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Mary Richard, Host: Today is Tuesday, August 5th. good morning! This is The world and everything in it From World Radio, supported by listeners. I'm Mary Leicard.
Nick Eicher, Host: And I'm Nick Eicher.
Long before AI could write paragraphs, students had to understand one sentence at a time.
World commentator Johnny B. Cheney is now about what we have got and what we are at risk of losing.
Janie B. Cheaney: While sorting my papers last week, I came across exam questions that date back to my sophomore year at university. The class was a New Testament letter, and teacher Kendrick was known for his short final. In short, it's the number of questions. They were all essay questions so it's long to run. Printed on one mimographed sheet.
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Develop Paul's main ideas as shown in the Doctrine section of the Ephesian Letter, chapters 1-3.
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Comment on the heresy nature of the Colossians and associate this with the man and work of Christ, who developed in 1:15-20.
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We compare Paul's teachings on the social order of Christian families that developed both in the Ephesians and in the Colossians.
The essays I wrote have been gone for a long time with grade. Even if it wasn't an A, I was still impressed that I was able to tackle those topics in a logical way when I was 19. The writing was my strong suit, but most of my classmates must have been able to turn something more or less consistent, even shedding light on the content. The only essays you wrote was what you did in college. Because you've already done a lot of it in high school.
Over the past decades, university instructors have been paying attention to the decline in student composition, along with increasing plagiarism and online essay pitches. Now, with ease access to ChatGpt and other large-scale language models within the classroom, many teachers are completely rethinking their academic writing process. Maybe the essay isn't that important. Maybe they are an outdated relic of hardback books and from the era of printed journalism. Maybe they showcase skills that are less necessary in the age of AI.
National Review Intern Moira Gleeson interviewed several humanities professors about the use of generative AI in the classroom. It refers to creating new content from scraps of information using a large “generative” language model. The responses ranged from tolerance to careful incorporation, but they all agreed on the importance of writing as thought. And the real purpose of writing assignments, such as formal essays, is that it is a process of discovering what you are thinking about the topic, not the finished product. Essays should first have meaning to writers who have reached a particular conclusion based on facts and logic, rather than memes or tiktok videos.
Teachers know that AI is here. The task is to teach students what it is for. But what is that for? Technology is very new, there is no consensus about it, just individual preferences. Should it be used as a research assistant or as a first edit? Is it perfect for generating and testing ideas?
After all, the bottom line is always the same bottom line. Students need to be confident in the importance of thinking. It has always been sold out for kids trying to get through school, and for kids as painless as possible. ai makes it much more difficult.
I'm Johnny B. Cheney.
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