This is when AI could be very useful, she thinks. With a few incentives, a chatbot could provide immediate targeted writing comments on the needs of each student. A student may need to practice shorter sentences. Another could be in difficulty with the structure of history and describes them. The AI could theoretically meet the individual needs of an entire class faster than a human teacher.
In Meyer’s experiences, she only inserted AI after the first project was carried out as part of the revision process. In a study published in 2024, she assigned 200 German high school students randomly to receive comments on AI after writing a test project in English. Their revised trials were stronger than those of 250 students who were also invited to revise, but who did not obtain the help of AI.
In surveys, those who have comments on AI also said they felt more motivated to rewrite than those who have not received any comments. This motivation is critical. Often, students are not in a mood to rewrite, and without revisions, students cannot become better writers.
Meyer does not consider his proof of experience that AI is an excellent writing teacher. She did not compare it to the way students’ writing improved after human comments. His experience compared only the comments of AI without feedback.
More importantly, a dose of feedback from AI writing has not been sufficient to raise students’ writing skills. During a second, a new test subject, students who had already received comments from AI did not write better than students who had not been helped by AI.
We do not know how many AI feedback cycles would require to stimulate a student’s writing skills in a more permanent way, not only helping to revise the test at hand.
And Meyer does not know if a student would like to continue to discuss writing with a bot again and again. Perhaps the students were ready to engage in this experience because it was a novelty, but could soon get tired. It is the next on the agenda of Meyer.
A viral MIT study
A much smaller MIT study published earlier this year echoes Meyer’s theory. “Your brain on Chatgpt” has become viral because it seemed to say that the use of chatgpt to help write a test made the brains of students less committed. The researchers found that students who wrote a test without any online tools had stronger connectivity and brain activity than students who used the AI or google to search for source equipment. (The use of Google during writing was not as bad for the brain as AI.)
Although these results made the headlines, the experience was more in experience. Students who initially wrote a test by themselves received the Chatppt to help improve their trials. This passage to chatgpt stimulated brain activity, contrary to what neuroscientists found during the initial writing process.
These studies add to the proof that the late delay, after an initial reflection and a drafting, could be an ideal place in learning. This is something that researchers have to test more.
However, Meyer remains anxious to give very weak Writers and young children who have not developed basic writing skills. “It could be a real problem,” said Meyer. “It could be detrimental to use these tools too early.”
Cheat your path to learning?
Meyer does not think that it is always a bad idea for students to ask Chatgpt to write for them.
Just as young artists learn to paint in copy of masterpieces in museums, students could learn to better write in copy a good writing. (The late editor -in -chief of New York John Bennet taught Jill to write in this way. He called him “copy work” and he encouraged his journalism students to do so every week in long -term copy of the words of legendary writers, not AI.)
Meyer suggests that students ask Chatgpt to write an example of a test that meets the mission and notation criteria of their teacher. The next step is the key. If the students claim that it is their own room and the subments, it is cheating. They also discharged the cognitive work of technology and learned nothing.
But AI’s test can be an effective teaching tool, in theory, if the students study the arguments, the organizational structure, the construction of sentences and the vocabulary before writing a new project in their own words. Ideally, the next assignment should be better if students have learned through this analysis and internalized the style and techniques of the model test, said Meyer.
“My hypothesis would be as long as there will be cognitive efforts with this, as long as there is a lot of time on the task and as a critical reflection on the release, so it should go,” said Meyer.
Reconsider praise
Everyone loves a compliment. But too much praise can drown learning, just as too much water can prevent flowers from flowering.
Chatgpt tends to pour thick praise and often starts with banal flattery, as “excellent work!” Even when a student’s writing needs a lot of work. In Meyer’s test to find out if AI comments can improve students’ writing, she intentionally told Chatgpt not to start with praise and go directly to constructive criticism.
His parsimonious approach to praise was inspired by a writing study in 2023 on what motivates students to revise. The study revealed that when the teachers started with general praise, the students ended up with the false impression that their work was already good enough so that they did not make the additional effort to rewrite.
In Meyer’s experience, comments without praise were effective in bringing students to revise and improve their trials. But it has not implemented direct competition between the two approaches – without praise in relation to praise – so we do not know with certainty which is more effective when students interact with AI.
Being stingy with praise rubs the real teachers in the wrong direction. After Meyer deleted the praise of the comments, the teachers told him that they wanted to restore it. “They wondered why the comments were so negative,” said Meyer. “This is not what they would do.”
Meyer and other researchers can one day solve the puzzle how to transform AI chatbots into major writing coaches. But if students will have the will or the desire to give up an instantly written essay is another matter. As long as chatgpt continues to allow students to take the easy solution, it is human nature to do so.
Shirley Liu is a graduate student in the Northwestern University education. Liu reported and wrote this story with Jill Barshay of the Hechinger report.
