The PCC Academic Senate discussed passing a new policy regarding the use of AI in the classroom at their meeting on March 10, but a policy is not expected to be devised until after the 2025 spring semester.
According to Boarddocs, the official website for all PCC board meetings, the AI policy will draw a clear line on AI and academic dishonesty and assist students and teachers with navigating AI as a potential resource. As for limits on AI as a classroom tool, it seems as though the Academic Senate intends to leave a lot of the decision making up to professors.
When asked directly about the new AI policy, faculty members didn’t feel it would be appropriate to provide a response since the idea is still too new.
“The Academic Senate hasn’t passed an AI policy yet,” said AI working group chair Christopher Pinto. “It is still being developed by our AI working group.”
Some students felt it would be beneficial to have a school-wide policy addressing artificial intelligence where others felt it seemed unnecessary.
“I think it could be helpful for PCC to get a full policy for AI because it’s not beneficial for students to ChatGPT their essays and things,” said student Vivien Su. “But I don’t think PCC needs one because I think a lot of students come to PCC to learn. A lot of students want to be here.”
When asked about teacher opinions regarding AI, some students expressed a negative outlook from their professors, like PCC student Georgette Zavaleta.
“My English teachers are the only ones who really talk about AI,” said Zavaleta. “They don’t want to see it from your homework and they don’t want to have to run it through an AI generator and it comes out that you’ve used AI.”
Other students have reported different teacher opinions on AI, such as PCC student Emily Hughes.
“My teachers haven’t talked about it too much,” said Hughes. “I think most of my teachers feel like if we are going to use it then we should be smart about it. It can be a helpful tool but you shouldn’t become dependent on it.”
Despite the controversy surrounding AI amongst teachers, many students spoke positively about AI as a learning assistant in some of their classes. Some are using it to help them study and gain a deeper understanding of class material.
“In my math classes I don’t use it to solve my problems– I use it to ask me more questions,” said student Daisy Gurierrez. “You can only do so much in the book. So I’d go to ChatGPT and ask for examples of say, ‘finding the derivative of something’. It would give me examples and if I got them wrong I’d go to a tutor and have them help me.”
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