Artificial intelligence has become a regular component of everyday life, from being automatic on electronics and websites to AI-generated media appearing more frequently everywhere we look. It has also nestled its way into education. Consulting AI when doing homework, writing a paper or studying for a test has become the norm in a very short amount of time. While convenient in the moment, what impacts might this use have on all of us in the long run? It is hard to say as it is all still very new, but to start the conversation, I sat down with Dr. Haage, professor in the biomedical sciences here at UND, to see what changes she has noticed in her students since the AI boom.
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
What have you noticed in terms of impact of AI in your classes both positively and/or negatively?
Here is the story of two different years of Anatomy and Physiology. In fall 2024 and spring 2025 I had the highest achieving cohort I have ever had in these traditionally tough prerequisite classes. Over 50% of students ended with an A. I had been making tweaks over 4 years, and it really felt like a triumph of learning for my students. AI was certainly a thing at this point, but students were in it, doing the work of learning, meeting expectations, etc. I addressed AI a bit in class at the beginning, from “this isn’t going to help you” to “learning is work and here is all the learning science behind what we are doing” and that was it. Some evidence of use in lower achieving students, but nothing that prepared me for what was coming.
In fall 2025 Spring 2026, we are down to a 22% A distribution with large shifts to B and C ranges. Not failing but clear frustrations from both me and the students. Same AI messaging at the beginning, but as we have moved through the course there are constant questions about why clearly vague AI answers are not acceptable and conversations on “how do I study” with teaching assistants that end with “that sounds like a lot of work” as they share what they did last year. I see my students use AI in class every single day. I see its presence in every written assignment, even ones that expressly ask for their personal opinion. Everything I have carefully curated to support their learning over the years goes into ChatGPT, and answers are copied verbatim. I have addressed this with the class almost weekly, focusing on active learning strategies, focusing on strategies used successfully by past students and the future expectations they will need to fulfill in graduate school, focusing on the MIT study on the lack of cognitive activity when we use text generation, but nothing has made an impact.
There is not a positive impact on learning. You can make the argument of efficiency of work done in some fields, but the science and evidence are clear for just how much the use of generative AI undermines learning.
How does AI usually show up in classes?
Students have farmed out the work of learning. One of the really sinister things about it though is that it FEELS like learning. Oh yeah, it explains this concept to me at a level in which I can understand, now I know this! Just because it makes sense when you hear it does not mean you know it at the level of comprehension, let alone being able to apply the content to a real problem.
What concerns do you have regarding students and the use of AI?
All of the above – learning is suffering, but also information literacy. I think we are just starting to enter into the world of deep fakes, purposefully curated misinformation, etc. and while we farm out our cognitive processes, no one is going to be able to tell what is true versus fake.
If you could give advice to students regarding AI based on your experiences, what would it be?
Stop. Stop and think about if this is actually helping you further your goals. Is your goal to complete the assignment or do the learning? There is no shortcut to learning.
Ed Tortorelli is a Dakota Student General Reporter. He can be reached at [email protected].
