From Panic to Possibility: How AI Could Revolutionize the Teaching of Critical Thinking

Aug 15, 2024

Ned Courtemanche | LinkedIn

Guest Writer

Teacher standing next to grioup of students using AI on a computer.

Ned Courtemanche has spent nearly two decades pushing education into the 21st century as a teacher, coach, administrator, and educational consultant. In his current role as History Department Chair at the McDonogh School, Ned has sought sustainable change within a complex non-profit and updated curricula to build the analytical skills required to help students understand themselves and their digitally-driven world. Working at McDonogh since 2011, he co-founded and taught in McDonogh’s “SEED” Innovation Program which challenged students to apply the tools of social entrepreneurship, engineering, and design to address real world problems. Other roles within schools have included teaching high-school history at every level, grade-dean, and two-time MIAA State Championship men’s lacrosse coach. When he isn’t working he can be found exploring Baltimore with his family, playing guitar, or reading non-fiction.

Ned was one of the very early embracers of Flint and has leveraged Flint's AI platform to push educational bounds using AI. His attitude towards AI use has been simultaneously cautious, hopeful, and playful, and he aims to document his AI-powered learning and teaching journey within this blog. This is the first of many posts he has planned, so stay tuned for what comes next!

The Initial Panic

What was your first reaction to Chat GPT?

Surprise? Excitement? Confusion?

For me, it was pure panic. In early December of 2022, I came across a BLOG post titled “AI Homework” by the tech thought leader Ben Thompson. He recounted using a remarkable new tool to essentially complete his daughter’s high school history homework on Hobbes’ uber-challenging ‘Leviathan’. Thompson’s post is wonderful, full of nuance and optimism about the future of education, but all of that was lost on me as I bashed the panic button like a kid in an arcade.

Adapted from Dalle-3: “Kid pressing a panic button in an arcade.”

Better to panic in good company, I fired off emails to a few humanities colleagues with dramatic headers like: “We have a problem folks…” and “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.” It seemed at the time like these “large language models” had all of human history at their command, could tackle the toughest homework readings, slice and dice complex essay questions better than most freshmen, and all with a free account. “When the students get wind of this,” I thought, “they will outsource anything we assign.” And with end-of-term assessments looming, this felt like an existential crisis, one that required an ‘all hands on deck’ battle for the fate of academic integrity.

Email from Ned to other humanities teachers at his school showing his initial concerns around AI answering any query for free.

What was your first reaction to Chat GPT?

Surprise? Excitement? Confusion?

What was your first reaction to Chat GPT?

Surprise? Excitement? Confusion?

From Panic to Potential

“Time cools; time clarifies”, wrote Thomas Mann, and as the months passed, my apocalyptic visions gave way to curiosity. Was there some way to work with this impressive technology? Not everyone on our faculty was so sure, but one thing was universally clear: AI wasn’t going away. Perhaps we’re all working through the various ‘stages of grief’ as the educational world transforms - starting with shock and denial before finding some form of acceptance. Our school leadership at McDonogh soon embraced an AI policy akin to adaptive ecological management: carefully observing how this new 'species' interacted with our educational ecosystem to develop practical guidance and support. The more we learned, the more confident we became that AI had the potential to supercharge our mission to inspire a LifeReady education.

Flint soon became a key partner in this new world, as many of our humanities and language teachers found Flint more useful in the classroom than working directly with underlying LLMs like ChatGPT. Like reins on a thoroughbred, Flint empowers teachers to set the pace and direction of the AI ride. Their intuitive interface replaces the need for long-winded prompts; tools to adjust the AIs “helpfulness level” ensure students can’t outsource the learning process; best of all, Flint’s new Templates forum gives teachers access to the best AI education tools within their growing community.

Public Flint Templates library, with some made by Ned.

Transforming Assessments

This is especially true in the humanities, where we’ve long struggled to scale the teaching of high-level cognitive skills like reading, research, writing, and analysis. By way of example, a US Constitution essay I assigned to my Advanced US History juniors in 2021 required roughly an hour and a half of my time and attention per student. Between the assignment prep, rounds of formative feedback, final evaluation, and grading for forty students, that’s nearly sixty hours of teacher time for a single assignment! With teacher’s already spread so thin, is it any surprise that US schools are spending less and less time teaching high-level cognitive skills like writing?

It doesn’t have to be this way. Nearly two years of tinkering with AI has allowed me to transform these time-intensive assessments. Instead of a single high-stakes assignment, I can break things down into multiple targeted exercises using Flint tutors. Students can now hone their comprehension of the US Constitution, receive instant and endless feedback as they brainstorm their own informed opinions, sharpen the evidence and analysis of their argument in a mock debate, and all before putting pen to paper. Far from panic-inducing, AI has become a true force multiplier, enabling me to scale meaningful, direct instruction and feedback in ways that just weren't feasible before.

Templates of some tutors created by Ned mentioned above.

More to Come

Much has changed since December of 2022, yet there's still a prevalent misconception for some around AI in the classroom. Updated models like GPT 4o have reignited fears of a “homework apocalypse” and concerns about the “mental diminishment” of our cognitive processes. Harper’s Magazine recently devoted an entire issue to “Resisting Artificial Intelligence”, highlighting this continued apprehension. And while critical discourse is certainly needed to keep any emerging technology in perspective, many of these big picture concerns miss the nuanced reality that I’m seeing at work in the classroom. Yes, AI has increased the risk of students taking shortcuts or plagiarizing their work in history class. But I’m starting to think that specialized tools like Flint hold the potential for a far greater reward when it comes to scaling the teaching of critical thinking and communication skills. I’ll be putting this theory to the test in my own classroom during the 2024-25 school year, and invite you to join me as I post updates on this BLOG sharing the challenges, breakthroughs, and best templates for you to incorporate in your own classroom.

What a fascinating time to be in education. Best of luck with the start of your school year and be back soon!