Space Forum

Space Forum Discussion: Should AI be used in schools? 

SPACE Forum Sparks Conversation on AI in Schools

On Thursday, 29 May, our school captains hosted a SPACE Forum during First Break in the JI Block Undercroft, inviting students and staff to explore an increasingly relevant question:“Should AI be used in schools?”

This informal session provided a space for open dialogue rather than debate. Students and teachers shared their perspectives on how artificial intelligence is shaping learning whether through curiosity or lived experience and raised thoughtful points about both the benefits and challenges of AI in an educational setting.

Discussions touched on the potential of AI to support creativity, efficiency, and personalised learning, while also highlighting concerns around academic integrity, over-reliance on technology, and the importance of human thinking in learning.

Watch the short highlights video to hear directly from students and teachers as they reflect on the positives and potential pitfalls of bringing AI into the classroom.

We thank our school captains for leading an important and timely conversation, and for encouraging our learners to think critically, ask big questions, and engage in respectful dialogue.

Video Transcript:

Space Forum Discussion: Should AI be used in schools? 

SPACE Forum Sparks Conversation on AI in Schools

 

On Thursday, 29 May, our school captains hosted a SPACE Forum during First Break in the JI Block Undercroft, inviting students and staff to explore an increasingly relevant question:“Should AI be used in schools?”

 

This informal session provided a space for open dialogue rather than debate. Students and teachers shared their perspectives on how artificial intelligence is shaping learning whether through curiosity or lived experience and raised thoughtful points about both the benefits and challenges of AI in an educational setting.

 

Discussions touched on the potential of AI to support creativity, efficiency, and personalised learning, while also highlighting concerns around academic integrity, over-reliance on technology, and the importance of human thinking in learning.

 

Watch the short highlights video to hear directly from students and teachers as they reflect on the positives and potential pitfalls of bringing AI into the classroom.

 

We thank our school captains for leading an important and timely conversation, and for encouraging our learners to think critically, ask big questions, and engage in respectful dialogue.

 

Video Transcript:

I think that if you have the message of what you're trying to communicate in a paragraph or sentences, you can use AI to write that in a way that it's communicated better, but not in a way where you properly plagiarise it because I think AI detectors are advanced enough to detect when you're copying straight from AI. That's why I think getting AI to generate a couple sentences for a message you're trying to communicate and then using the ideas from those sentences to write your own sentences is a far better use of that.

 

Anyone else have anything to build or disagree about the use of detecting AI?

I sort of disagree with Tesson because I think that if you're using AI to help assisting with the structure of your own writing, then you're not really getting better at writing because it's the AI helping you. So, it's more of a reflection of your own work if you use AI to help structure your writing.

 

Would you like to reply?

 

The way Tom and I were discussing this is that we thought of AI as like a really good source, where you're using AI that has a really good idea and then phrasing that in your own way.

 

I also think it's really important to consider the fact that we've gone majority of our school lives without the use of AI. I mean, what is the purpose of using it? Because we've been able to find our own sources, being able to look at those sources, read them, and analyse them and interpret them by ourselves. Using AI is teaching people to be lazier, in a way, of then just using that to shortcut them into their opinion or their strategies.

 

Anyone else have anything to add? Because then we can move on to why.

Can we add from a maths perspective when you're struggling with a question or something, AI is really good at breaking down the solutions. Say there's a specific part you don't understand, AI is really good at you go like, "Can you explain this step more for me?" and it does. I think that could be really helpful. Also, like developing practice questions, that could be a useful way to use AI without copying from it just applying it to different contexts, you know?

 

I would like to build on Amelia's point there. I believe AI is very useful in that sense where we can get feedback from it like instant feedback. So we could generate a prompt, like something that a teacher has given us maybe here's some general feedback for the class we can give that to AI and go, "Hey, have I done this in my work?" and actually ask, "Where have we fallen down and where can we improve our work?" It's not getting AI to do the work for us, but it's challenging us in a way where we have to think and process that information ourselves.

 

Anyone else have anything to add to that?

 

I think we can do another discussion between yourselves about what do you think how do you think AI changes between different subjects like from humanities to science, maths and arts like how can that be expressed differently and maybe think of some ideas that you can use AI or how has it helped you with all those different types of study?