedium of long division, or more like the invention of the player piano, robbing us of what can be communicated only through human emotion? – The Atlantic
There's a natural progression. New tools like the calculator, like Grammarly and editing tools that came out a number of years ago that made all of our writing better, including mine, right? Those are things that are just going to keep on coming. And, we can't stop them from coming, but it's up to us to decide how to integrate them appropriately. – ABC News
As math professors once had to adjust their math teaching in the presence of calculators, writing instructors may need to adjust their teaching in the presence of AI tools. “It would be like micromanaging the use of calculators in in a math class,” Underwood said. “If you’re doing that, it’s a sign that you’re not you’re not taking the opportunity to teach them more advanced math that would actually help them.” – Inside Higher Ed
The question before us is how we can productively use ChatGPT to help our students become knowledge transformers? A writer, a teacher, and an education professor all suggest an analogy from the calculator and math to ChatGPT and writing. In the same way that calculators became an important tool for students in math classes, ChatGPT has potential to become an important tool for writers who want to hone their critical thinking skills along with their communication skills. – Brookings
Much as Google devalued the steel-trap memory, electronic calculators speeded up complex calculations, Wikipedia displaced the printed encyclopedia and online databases diminished the importance of a vast physical library, so, too, platforms like ChatGPT will profoundly alter the most prized skills. According to Chamorro-Premuzic, the skills that will be most in demand will be the ability to: Know what questions to ask. – Inside Higher Ed
It reminds him of what his mother, a high-school math teacher, went through when graphing calculators were introduced. The initial reaction was to ban them; the right answer, he says, was to embrace and use them to enhance learning. “It was a multiyear process with a lot of trying and testing and evaluating and assessing.” Similarly, he anticipates a variety of approaches on his campus. – Chronicle of Higher Ed
Gibson, who has been teaching for 25 years, likened it to more familiar tech tools that enhance, not replace, learning and critical thinking. “I don’t know how to do it well yet, but I want AI chatbots to become like calculators for writing,” she says. Gibson’s view of ChatGPT as a teaching tool, not the perfect cheat, brings up a crucial point: ChatGPT is not intelligent in the way people are, despite its ability to spew humanlike text. It is a statistical machine that can sometimes regurgitate or create falsehoods and often needs guidance and further edits to get things right. – Wired
In the past, near-term prohibitions on slide rules, calculators, word processors, spellcheck, grammar check, internet search engines and digital texts have fared poorly. They focus on in-course tactics rather than on the shifting contexts of what students need to know and how they need to learn it. Reframing questions about AI writers will drive assignment designs and assessments that can minimize academic integrity concerns while promoting learning outcomes. – Inside Higher Ed
Judging from the reaction on TikTok, teachers on the app see ChatGPT as a tool to be treated the same way calculators and cell phones are used in class — as resources to help students succeed but not do the work for them. – Mashable
Professors wondered whether students would lean on the technology as a crutch. “Just as some feared that pocket calculators would cause schoolchildren to forget their multiplication tables, some professors worry that students will learn how to use graphical calculators without learning the concepts of mathematics,” The Chronicle reported in 1992. “[Students] know the information is a quick Google search away,” one professor wrote in a 2015 op-ed for The Chronicle encouraging professors to ban the use of calculators found on laptops and phones during exams. “What’s the point of memorizing it, they want to know.” Despite those fears, the use of calculators in math classrooms and the drum of keyboards in lecture halls are now commonplace. “The calculator changes the kinds of questions that you can ask students,” one professor told The Chronicle in 1992. “A lot of problems we used to assign were very artificial, so the numbers would come out nicely. Today we don’t need to worry about that so much. The problems aren’t harder, but they’re not as neat.” – Chronicle of Higher Ed
Every time a new technology is introduced, we find ourselves struggling with how it forces people to rethink the things they do. The best comparison, he said, is calculators, which, like ChatGPT, many found threatening to education. The worry, he explained, was about the possibility of calculators and statistical software eventually replacing mathematicians. – Grid
The New York City Department of Education has banned ChatGPT in its schools, as has the University of Sciences Po, in Paris, citing concerns it may foster rampant plagiarism and undermine learning. Other professors openly encourage use of chatbots, comparing them to educational tools like a calculator, and argue teachers should adapt curriculums to the software. “Do you want to go to war with your students over AI tools?” said Ian Linkletter, who serves as emerging technology and open-education librarian at the British Columbia Institute of Technology. “Or do you want to give them clear guidance on what is and isn’t okay, and teach them how to use the tools in an ethical manner?” “There are lots of years when the pocket calculator was used for all math ever, and you walked into a classroom and you weren’t allowed to use it,” he said. “It took probably a generational switch for us to realize that’s unrealistic.” Educators must grapple with the concept of “what does it mean to test knowledge.” In this new age, he said, it will be hard to get students to stop using AI to write first drafts of essays, and professors must tailor curriculums in favor of other assignments, such as projects or interactive work. “Pedagogy is going to be different,” he said. “And fighting [AI], I think it’s a losing battle.” – Washington Post
In an academic context, we should approach language models as engines for provisional reasoning — “calculators for words,” as British programmer Simon Willison calls them. Instead of assuming that the model already has an answer to every question in memory, this approach provides, in the prompt, any special assumptions or background knowledge the model will be expected to use. – Chronicle of Higher Ed
Once calculators became prevalent, elementary schools pivoted to translating real-world problems into math formulations rather than training for arithmetic speed. Once online search became widely available, colleges taught students how to properly cite online sources. Some have explored banning AI in education. That would be hard to enforce; it’s also unhealthy, as students will need to function in an AI-infused workplace upon graduation. – Chronicle of Higher Ed
Every generation of students comes of age with new technology. From the calculator and the personal laptop to smartphones to Zoom, each has been initially met with angst about the disruption to traditional teaching. We fear foundational knowledge will be replaced by robotic inputs and outputs, or that personal interactions unmediated by screens will be eliminated. And so the new technology can seem an obstacle to the parts of the educational experience we love the most — the look when a student first grasps a difficult concept, the spark from an original idea during a brainstorming session, the give-and-take of a classroom debate. – Chronicle of Higher Ed
Practically speaking, I’m treating GPT like a calculator: Most of us used calculators in math class and still didn’t get perfect grades. After discovering my first ChatGPT essay, I decided that going forward, students can use generative A.I. on assignments, so long as they disclose how and why. I’m hoping this will lead to less banging my head against the kitchen table–and, at its best, be its own kind of lesson. – Slate
As academe adjusts to a world with ChatGPT, faculty will need to find fresh ways to assess students’ writing.The same was true when calculators first began to appear in math classrooms, and professors adapted the exams. “Academic integrity is about being honest about the way you did your work.” Spell checkers, David Rettinger, president emeritus at the International Center for Academic Integrity, pointed out, are a prime example of artificial intelligence that may have been controversial at first, but are now used routinely without a second thought to produce papers. – Chronicle of Higher Ed
Just as calculators and the internet once upended teaching and learning, generative AI represents “a new, major disruption,” says Mike Prizament, senior product marketing manager at Adobe. “It’s also an opportunity to tackle the main challenges in higher education.” – EdTech