Con: Should Professors Use AI?
I will admit it. When a tedious assignment stands between me and bedtime, I feel the temptation to open up ClaudeAI. It is so easy to let AI summarize everything I need to know in a few succinct bullet points filled with words like “delve” and “streamline.” Hours of work could be condensed into minutes. […]
Pro: Should Professors Use AI?
Whether it’s to summarize a jargon-heavy excerpt for class or to outline reasoning in an argumentative essay, there exists an unspoken shame in using AI among those who consider themselves academics. This is understandable. The fundamental pursuits of academic life, such as intellectual freedom and truth, seem diametrically opposed to the ends of the tech […]
Faculty Forum: Con: Should Tufts Ban Technology in the Classroom?
Large Language Models (LLMs) have shocked academia in general and the humanities in particular. If we rely too much upon machines to perform demanding tasks, such as generating essays, summarizing complex documents, and translating sources in unfamiliar languages, we can produce quite a bit but learn little or nothing. I do not see any simple […]
Faculty Forum: Pro: Should Tufts Ban Technology in the Classroom?
I ban the use of electronic devices in all the courses I currently teach. I don’t usually justify or explain this policy with students, at least not in a lengthy, defensive way, because most of the time students seem to just want to get on with the course contents. And anyway, a policy is a […]