Students are going to use generative algorithms, so let’s make sure they do so properly

A study conducted by the creators of the leading plagiarism detection service, Turnitin, claims that over the past year, students turned in more than 22 million essays written with the help of generative tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini and others as original work, a trend some say spells the end of civilization as we know it.

I have never trusted tools like Turnitin, and as a teacher, moreover, I can only disagree and question the conclusions of the report. From the first time, in late November 2022, when I tested ChatGPT, I immediately understood that such an innovation was going to change education, but not necessarily destroy it. In fact, as an educator, I am worried by professors or institutions who are eager to ban such tools and try to detect them at all costs rather than keeping an open mind and transparently allowing their use. At this point, I am seriously concerned if professors don’t know how to use ChatGPT better than their students.

Firstly, as a matter of principle: if a tool is able to give my students a competitive advantage when writing an essay or creating a presentation, my aim as a teacher is not that they avoid it at the risk of being accused of copying, but that they make the best possible use of it.