Harshner ran his other students’ work through the AI detector. He said eight of the 40 assignments, or 20%, came back with an 85% chance or higher of AI-generated work. The facts hit him like a gut punch.
“Honestly, like, you want to think what you’re doing matters,” Harshner said. “You want to think that at least in some part all the work you’re putting in actually impacts people’s lives.”
AI is disrupting colleges across the country, offering shortcuts for students and uncomfortable questions for professors. Tools like ChatGPT can, in a matter of seconds, solve math problems, write papers and craft code on command.
“It’s entirely changed the way I teach,” Harshner said.
Harshner’s writing-intensive course was previously heavy on take-home essays. He now has students write their papers during class. Not only does he outline an AI ban on his syllabi but he also has students sign a contract agreeing not to use it, even for generating ideas or paper outlines.
“You have to take steps to, you know, kind of push back on this,” Harshner said, adding he believes AI is a “threat to higher education in real, meaningful ways.”