Testing the Waters: Using AI to Enhance Student Learning from Both Faculty and Student perspective

Streamed Session

Brief Abstract

Generative AI chat bots can have destructive and promising implications for higher education. This session will discuss the pedagogical roles AI can play in higher education, showcase ways we implemented AI to enhance student learning  and share faculty and student reflections. Participants will explore and discuss critical issues of teaching and learning in the AI era to prepare students for the workforce.

Presenters

Extended Abstract

The conversations of using computer technology to facilitate learning go back to the early 80s’. Since then, the development of advanced computer technology has changed dramatically. The advancement of the generative Artificial Intelligence Chat chat bots such as ChatGPT (released in November 2022) and midjourney (released in July 2022), has created a huge shock wave to everyone as this technology will impact society deep and broad. AI tools can be promising, for example, AI can speed up science development, yet AI technology can be destructive and have adverse consequences. For example, because of AI capabilities, it can be a replacement for certain jobs (Vallance, 2023).  Writers foresee the threats. In their strike earlier this year, screenwriters are worried that Hollywood will deploy AI technology which will replace their job and demand Hollywood to regulate the use of AI technology (Arkin, 2023).

Inevitably, AI technology also shakes the education field. Immediately after the release of generative AI, questions such as what it is, and its impact on higher education poured into the center of teaching excellence and course design consultants. Feeling the heat and urgency after the release of ChatGPT, the Yale Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning formed a panel discussions where faculty discussed AI’s impact on teaching and learning and offered their general guidance on how to respond to AI development (Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning, 2023). It appears that the most concerning and discussed topics are the threats that AI creates to academic integrity, how to prevent or detect plagiarized work, and copyright issues, etc. Conversely, some educators (D'Agostino, 2023; Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning, 2023) see the positive potential that AI can offer to enhance student learning.  As Mollick, & Mollick (2022) argue, with proper use, AI can be used to help student learning in improving knowledge application, breaking the illusion of explanatory depth and to enhancing students’ evaluation capabilities.

AI's impact on every aspect of our society is emerging, and this technology is here to stay. Higher education has to not only adapt to this new technology, but provide our students with opportunities to learn the skills to effectively use it. Without these skills, they will not be prepared for the future workforce where being able to effectively use AI will be absolutely critical for their success. Choosing to use this technology as a tool to aid student learning, versus avoid in fear of loss of academic integrity, will enhance the value of higher education and better prepare students to use these tools constructively in their future career and/or further education endeavors.

While this new technology has created new challenges for instructors in higher education, it needs to be recognized that it also has created new stressors and concerns for students such as questioning the value of their degree and loss of possible job opportunities. Watkins (2023) observed that students concern the time-investment of learning AI, and question the degree AI may serve their needs, and therefore students may not necessarily possess the enthusiastic attitudes toward the tool as we would expect.  Because of this, instructors need to consider the student perspective when using this new technology constructively to improve student learning and enhance, not hinder, academic integrity. 

In this presentation, we will present our experiences of piloting the incorporation of AI (chatbot) in the classroom. We will share how we used it to enhance students’ learning, provide faculty’s reflection and summarize our students’ feedback. Our experiences in enhancing student learning will include presenting the strategies used to develop students’ skills to effectively create AI prompts, critically analyze AI outputs and refine AI outputs. We will also share student reflections on using AI within individual and group assignments in this course. Finally, we will provide a reflection from the faculty perspective of the successes and lessons learned from our experiences in using AI in the classroom.  We will invite our conference participants to share their thoughts, questions, concerns, and their own experiences in using AI in their courses.

Take Away:

After participating in this session, audience members should be able to:

  • Articulate the roles that AI can play in higher education.
  • Articulate the possible pedagogical uses of AI in effort to enhance student learning and to develop skills for their careers
  • Explain as faculty, what we can do to better prepare students for assignments incorporating AI. 
  • Provide examples of how students perceive the use of AI in class.
  • Make informed-decision when incorporate AI in teaching with the gain knowledge of what challenges or concerns faculty may face when using this technology,

Reference

Arkin, D. (2023, May 2). Hollywood screenwriters don’t want robots taking their jobs, either. The National Broadcasting Company. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/writers-strike-2023-hollywood-screenwriters...

D'Agostino, S. (2023, January 11st). ChatGPT advice academics can use now. Inside Higher Ed. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2023/01/12/academic-experts-offer-ad...

Mollick, E. R., & Mollick, L. (2022). New Modes of Learning Enabled by AI Chatbots: Three Methods and Assignments.Social Science Research Network. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4300783

Vallance, C. (2023, March 28). AI could replace equivalent of 300 million jobs. The British Broadcasting Corporation. https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-65102150

Watkins, M. (Apr 14, 2023). From Panic to Reality: How Generative AI is Actually Impacting Student Writing. Substack. https://marcwatkins.substack.com/p/from-panic-to-reality-how-generative?...

Yale Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning. (2023). AI guidance.  https://poorvucenter.yale.edu/AIguidance

Yale Poorvu Center for Teaching and Learning. (2023, Feb 17). Yale Faculty Panel: ChatGPT Cannot Replace Excellent Teaching. https://poorvucenter.yale.edu/news/yale-faculty-panel-chatgpt-cannot-rep...