Jyrum Bohol

My Experience with AI in ICS 314

12 May 2025

Artificial Intelligence in Education

Artificial intelligence, the growing superpower among students around the world. AI has taken over the world by storm, especially in recent years. Some students use AI to copy and paste their homework and get free answers without even having to think. But for me personally, I do not believe in that. Although I do use artificial intelligence programs such as ChatGPT and Copilot in my education, I try my best to use AI as a tool for my learning and not like a get out of jail free card. In my software engineering class, ICS 314, I have used AI tools to help me in various different ways.

Personal Experience with AI in ICS 314

In ICS 314, there are many experiences and aspects of the class where students could use AI to assist them. I will be listing these aspects and sharing my experience of whether or not I used AI for them and the reasons behind my choices.

  1. Experience WODs e.g. E18
    • WOD stands for “Workout of the Day”. In ICS 314, WODs are timed exercises used to test our skills on the subject we are learning at the time. The amount of time it takes for us to complete the exercise dictates our performance level for each attempt of a WOD.
    • Experience WODs are WODs that we do at home. We can attempt the WODs as many times as we like. In my experience, I did use AI to complete some of the experience WODs. I tried my best to do it on my own but especially after going over the time limit on my first attempt, I would ask AI about places where I got stuck.
  2. In-class Practice WODs
    • In-class Practice WODs were used to prep us for the real In-class WODs which were worth a lot of points and we only had 1 attempt to complete the WOD within the time limit. For practice WODs, I found that in some of them I could do it just on my own but for most practice WODs, I found that they were more difficult than the actual WODs so I did use AI in most of them. I used AI to help guide me and also on areas where I got stuck.
  3. In-class WODs
    • In-class WODs in the moment are very stressful trying to complete it within the time limit. At times where I got stuck, I definitely did use AI to help get me out of sticky situations. At many instances however, Copilot and ChatGPT were more of a hindrance than an assister. During multiple times in WODs I faced even more problems after using AI. It did not give many useful results during In-class WODs.
  4. Essays
    • In ICS 314, we are asked to write essays on many different topics. For essays I was strict on myself to not use AI. For essays I found it more important to convey my words and points across through my actual voice. If I were to use AI, my essays would not be told truly from my point of view and with my style. I chose not to do grammar checks with it either and just reread my sentences myself.
  5. Final project
    • For the final project, there many different difficult tasks that I faced. Especially for issues that had to do with the database, I did use AI. Even using AI, it took many hours to get certain things to work. For some issues, I could just refer back to some of the experience WODs that we had to do because I was implementing something similar but for issues such as dealing with the database and creating APIs, I definitely had to ask ChatGPT and Copilot for help.
  6. Learning a concept / tutorial
    • When learning certain concepts I did use AI as a refresher to some topics. For example, when formatting my pages, I asked AI on how to format things or what types of keywords are used in formatting to remember things that I may have forgot or could not think of at the top of my head. Once the AI tells me, I quickly remember and start formatting things or doing whatever else on my own.
  7. Answering a question in class or in Discord
    • Honestly, I do not find myself answering questions much. Personally, I am not a very vocal person. But if I were to answer a question I would not use AI. I would rather answer the question on my own accord than rely on AI to give me the answer then relay that information to others, when I may not know fully why the answer is what it is.
  8. Asking or answering a smart-question
    • When asking or asking a smart-question, I I did not use AI. When structuring sentences, I prefer to use my own words and voice.
  9. Coding example e.g. “give an example of using Underscore .pluck”
    • For coding examples I did use AI. I think that when learning a new topic with coding or faced a new problem, asking AI for an example of some code is very helpful when writing my own code. I can model my code after it and learn all the syntax needed to do so. I enjoy looking at examples a lot and find it extremely helpful.
  10. Explaining code
    • I did use AI to explain code in ICS 314. There are many scenarios where I would ask AI to explain code. But it would be more so if the code was not written by me. For example, when AI would make some code for me as an example, I would ask it to explain certain parts of the code that I did not understand.
  11. Writing code
    • I did use AI to write some code for me in ICS 314. I found it very helpful at times where I was very confused on how to code certain things. I found it especially helpful when writing code for the final project. Some of the things I wanted to implement were quite advanced and I was not sure how to do it. Asking AI was very helpful in these moments.
  12. Documenting code
    • When documenting code I did use AI to create some comments but only for parts of code that it wrote for me and if I did not understand some of it. I would ask it to put comments and if I did not understand it after the comments, I would ask it to explain what it meant to me.
  13. Quality assurance e.g. “What’s wrong with this code ” or “Fix the ESLint errors in ”
    • For quality assurance, I definitely did use AI. There were many times where I had an error in my code and I asked AI for help. Especially ESLint errors, for those I did not understand majority of them so I had to ask AI on how to fix them in order to solve the errors.
  14. Other uses in ICS 314 not listed
    • Apart from the listed aspects of the class where AI could be used I did not use AI.

Impact on Learning and Understanding

AI has had a large impact on my learning and understanding in ICS 314. Using AI has helped me develop new skills when learning new languages and coding concepts. Apart from learning, AI has probably had the most impact in assisting me in my comprehension of things in this class. Asking AI certain prompts really helped me in this class understand how to code things and why they are done in certain ways. For example, when learning about UI design with Bootstrap and React, asking AI about these topics really helped me because I found myself struggling with these topics. Although it sometimes may be imperfect and lead me astray at certain points, overall AI was a positive assistance to my learning in this class.

Practical Applications

AI has been used in many different ways and fields in the real world. Once example where AI is used a ton is in many different video games. Video games use AI in a lot of different ways. One major way is creating NPCs that the player can interact with throughout the video game’s world. One game that has exceptional AI with their NPCs that I have experienced is one of my favorite games I have ever played, “Red Dead Redemption 2”. The NPCs talk to you and if you aggravate them they may even get mad.

Another field that uses AI is many different sports. AI can be used in sports for a lot of things. Some examples of these things are statistics, strategy, and also even refereeing. One example of AI being used for refereeing is the VAR (video assistant referee) in soccer. The VAR is used to determine if players were offside, if a goal was really a goal, and many other things.

Challenges and Opportunities

I have definitely faced some challenged with AI this semester. Like I had mentioned before, when trying to complete in-class WODs I would ask ChatGPT for assistance and sometimes the AI would leave me with more problems that I had before. Most times, previous problems would be fixed but new problems are introduced. AI’s help is not perfect and can sometimes leave users at a worse spot than they were before.

In software engineering education, there are many ways that professors can use AI to benefit them in teaching classes. Something that professors in my other classes have advised me to do is to take whatever topic we are learning at the time and ask ChatGPT for example problems to further develop our understanding of the topic.

Comparative Analysis

When comparing traditional teaching methods and AI-enhanced approaches there are many different factors to look out. When talking about engagement with the two different methods, I believe that using AI-enhanced approaches would be more effective than traditional teaching methods in keeping students engaged with software engineering topics. AI can help think of creative ways to integrate lessons with up to date things and keep students interested. With knowledge retention, I feel that the WODs are already effective but AI-enhanced approaches can also elevate it to be better. When it comes to practical skill development, I believe that traditional teaching methods are the kings of that. When developing skills, traditional skill methods tend to really test a student’s knowledge and put them on the spot.

Future Considerations

In software engineering education, AI can be extremely useful to teachers but more so students. I think that professors should think of ways to encourage AI use because it can be used to answer a student’s question that professors may not be able to answer. It also provides students with a way to fact check themselves and increase their understanding of software engineering topics. As AI continues to improve, the assistance that it will give to students will only increase in value. There will be fewer errors in it’s help. But, at the same time professors must stress that AI should be used only as a tool/helper.

Conclusion

Personally I believe that AI is a great tool that can and should be used by both teachers and students. Teachers can use AI in the future to increase the quality of their lessons. Students can use AI to understand topics more and elevate their learning experience in school. However, it is very important to make sure that professors get the message across to students that AI should only be used as a tool. AI for students should only assist their thinking. Like I said earlier, you should not use AI as a shortcut or an easy way out to save time.