AI in Teaching

[EDiRenzo]

What are your favorite ways to leverage AI in teaching and learning?

[ErikaRydberg]

We discussed this topic at InstructureCon, and I'm going to be working over the next 2 weeks to develop some instructional tools for my film class I'm an adjunct in (I'm in my full time role an EdTech manager). We thought about using AI to help with defining a topic and also using it also as almost "role" playing or creating different voices. I'm looking forward now to using AI in my Classroom this fall - if anyone from InstructureCon has notes on this topic that would be fabulous! 

[DrNufer]

I am teaching a graduate level course on consumer motivation.  I've always prided myself on taking what I considered to be a more "avant-garde" and hands-on approach to this course, but the capstone project was still a written assignment.  This time around I spent some time restructuring the assignment so that ChatGPT couldn't just do it for the students. 

What I came up with is a group project where the summative portion is a multimedia presentation.  Each week they will do some research on the organization they are profiling (each group is assigned an organization in the first week and they focus on that org throughout the course).  They will record a presentation and publish it in a discussion using Canvas Studio.  So the formative assignment are that each week they will create slides for their slidedeck, they will draft out and continually refine their script, and often they engage in a miscellaneous task, such as creating a handout that they will share with the class.

I advise them to use ChatGPT or the AI platform of their choice to help draft the script, and then work to iterate, refine, and improve the outputs and to add their own voice.  What I want to do is incorporate AI in a way that will reflect the work they will do on the job when they graduate.  So I'm teaching them tips and tricks for ChatGPT, as well as the limitations.

[GGummess]

I can see this strategy being used for a course in which the student is not a major, an elective in another field.  But are we creating experts within a major if they are presenting concepts written by ChatGPT?  Would my doctorate have been accepted if whole sections were AI-written, albeit edited by me to give it "my voice?"  

Glen Gummess, Ed.D.
University of St. Francis, Joliet

[DrNufer]

If a task can be performed by AI, is it still important that we have our students do that task (like they traditionally have)?  Or do we need to look at the current tools available and adjust the way we teach and adjust the way students learn, so that we can optimize our pedagogy and best prepare students for post-graduation?  Will dissertations continue to look the way they used to look simply because that's the way they used to look?  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[GGummess]

Moving cautiously, I would find it helpful for students who are struggling to come up with ideas for research.  A query to Bard or ChatGPT, coupled with a deeper search using Google and library databases, could help such students get off the ground.  

I teach television journalism, and I have found it helpful to create "instant newscasts" with Bard for training purposes.  The teaching goal would be to coach students in their presentational skills on-air.  For that, a quick newscast instead of writing original copy would suffice.  Load it into the teleprompter and away you go.  However, if the goal is for the television journalist to practice generative thinking, then AI would not be a substitute for their own thinking.  Matter of fact, AI doesn't think.  

Yet.

Glen Gummess

[a_hyman]

Materials for instructors and course/assessment design from our teaching centre:
https://teaching.utoronto.ca/resources/generative-artificial-intelligence-in-the-classroom/

Our teaching centre has also been offering up webinars (~150 instructors per event attend), and more personalized consultations for departments.

[malendy]

A colleague shared some solid AI in teaching approaches and strategies from Oregon State University. I hope you all find it helpful!

• Advancing Meaningful Learning in the Age of AI 

[DrNufer]

I generally think that Bloom's is a tad overappreciated among educators.  I think that even the revised Bloom's is a bit archaic, and this integration of AI into the taxonomy likely is a step in the right direction.  Perhaps even if the PICRAT model could be incorporated, and maybe even with that Bloom's table that came out 20 years ago with the knowledge dimension (factual, procedural, conceptual, metacognitive)... we may be on to a framework that could be fairly robust.  Like I tell you pretty much every time we see each other recently, education is an outdated paradigm and I think AI is the catalyst we needed to propel us into the next dispensation of teaching and learning.  Let's shake up the current frameworks and level up!