RED ALERT! A new AI stoplight policy implemented in classrooms
Cooper Kelley, Staff Writer
Photo courtesy by Orian Lev Ari on Unsplash
When driving, a red light means to stop, a yellow light means to slow down and pay attention and a green light means go. The new artificial intelligence, or AI, stoplight policy has the same idea, but applies the three colors to schoolwork.
At North Greenville University, teachers were required to use one of the three typical stoplight colors on their syllabus to make students aware of the AI usage policy for their classrooms.
Associate Provost, Dean of Faculty Development and Professor in Christian Studies, Donny Mathis, is one of the people who decided on implementing the AI stoplight policy.
Mathis said, “In terms of using red light, yellow light or green light, it really all depends on the class and what you are trying to accomplish.”
The policy allows teachers to determine the level of AI usage that would best fit their classroom environment and teaching style.
If the syllabus says green light, then the teacher has given students permission to use AI where they find it appropriate. A green light allows the student to generate classwork through AI without limitation, but they must document how they used AI. Proper documentation includes saving the conversations and history, and citing the content that was generated by AI. The documentation must be presented upon request by the teacher.
A yellow light implies that a teacher has given students partial access to the use of AI’s features. The teachers are allowed to monitor what specific assignments the students are and are not able to use AI on and on the syllabus they give a list of what the assignments may include.
The red light means that no AI usage is allowed at any point in the class. The syllabus lists that the use of AI is strictly prohibited because it disregards NGU’s academic integrity policy.
The instructions say, “The assistance of AI tools violates our core value of academic excellence because it disregards honesty, trust, respect, fairness, responsibility and courage.”
Each syllabus, under the specific stoplight color assigned to the class, addresses the same thing and is as follows:
- Red light – AI Usage Banned: This course requires the independent development and practice of the specific knowledge and skills outlined in the student learning outcomes.
- Yellow Light – AI Usage Allowed on a Conditional Basis: Generative artificial intelligence may be used in this course in limited ways with proper documentation, citation, and acknowledgment.
- Green Light – AI Usage Allowed: Generative artificial intelligence may be used in this course as you determine appropriate, as long as you do so honestly through proper documentation, citation, and acknowledgment.
Mathis said the biggest thing was identifying what it means to be human.
He said, “One of the things that we want our students to recognize is that the AI can’t substitute for their own thinking.”
Mathis said he likes how AI can challenge students to think critically when communicating, but also recognizes that AI can get in the way of further development if a student jumps straight to AI as a conclusion.
In the book “Faithful Faculty,” which Mathis helped edit with Jacob Shatzer, one of the chapters is about technology uses in the classroom, including the use of AI. In the chapter, the term technological instrumentalism states how the primary purpose of technology focuses on how a person’s utilizes the tool.
The books says, “What matters most in this view is how one chooses to use a tool, whether for good or ill.”
Mathis said, “We do not just care about you as brains, but as people made in the image of God, and we do not want anything that we do to minimize or take away from that.”
From a student perspective, junior psychology major Briana Williams said she liked the decision to implement the stoplight policy, but felt the reason was upsetting.
Williams said, “I think it is a little bit sad that we are at the point where it’s something that they have to incorporate into a class and it is not just something they can say no about.”
