Last updated on September 10, 2024
By this point in time, just about everyone has heard about generative artificial intelligence (GenAI). From ethical questions of artistic copyright to concerns of student cheating, most of us have at least a muddy idea of what it is and how people use it. Of course, as this technology is relatively new, there is a lot of focus on how GenAI might be disrupting the process of teaching and learning.
In this article, we will be looking beyond how GenAI can be misused and focus on the ways in which it can actually help faculty as scholars and educators.
Generative AI, such as Copilot, has both advantages and disadvantages. Consider the tasks you do each day. Which do you love? Which tasks are more tedious? With knowledge and practice you can ethically use generative AI to help you with some of the tasks you enjoy less or to free up some of your time to do more of the work you love.
In this Spotlight, we’ll will show you some of the ways in which you can use GenAI as a tool to help you be a more effective educator. The ultimate goal is not to have GenAI replace you, but rather to help you create efficiencies that make some things easier, allowing you to focus on what you love about teaching and learning. So, what are some ways in which GenAI can be used to help you?
Contents
Best Practices
How Can AI Be Used?
- Learning Material Drafts and Outlines. Writing content from scratch is often more challenging than starting with a rough draft, even if that rough draft needs a lot of work. Generative AI can give you a starting point, perhaps an outline or rough first draft, to write your course materials. Keep in mind that generative AI will never replace your knowledge and expertise, and it pulls from a variety of sources that may or may not be reliable or accurate. Any content it generates will need your input and editing for writing style, expertise, and accuracy.
- Creating Ideas and Brainstorming. Generative AI is great at generating ideas and possibilities, whether that means giving you a list of options for naming an article, creating interesting activities and assessments, or drafting an outline or syllabus. In addition to the example provided below, try asking Copilot to brainstorm some ideas on any subject. You might be surprised by some creative results!
- Checking Assignments for Effectiveness and Alignment with Objectives. Alignment among your instructional materials, assessments, and module-level objectives ensures that you are providing the students exactly what you promised them in the overall course objectives. Generative AI can help you write assignments or discussions based on the assignment objectives you provide, and it can also assess assignments/discussions that you’ve created to see if they align with module or course objectives or meet your own goals for student takeaways.
When should I not use this?
- Grading or evaluating student submissions: While generative AI can provide feedback to student assignments, especially if a rubric is provided, most come with a warning that their evaluations should not replace an expert/teacher’s efforts. Apart from the ethical considerations, grading and assessment are largely ineffective with AI. Generative AI lacks the ability to fully understand context, creativity, and critical thinking, which are essential for fair and accurate assessments. Also, AI may not effectively capture the subjective or specialized elements of student responses that an instructor can. AI feedback tends to focus on how a submission is written and whether vocab associated with a topic is used; the feedback may miss entirely the point of the assignment. Overall, the time investment necessary to review and modify feedback is likely higher than just grading the assignment yourself.
- Tasks requiring specialized knowledge or nuanced understanding: Generative AI does not always capture the subtleties of processing theoretical concepts, identifying emotional tone, or evaluating ethical implications. It does not have your expertise and insight.
- Identifying student work versus AI-generated work: Generative AI may not accurately evaluate the verification of student assignments versus AI-generated assignments. Consider assigning regular, smaller assignments such as reflections, discussion posts, or journal entries. These can help you become familiar with each student’s writing style and thought process. Have students draft submissions and check-ins to assess their progress on activities and assessments.
- Sensitive or highly subjective material: For sensitive or highly subjective material, it may be better to rely on your judgment as generative AI cannot fully grasp the ethical and emotional nuances required to handle these topics appropriately. It may miss the context and subtleties needed for fair and compassionate consideration, which are essential in such discussions. Additionally, AI has inherent biases based on the source material it references to build content.
Let’s Walk Through It Together
The Conclusion
As described above, AI can be a valuable tool for faculty members seeking to streamline tasks and manage time more effectively. This article is designed to serve as a basic guide to how AI can be used but remember that generative AI tools are still constantly adapting. New abilities and ways to use generative AI will continue to evolve.