SweetieBsMom
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 4,785 
|
Post by SweetieBsMom on Oct 16, 2024 10:31:02 GMT
Would love to hear some opinions on this local story, especially from teachers. www.boston25news.com/news/local/parents-hingham-student-sue-school-district-after-son-disciplined-using-ai-school-project/FLHKVXSQPRDLZD7TTMWCRNI54I/Basically the Senior in HS used AI to write a history paper, he was caught and punished and now his parents are suing the school district that using AI is not plagiarism/cheating. His parents want his grade restored to a B, to have him inducted into NHS. The student is applying to top tier schools and this is hurting his chances of gaining admission as well as future earning potential. What are your thoughts? Article from Boston Globe 10/22/24:Lawyers for a Hingham High School senior who’s alleging he was wrongly punished for using artificial intelligence while researching a history project will ask a federal judge on Tuesday to order school officials to induct him into the National Honor Society and give him a higher grade in the course, records show.
A hearing on the student’s motion for a preliminary injunction is scheduled for 10 a.m. in US District Court in Boston, where his parents’ lawsuit against local school officials is pending.
According to the civil complaint, filed against the Hingham School Committee and several current and former school officials, the student teamed up last fall with a classmate on a social studies project, part of a long-running contest known as “National History Day.”
When the project was assigned, the student’s teacher, Susan Petrie, did not prohibit the use of AI for the “preparation and/or research” portion of the project, the lawsuit alleged. At the time, the student handbook contained no references to AI, nor was the use of the technology described as cheating in the manual, it said.
The student and his classmate used AI to prepare “the initial outline and research” for their project on NBA Hall of Famer Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s civil rights activism, the lawsuit said.
“The use of AI was permissible during this segment of the project as it was not prohibited,” the suit said.
A spokesperson for the school system has declined to comment on the suit, citing the pending litigation and the student’s privacy.
The lawsuit said that the student and his classmate did not get beyond the initial segment of the project because Petrie accused them of using AI, “thus cheating” on the assignment.
The student, referred to in court documents as R.N.H., ultimately received a D letter grade on the project, which hurt his grade point average and his college prospects, according to the complaint. Both students were also forced to attend a Saturday detention session.
The student “is competing with the highest level of applicants to admissions to elite colleges and universities, including Stanford University, on an early action or early decision basis when he otherwise had an maintained an exemplary grade point [average] exceeding 4.0,” according to the lawsuit, which described the teenager as a varsity athlete who has obtained a perfect ACT score.
In an Oct. 8 motion to dismiss the suit, lawyers for the school system said the student received a “relatively lenient and measured discipline for a serious infraction, using Artificial Intelligence (‘AI’) on a project, amounting to something well less than a suspension. The discipline was consistent with the applicable Student Handbook.”
The student’s parents, Jennifer and Dale Harris, later met with Social Studies department director Andrew Hoey and another official to voice their concerns about their son’s punishment, which included being barred from joining the National Honor Society, according to the lawsuit.
“Hoey was oblivious and/or not forthcoming about the lasting and profound impact these actions were to have on [R.N.H.] and his classmate, including their future exclusion from National Honor Society to come later and the irreparable damage the conduct of these arbitrary and capricious acts would have” on his college applications, the lawsuit said.
Petrie and Hoey haven’t responded to requests for comment.
The student, as part of the motion being argued Tuesday, want a judge to order school officials to “immediately repair, restore and rectify Plaintiff Student’s letter grade in Social Studies to a grade of ‘B,’” the grade he held before the D on the Abdul-Jabbar project, court papers said.
The motion said the student’s also seeking a judicial order compelling school officials “to cease and desist from characterizing the use of artificial intelligence by the Plaintiff Student as ‘cheating,’” as well as an order that he be “retroactively appointed” to the National Honor Society “immediately and without delay.”
The motion also asserted that school officials “previously inducted seven students, including one who had previously used artificial intelligence, into the National Honor Society, despite records of academic integrity infractions.”
Time is of the essence, the motion said.
“He is applying to elite colleges and universities given his high level of academic and personal achievement,” the filing said. “Early decision and early action applications in a highly competitive admissions process are imminent and start in earnest on October 1, 2024. Absent the grant of an injunction by this Court, the Student will suffer irreparable harm that is imminent.”
|
|
dawnnikol
Prolific Pea
'A life without books is a life not lived.' Jay Kristoff
Posts: 8,556
Sept 21, 2015 18:39:25 GMT
|
Post by dawnnikol on Oct 16, 2024 11:15:37 GMT
I'm not a teacher, but AI is straight out theft, IMO.
The toothpaste can't be put back in the tube with AI, but I sure wish it could.
|
|
|
|
Post by monklady123 on Oct 16, 2024 11:46:15 GMT
I guess technically using AI isn't plagiarism since it's not taking another person's work as their own. But having AI write a paper for you and passing it off as your own sure is dishonest. If a teacher expects a kid to write something and the kid turns in a written paper then everyone's assumption is that the kid wrote it. If they didn't then that's cheating. Those parents are just being typical entitled-kid parents. The kid didn't earn a B, or any grade, if he turned in something written by AI.
Being in the National Honor Society means you've earned those honors yourself. Not by any dishonest way.
|
|
|
|
Post by gillyp on Oct 16, 2024 11:52:28 GMT
I'm not a teacher but I see no difference in that to asking a classmate/friend/relative etc to do the work. Dishonest and not the pupil's work.
I play around with AI images and disagree that it's plagiarism but it can't be passed off as someone's own work.
|
|
|
|
Post by melanell on Oct 16, 2024 12:01:27 GMT
AI is not your own work. To me that's very black and white, and I am very much not a black and white sort of person the vast majority of the time.
Asking someone or something else to write your paper for you is the same to me. Either way, you didn't write the paper. Why should you be rewarded if you didn't do the work?
|
|
|
|
Post by melanell on Oct 16, 2024 12:05:24 GMT
As to whether or not it's plagiarism, that depends. AI will sometimes provide sources for the information it offers. So if excerpts or lines were taken from other works without being properly quoted and proper credit being given, then yes, AI could contain plagiarism. But I would not call the entire paper an act of plagiarism unless that happened over and over throughout the paper.
But I would absolutely call it cheating. If a test is given, and 25 kids take the test unaided, and 5 use AI to answer the questions, do those 5 deserve the same grade? I certainly don't think so.
|
|
|
|
Post by freecharlie on Oct 16, 2024 12:19:31 GMT
In my syllabus, I add that use if Ai is cheating and will be scored a zero. Using Ai and turning it in ad your own without citing it, is plagiarism and we are currently struggling with the debate of how to use it as a tool vs outright cheating.
It sounds like the school offered an alternative and the student didnt want to take it.
I'm actually going to have this conversation with a student tomorrow.
These parents suck.
|
|
pilcas
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 3,237
|
Post by pilcas on Oct 16, 2024 12:51:07 GMT
As a retired teacher I don’t think AI can possibly reflect the students knowledge and ability to present a cohesive piece of work.
|
|
teddyw
Drama Llama
Posts: 7,159
|
Post by teddyw on Oct 16, 2024 12:53:35 GMT
In my syllabus, I add that use if Ai is cheating and will be scored a zero. Using Ai and turning it in ad your own without citing it, is plagiarism and we are currently struggling with the debate of how to use it as a tool vs outright cheating. It sounds like the school offered an alternative and the student didnt want to take it. I'm actually going to have this conversation with a student tomorrow. These parents suck. My daughter teaches HS English. The parents are relentless when she gives no credit for AI written papers. So far her principal deals with it after the parents get nasty. I’m not sure if she puts that wording in her syllabus. |
|
|
|
Post by Merge on Oct 16, 2024 13:02:01 GMT
Insane. Those parents are doing the kid no favors. The elite schools he hopes to attend won't accept his AI-written papers, either.
|
|
huskergal
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 3,439
|
Post by huskergal on Oct 16, 2024 13:05:21 GMT
I am teaching middle school creative writing for the first time. I caught 3-4 people using AI to write. It is very apparent when it is AI. I gave them the opportunity to redo the assignment. All of them chose this route. Some of the students use grammarly to assist their writing. The problem with grammarly is the writing is still AI. If they only use it for a sentence or 2 it isn't bad, but you can still tell the difference from the student's own writing.
AI is cheating. It does not demonstrate student learning.
|
|
|
|
Post by gar on Oct 16, 2024 13:07:49 GMT
Schools etc are definitely going to have to update their rules and specifically include instructions that use of full AI (as well as plagiarism) is not accepted.
|
|
lindas
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 4,305
|
Post by lindas on Oct 16, 2024 13:18:27 GMT
I’m confused as to why they’re bringing this lawsuit now. If this occurred in December and he was a senior then wouldn’t he have already graduated this pass June???
He was given an opportunity to re-do the assignment and instead he chose to research the use of AI to win his argument. Just another entitled kid being raised by entitled parents.
|
|
peppermintpatty
Pearl Clutcher
Refupea #1345
Posts: 3,990
|
Post by peppermintpatty on Oct 16, 2024 13:23:14 GMT
Not a teacher but if he was so lazy that he couldn't do the work, I wonder what else he did to receive those "top tier" grades while excelling at 3 varsity sports.
|
|
|
|
Post by melanell on Oct 16, 2024 14:15:04 GMT
I don't have an issue with spell-check or even grammar check. I do have an issue with Grammarly when used to reword entire segments/paragraphs, because then Grammarly is writing part or most of your paper for you. And it's not Grammarly's assignment. The way I see it, when my kids write papers, they hand it to me to look over before handing it in. I am the human spell check/grammar check. I'm fine with that in human form, therefore I am fine with that in AI form. (I will say, however, that my kids know that a standard grammar check leaves behind errors that I find. So one point for Mom, thank you very much.  ) And I see no problem with me saying "read this section out loud and tell me if it makes sense to you". But then THEY have to reword it. Not me. Or if I say "This section sounds very repetitive, don't you think? THEY have to fix it. |
|
|
|
Post by crazy4scraps on Oct 16, 2024 14:19:23 GMT
The problem with using AI especially for written assignments is that there typically is no way to cite the source material since it’s coming from everywhere and all glommed together by a computer. In my mind, it’s absolutely cheating and taking a shortcut to actually doing the work yourself, so therefore the assignment it was used on deserves no grade. I think it’s one thing to use Grammarly to finesse a sentence or two, but something else entirely to use AI to write the whole damn paper.
It’s becoming a huge issue too in the art world too. Nothing being generated that way is the original creative work coming from the mind of an individual. I’ll admit to having messed around with it some to create some goofy images, but there is no way I could ever think for a minute that my AI generations are remotely original or even my own copyrightable work.
What really ticks me off lately are all the bot Facebook accounts that are posting all of this computer generated content (recipes, photos, etc.) and then all of the bot accounts that are “commenting” on the posts to make them look legit so real life people are duped into following the bot accounts. And then this crap clutters up my feed, crowding out the actual real life people creating actual real life content that I actually want to follow. When I look at some baking account and see that there have been dozens of posts, all with glow up photos, usually posted within minutes of each other 24 hours a day, yeah none of that is real.
|
|
|
|
Post by melanell on Oct 16, 2024 14:21:41 GMT
This conversation makes me remember back in the day, when my mother used to have a side gig typing papers & resumes for people who either couldn't type well or just didn't want to. She always said that the hardest part of that job was not automatically using proper punctuation & capitalization. Even if she wasn't actually reading the paper as she went along, she'd notice if she reached the end of a paragraph or quote and there was no punctuation there, and her rule of thumb was that she typed what she was given. She did not correct. And she let people know that in advance. But she said it was a hard rule to follow, sometimes, because she felt so wrong leaving a sentence hanging with no period at the end, for instance (Yep, I agree--it feels weird.  ) |
|
|
|
Post by Bridget in MD on Oct 16, 2024 14:23:26 GMT
I am teaching middle school creative writing for the first time. I caught 3-4 people using AI to write. It is very apparent when it is AI. I gave them the opportunity to redo the assignment. All of them chose this route. Some of the students use grammarly to assist their writing. The problem with grammarly is the writing is still AI. If they only use it for a sentence or 2 it isn't bad, but you can still tell the difference from the student's own writing. AI is cheating. It does not demonstrate student learning. I followed a case in North GA univ. - a student used Grammerly for spell check and when the professor ran it thru the tool to check for AI (TurnItIn), it was flagged for AI. I have an issue with that. I use MS word all the time and use the spell and grammer checker. It's still my own work tho. I believe Grammerly got involved with the case, but I can;t remember what was decided. |
|
|
|
Post by Merge on Oct 16, 2024 15:07:27 GMT
In my syllabus, I add that use if Ai is cheating and will be scored a zero. Using Ai and turning it in ad your own without citing it, is plagiarism and we are currently struggling with the debate of how to use it as a tool vs outright cheating. It sounds like the school offered an alternative and the student didnt want to take it. I'm actually going to have this conversation with a student tomorrow. These parents suck. My daughter teaches HS English. The parents are relentless when she gives no credit for AI written papers. So far her principal deals with it after the parents get nasty. I’m not sure if she puts that wording in her syllabus. Nothing new in parents making excuses for a kid who cheats. My first year of teaching was a in a small town in 1996. I taught a section of music history (high school) and assigned a short research paper at the end. Small town, small library, internet in its infancy. So when a kid turned in a paper that was clearly plagiarized, it was super simple for me to find the book he'd copied it from in the library. I failed him on the paper and stapled a copy of the plagiarized pages to his work. The next day, the principal called me in and said the parents had called him. He wanted me to change the grade and give him credit for "trying." The parents were freaking out that their kid wouldn't graduate on time if he failed my course, and of course the parents had some power in the politics of this small town. I was already on my way out the door in part due to the nasty attitudes of the parents in that town, so I told the principal to do whatever he wanted with the grade. AI is a new spin on the ways that kids try to get out of doing work, but sadly, entitled parents are nothing new. |
|
huskergal
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 3,439
|
Post by huskergal on Oct 16, 2024 15:08:56 GMT
I am teaching middle school creative writing for the first time. I caught 3-4 people using AI to write. It is very apparent when it is AI. I gave them the opportunity to redo the assignment. All of them chose this route. Some of the students use grammarly to assist their writing. The problem with grammarly is the writing is still AI. If they only use it for a sentence or 2 it isn't bad, but you can still tell the difference from the student's own writing. AI is cheating. It does not demonstrate student learning. I followed a case in North GA univ. - a student used Grammerly for spell check and when the professor ran it thru the tool to check for AI (TurnItIn), it was flagged for AI. I have an issue with that. I use MS word all the time and use the spell and grammer checker. It's still my own work tho. I believe Grammerly got involved with the case, but I can;t remember what was decided. If a person knows how to use Grammarly, it is a useful tool. But it will rewrite sections of a paper and what Grammarly writes does not sound at all the same as what a student would write. You have to be savvy to use it properly. I also tell my students that the AI tools do not catch all of your mistakes. I walk through how to proofread work using tools and their own knowledge. |
|
|
|
Post by monklady123 on Oct 16, 2024 15:20:11 GMT
This conversation makes me remember back in the day, when my mother used to have a side gig typing papers & resumes for people who either couldn't type well or just didn't want to. She always said that the hardest part of that job was not automatically using proper punctuation & capitalization. Even if she wasn't actually reading the paper as she went along, she'd notice if she reached the end of a paragraph or quote and there was no punctuation there, and her rule of thumb was that she typed what she was given. She did not correct. And she let people know that in advance. But she said it was a hard rule to follow, sometimes, because she felt so wrong leaving a sentence hanging with no period at the end, for instance (Yep, I agree--it feels weird.  ) I used to make a lot of money on the side when I worked as a secretary in an academic department at the University of Pittsburgh, one that had a lot of international students. Most of the international students, especially the guys, had no idea how to type (this was pre-word processors too). So all of us secretaries used to stay after work during crunch paper time and type type and type. (the dean knew and approved because it kept everyone happy, and often these foreign students were some type of government official in the USA to get a management degree). I had the same issue with the poor grammar/spelling/English with some students. I remember once returning one to a student and telling him I couldn't type it because I didn't even know what he was trying to say. ugh. I had another one, from Nigeria, who paid me extra to fix his writing. He paid me a LOT of money.  Besides the money, I didn't mind editing his stuff because his writing wasn't terrible. lol |
|
dawnnikol
Prolific Pea
'A life without books is a life not lived.' Jay Kristoff
Posts: 8,556
Sept 21, 2015 18:39:25 GMT
|
Post by dawnnikol on Oct 16, 2024 15:36:27 GMT
This conversation makes me remember back in the day, when my mother used to have a side gig typing papers & resumes for people who either couldn't type well or just didn't want to. She always said that the hardest part of that job was not automatically using proper punctuation & capitalization. Even if she wasn't actually reading the paper as she went along, she'd notice if she reached the end of a paragraph or quote and there was no punctuation there, and her rule of thumb was that she typed what she was given. She did not correct. And she let people know that in advance. But she said it was a hard rule to follow, sometimes, because she felt so wrong leaving a sentence hanging with no period at the end, for instance (Yep, I agree--it feels weird. ) This is my rule when I'm typing in quotes from the 5th graders in our yearbook. It is so painful, but I do it and keep those written papers until yearbooks have been distributed for a while just in case a parent wants to come back at me. |
|
|
|
Post by melanell on Oct 16, 2024 17:00:35 GMT
This conversation makes me remember back in the day, when my mother used to have a side gig typing papers & resumes for people who either couldn't type well or just didn't want to. She always said that the hardest part of that job was not automatically using proper punctuation & capitalization. Even if she wasn't actually reading the paper as she went along, she'd notice if she reached the end of a paragraph or quote and there was no punctuation there, and her rule of thumb was that she typed what she was given. She did not correct. And she let people know that in advance. But she said it was a hard rule to follow, sometimes, because she felt so wrong leaving a sentence hanging with no period at the end, for instance (Yep, I agree--it feels weird. ) This is my rule when I'm typing in quotes from the 5th graders in our yearbook. It is so painful, but I do it and keep those written papers until yearbooks have been distributed for a while just in case a parent wants to come back at me. Smart plan! |
|
|
|
Post by Texas Scrap on Oct 16, 2024 20:06:07 GMT
In my syllabus, I add that use if Ai is cheating and will be scored a zero. Using Ai and turning it in ad your own without citing it, is plagiarism and we are currently struggling with the debate of how to use it as a tool vs outright cheating. It sounds like the school offered an alternative and the student didnt want to take it. I'm actually going to have this conversation with a student tomorrow. These parents suck. I 100% agree with this line of thought - it is like anything else in class. The teacher or professor set guard rails of what you can and cannot do and that is essentially a contract for what is allowed. When my son was in HS his teachers said no AI. In college, each professor has a POV on AI. Part of being a student is working within the guidelines, rubric, etc. All the kid had to do was ask if he could use it, he did not. The other reality is if this kid has As and Bs, he is not getting into Stanford or any Ivies unless it is for sports. A B vs C is not going to make a lick of difference to Stanford when they have an exponential number of kids with perfect SAT and ACTs AND straight As. The competition is ridiculous at these schools regardless of his perfect ACT and 3 sports. So the parents really don't have a leg to stand on on that front. |
|
AnotherPea
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 2,970
|
Post by AnotherPea on Oct 17, 2024 1:16:09 GMT
I guess technically using AI isn't plagiarism since it's not taking another person's work as their own. But having AI write a paper for you and passing it off as your own sure is dishonest. If a teacher expects a kid to write something and the kid turns in a written paper then everyone's assumption is that the kid wrote it. If they didn't then that's cheating. Those parents are just being typical entitled-kid parents. The kid didn't earn a B, or any grade, if he turned in something written by AI. Being in the National Honor Society means you've earned those honors yourself. Not by any dishonest way. AI most definitely is plagiarism. Plagiarism is submitting ideas that are not your own. It’s not simply copying someone’s exact words. |
|
The Great Carpezio
Pearl Clutcher
Something profound goes here.
Posts: 3,019
|
Post by The Great Carpezio on Oct 17, 2024 2:55:06 GMT
First, every school needs an academic dishonesty policy that includes AI. No excuse for not having AI included in the 24/25 school year, but prior to this year, I can understand we hadn't had a full year with ChatGPT last year. Is using AI to create a paper plagiarism? Maybe...maybe not, but it IS academically dishonest.
Second, not all AI is the same. It can be a tool that can be helpful. If it was used for idea generation or revision purposes, it might be OK. Writing your project/paper and tweaking it a little? Completely different.
Finally, I wasn't sure about this at first, but this year we have changed to academic dishonesty as a "behavior" vs an academic consequence. If a student cheats, they may get a zero, but they can redo it. Before they can redo it, they will have a conversation with admin and the teacher and parents are contacted. We are grading students on what they know and academic progress and not how they behave, so this is the shift we made. I guess it also helps in not getting sued?
|
|
|
|
Post by monklady123 on Oct 17, 2024 11:10:15 GMT
I guess technically using AI isn't plagiarism since it's not taking another person's work as their own. But having AI write a paper for you and passing it off as your own sure is dishonest. If a teacher expects a kid to write something and the kid turns in a written paper then everyone's assumption is that the kid wrote it. If they didn't then that's cheating. Those parents are just being typical entitled-kid parents. The kid didn't earn a B, or any grade, if he turned in something written by AI. Being in the National Honor Society means you've earned those honors yourself. Not by any dishonest way. AI most definitely is plagiarism. Plagiarism is submitting ideas that are not your own. It’s not simply copying someone’s exact words. The definition of plagiarism is "passing off someone else's work as your own". And I don't think AI is a "someone". So I wouldn't call it plagiarism as we've always defined it. Which is why entitled people like the OP cited are trying to sue, saying it wasn't plagiarism. This is splitting hairs a bit for me, but there are enough entitled people with slimy lawyers who will try. That's why schools are adding AI into their honor codes. |
|
|
|
Post by epeanymous on Oct 17, 2024 11:50:54 GMT
I will admit that the suit seems weird to me in that if he hasn’t applied to colleges already he just put a giant red flag on his file. Private colleges have discretion and you don’t want to admit a problem.
Anyhow, I think schools need to define in their academic codes what AI use is and isn’t appropriate and that it’s probably a good idea for individual teachers to do the same in their syllabi. I am however pretty sure this kid knew what he was doing was wrong whether or not AI specifically was banned.
|
|
|
|
Post by rainangel on Oct 17, 2024 13:54:18 GMT
I don't think it's plagiarism per se, but it is also not your own work.
They need to come up with a new rule about AI produced work not being allowed, alongside plagiarism.
|
|
|
|
Post by sabrinae on Oct 18, 2024 12:28:14 GMT
AI most definitely is plagiarism. Plagiarism is submitting ideas that are not your own. It’s not simply copying someone’s exact words. The definition of plagiarism is "passing off someone else's work as your own". And I don't think AI is a "someone". So I wouldn't call it plagiarism as we've always defined it. Which is why entitled people like the OP cited are trying to sue, saying it wasn't plagiarism. This is splitting hairs a bit for me, but there are enough entitled people with slimy lawyers who will try. That's why schools are adding AI into their honor codes. . But AI is getting that information/work from somewhere else. AI learns based on what info it is fed. So there really isn’t a way AI isn’t plagiarizing something. |
|
)
)
)
Besides the money, I didn't mind editing his stuff because his writing wasn't terrible. lol
