Very interesting!

Kwan Hong Tan I believe educators should approach teaching with clarity about the kind of intellectual engagement they expect from students. The goal of education is to develop skill, understanding, and critical thinking—not simply to receive rewards. I question the practice of rewarding effort alone, especially in an era where AI tools can enable students to bypass the learning process through copy-and-paste shortcuts.

Rather than incentivizing minimal engagement, educators should enforce clear academic standards, including strong penalties for unoriginal or lazy submissions. At the same time, they must actively teach the fundamentals: proper citation, critical analysis, and academic integrity. If a student fails to grasp these principles after being taught, the issue likely lies with the student’s level of effort, not the material.

Put simply: if a student is clever enough to use AI to mimic competence, they are certainly capable of learning to read critically and cite properly.

Jairo Diaz Thank you for raising these critical points—especially in light of the challenges that AI poses to academic integrity. I agree that the ultimate goal of education is to cultivate genuine understanding, critical thinking, and rigorous skill development. Upholding high academic standards and penalizing dishonesty are essential in preserving the credibility of that process.

That said, I would caution against dismissing effort as irrelevant. While effort alone shouldn’t replace achievement, it often reveals a student’s trajectory—especially in formative stages. Some students come in with uneven preparation or learning gaps, and recognizing meaningful effort (when it’s paired with real progress) can serve as a bridge toward mastery, not a substitute for it.

I also agree that students capable of manipulating AI tools are intellectually capable of more. But some may be using those tools out of confusion, fear of failure, or lack of guidance—not malice. This doesn’t excuse the behavior, but it shifts our response from purely punitive to pedagogical. That’s why, as you rightly said, teaching fundamentals—citation, analysis, ethics—must remain central.

In short, we should reward honest progress, hold firm to standards, and meet students with both accountability and structured support.