Morongo Unified School District Superintendent Dr. Patricio Vargas was the guest on last Friday’s Up-Close Show with Gary Daigneault, where they discussed how MUSD keeps up with technological advancements and the controversial utilization of Artificial Intelligence in the classroom.
When Daigneault asked Vargas how MUSD plans instruction with the constant updates of technology and advent of AI, Vargas said “We can’t stop technology from moving forward. But we do need to understand it to maximize the potential outcome. AI is something that’s beginning to evolve, and students are beginning to get a hold of that and understand how it works.
Yeah, you could create an essay through AI and just turn it in. But there’s another program that actually checks those essays that can tell you if it’s been created from AI—then you’d get a zero. So there’s pieces we have to weigh—what’s true, what’s not true, and instead of avoiding it, we have to find a way to work with it. So for teachers and students, AI can be a great tool to get ideas, to understand, to have a concept of conversation, but you do have to develop your own criteria, your own critical thinking, so when you put them together in an essay, you can actually defend a thesis. If we’re gonna have academic discourse, show me the AI on your computer, but you have to talk yourself, expand your own knowledge and understanding of what you have to say.”
