The Slide Rule Guide: Ideas for If, When, and How to Use Generative AI Tools for Education

Educators often use the paper-and-pencil versus calculator analogy to weigh when students should do work by hand and when they should use a tool. This essay adds a third item: the slide rule. For more than three centuries, it was the best calculating tool available, then was abandoned within a few years after electronic calculators arrived. Generative AI tools are the new calculators, and they turn some, but not all, existing educational activities into slide rules: labor-intensive steps that were required only because no faster method existed, not because the process itself built understanding. The essay names two risks for educators: permitting AI as a calculator where a paper-and-pencil approach is needed to build fundamentals, and prohibiting AI where it is appropriate, handing students a slide rule when they need a calculator. The challenge is to distinguish these cases and redesign activities around interpretation, creativity, and critical thinking.