College embraces 'incoming tide' of AI

"The tide is coming in. You can't hold it back," college principal Anthony Bravo reflects on the impact artificial intelligence (AI) is having on teaching and learning.

Basingstoke College of Technology in Hampshire now teaches its students how to use AI responsibly, including how to recognise AI-generated content.

Mr Bravo said students would be "foolish" not to use AI for work outside of exam conditions, and the school had a responsibility to teach them how.

Teachers at the further education college are also using AI to help save time in preparing for lessons.

Former students, including Benjamin Miller, first raised concerns about the influence AI was having.

"I saw my classmates using it and they were using it to basically generate a whole assignment which I spent ten hours doing at home ... in five minutes," he said.

"I was actually quite frustrated about that."

Mr Bravo confirmed some students had handed in work that was at least partially created by AI.

"In the old days, it was much easier because there used to be very good plagiarism devices which could tell if a piece of work had any content which was on the internet," he said.

"Now with AI, because it actually manufactures each piece of work separately, there isn't really any software which can spot it."

Now, Mr Miller works for the college as a technology assistant, helping both staff and students integrate AI into learning and teaching.

Students learn the "dos and don'ts" of using AI in the classroom - for example, they can use it to fact check or find a good starting point for their assignment, but they cannot use it to write the assignment or make their bibliography.

Mr Miller said teachers also used it to make presentations and plan their lessons - saving about five hours a week of teaching preparation time.

"Before, it was a taboo subject and students were very scared as well because they didn't know what they were doing - they didn't know how to use it," he said.

"But now it's more like - you should use it because you know it's going to be in your future job, so you should definitely practise using it."

Staff at the college are aware of the risks of using AI, but tutor Jack Roche said the risks were exactly why students needed to be educated.

"The con is obvious - are they going to take it a step too far? Are they going to use it to replace the work, replace them, replace the knowledge?

"And that's why we do this... with most things in society, ignoring it is not going to help the problem.

"We have to talk to them and confront them directly," he said.

Mr Bravo agreed that it would be "foolish" for a student not to use AI.

"The tide is coming in. You cannot hold it back, and if you do not take account of it, it will wash over you."

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