I look at the end result of a product. If a student writes a good project, essay, report, etc., regardless of the tools they used, it's a good product, isn't it?
I remember a teacher of mine who told me she grade my lab reports at 80%, although she thought they were excellent, because I use the wrong tools. I had written the text using a computer, although all the drawings I made by hand. The wrong tools I used were my computer and my printer.
It was a time when I was the only student on my course who had a computer and a printer at home, and she only used typewriters to type hers notes and the blackboard and some sparse acetate overheads to show some complex graphs or drawings during her lectures.
I was using new tools, who some of my teachers could not understand yet. I encourage students now to use all available tools, including AI, of course, as long as their work is original (and it can be even using AI tools) and not a plagiarism from other's work.
That's my same perspective with large projects, actually. And I explicitly tell them they can use AI for their final projects as long as the end result is good. I do this because the large projects are complex enough that they aren't gonna be able to use AI to get from concept to final product.
But what if it's a short essay question, where I explicitly tell them to stick to 3-4 sentences, and it's worth like 0.1% of your grade? I feel like someone who uses AI in that case is just lazy. The exercise is just to get you to think for yourself for a few minutes and they won't even attempt it despite low stakes.
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