Category Archives: AI

6x6, AI, empowerment, engaging students

The Art and Science of AI in Education

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The Need for Deeper Examination

Educational Technology, as a field of study, is all about recognizing how technology helps (and hinders) student learning. Recognizing how we support “old school” practices with technology, and temper “new” practices with proven strategies. Ultimately, it’s about recognizing balance as an essential tool for success… and sanity.

Cue AI’s continued dramatic entrances into our sacred spaces of learning and tranquil chaos. AI has become a destabilizing force for industry, arts, education, and society at large. Higher education, especially, has met AI with hesitancy, distrust, and a healthy dose of skepticism. We’ve all thought it and heard it:

“AI is going to make teachers irrelevant!”

“This generation will never learn core skills because of this technology!”

“Our students will become too reliant on technology at the expense of critical thinking!”

“This technology is going to destroy industries and cost jobs!”

I offer you this sobering thought… similar concerns have been presented during several technological revolutions of our past:

  • The Printing Press (1450s)
  • The Personal Calculator (1970s)
  • The Personal Computer (1970s)
  • The World Wide Web (1991)

Ironically, each of these technologies is now central to Higher Education and can be credited, in part, with our continued survival. Personally, as a Tech Enthusiast and a born-and-raised Computer Geek, I feel we should always meet technology with a healthy dose of cynicism. Does this technology actually make our lives better/easier? Do we actually need this technology, or is it a “nice to have”? One of the many lessons learned from the Pandemic is that technology has its limitations, but can also be a surprisingly powerful source of connection and creativity.

Let’s explore these two questions as they relate to AI and the wider world…

Does AI make our lives better/easier?

Every time I ask myself this question, it gets harder to answer.

As a creative, it’s made my industry quite frustrating. It’s led to debates questioning whether the value of artists and artistry outweighs profits and efficiency. Is the value of art rooted in its ability to be consumed, or in the act of its creation? More on this in a bit.

As a Graduate Student and a notoriously slow reader, AI was a lifesaver. Being able to use programs like NotebookLM each week to generate a podcast summary of my readings allowed me to focus on the big picture first, then strategically consume the sections that resonated and challenged my views, rather than skimming everything and hoping for the best. It was also a lifesaver to ask AI to help me find a quote or statistic in my readings, instead of having to sift through hundreds of readings from the whole semester in the hopes that I wasn’t just hallucinating the idea.

As a facilitator and trainer, AI has helped me break down ideas and concepts into more digestible steps. Helping me rephrase, re-examine, and find new ways to engage. I can’t describe the number of times I’ve asked AI, “Does that make sense?” and been humbly reminded that I need to remember what it was like to learn and not assume shared knowledge or experience.

Do we need AI in education?

The short answer is no.

Educators will keep on educating without any assistance from AI. Education predates the internet, the printing press, and even our ability to make tools. We’re just fine without AI.

But let’s circle back to rephrase that earlier question about artists. Is the value of knowledge and education rooted in the ability for it to be consumed/absorbed, or in the act and experience of learning itself?

What does it mean “to learn”?

  • Is the point of learning math solely in the ability to complete math worksheets, or is it about teaching students to learn to reason, recognize patterns, and think critically about how we solve the problems of our world?
  • Is the point of learning how to replace the engine in a car only about the exact placement of the nuts and bolts? Or is it also about developing workflows and processes that promote accuracy, efficiency, and anticipate problems before they arise?
  • Is the point of learning to write an essay rooted in our ability to write a perfectly formatted paper? Or is it about learning to express our thoughts and emotions, develop our sense of self, reason, and build meaning, and share with others?
  • Is the point of learning to act the ability to memorize and recite a monologue from Shakespeare? Or is it about recognizing the universal emotions and experiences across time and space, about developing empathy, about recognizing and clarifying our intent as we navigate the world?

I’d like to challenge you to take a look at your subjects and look at the core of the lessons your field has to offer (not just the skills!). Then ask yourself whether that is something AI can replicate.

For most of us, the answer is no.

The Art and The Science

When I used to teach leadership, we’d talk about the two sides. The Art and the Science. The “science” of leadership is what you’ll hear from every TED Talk and CEOs’ latest book. It’s a series of processes and proven strategies… It’s a formula. However, the Art of leadership is about application. I can put every leadership problem into a formula, but do I have the soft skills, empathy, communication skills, experience, humility, etc., to put the output of my formula to good use?

In teaching, we often focus on that “science” aspect. If we want students to learn to write, we ask them to write an essay. We give them the tools they need, the expected formula, and the rules. However, all AI knows is the “science” of writing. The patterns and formulas we so carefully teach our students. But what about the Art of writing the essay? Not the ability to phrase words “prettily” or use an Oxford comma in a way that would make our High School English Teachers weep with joy. No, it’s about formulating ideas and expression. AI can imitate this, just like a leader can imitate the formulas they’ve read about, but it will be hollow until we add that art… that sliver of imperfect humanity.

So, should we ask them to write the metaphorical essay? I beg the question: what about that essay can’t the students ask an AI to do for them? Or, perhaps more importantly, in what ways can we use the essay as a tool to facilitate a larger lesson on the importance of discovering our voice and finding a balance between expectation, efficiency, and expression of ideas?

Education doesn’t need AI

Our students don’t need AI

Our World doesn’t need AI

But it’s here, and we’re all still trying to find a balance between technology and humanity because of it. We need to find our path to collaborating with AI in a way that furthers our fields, rather than saturates them.

Collaboration with AI in education doesn’t mean outsourcing thinking or chasing efficiency for efficiency’s sake. It means approaching AI as something to question, critique, edit, and wrestle with. Our role isn’t to compete with AI or to ban its use out of fear. We’ve been given an opportunity to reflect and redesign learning experiences that ask students to do what AI can’t do: make meaning, exercise judgment, reflect on values, and develop a sense of voice and intent.

Our students will enter a world that invites, tempts, or requires the use of AI. Are we preparing them for that world? Higher education has long been a space where we help learners navigate the complexity and ambiguity of our society with thoughtfulness and preparation. This moment offers us an opportunity to reexamine what we value most about learning and to intentionally teach students how to balance the science of efficiency with the art of being human.

AI, NotebookLM, teaching online, video, Write6x6

Write 6×6 and AI

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I can’t believe it’s been 10 years since we started the blog challenge at GCC. Shout out to Todd Conaway, formerly of Yavapai College, for getting us started. Boy have things changed in these 10 years too. Lisa’s now in charge, and I love that. She gives us some interesting writing prompts that I usually ignore after I’ve spent a few hours thinking about it. I think this time I’ll write on her prompt: “TRUTH: It’s clear that AI tools are here to stay. What “AI hack” have you discovered that you would recommend to a colleague?”

This one is easy. I’m not going to over think this one. I could share how I taught ChatGPT to write like me, and after about a month, I thought it was the weirdest thing ever and stopped. Ha! That’s some scary shit. No doubt. Then I trained it to rewrite my feedback on assignments and add context and detail. For instance, I would write that a particular paragraph was weak, missing a transition, topic sentence doesn’t work and there are numerous run on sentences. I could just add that to the comments section in Canvas for the student to read, but it’s very vague. ChatGPT would take my comments, and knowing what the assignment asked for and the rubric for grading, and it would turn my 3-4 shorthand comments into a wealth of information for students; a full paragraph explaining the importance of using transition, strong topic sentences, and providing examples of run-on sentences. He (he’s a he to me) didn’t even read the student’s work, but was able to provide all that information just from my brief short hand. It was amazing, but that got old quick too. Sad to say I went back to my short hand and rubrics temporarily.

Create Course Content in NotebookLM

All that was dandy, but the AI discovery I want to share with you all today is something I shared with my department during week of accountability. The video below provides an overview of how to enhance online courses using Notebook LM, a tool that allows educators to compile and present course materials in an engaging way, including the creation of multimedia content like video overviews and quizzes for students.

AI, ChaptGPT, grading, Write6x6

Can AI Grade My Essays For Me?

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I made a joke with Beth a few days ago about how I wished AI would grade my essays for me. And then I really thought about that, and now I can’t stop. I mean seriously if AI can write the students’ papers for them, what about us? Why can’t it grade papers too? Well, guess what. It can. I tried it. Shhh. Now don’t tell on me. I used both ChatGPT and Microsoft’s tool built into Bing. GPT is much better.

First off, it was a lot of work, probably equal to if I’d just graded them myself, but the benefit was far better for the student. It spat out paragraph long feedback on what was wrong, how the paper did or didn’t meet each rubric standard, and how to improve the work. I was simply amazed. If I were to leave that kind of feedback on a paper, it would take me days to grade instead of hours. As it is, I’ve already moved to grading by recording my feedback, so I can say more and make it easier for students to understand what I’m saying, but this was amazing.

But like a said. It wasn’t easy or quick. I first began by asking the AI to find a rubric for a news article using a summary lead and following the inverted pyramid style. It quickly pulled up a rubric that was adequate, but it was only on a 10-point scale. I used it anyway to see how it would work. Then my next prompt asked Maud, remember, I named her Maud in my last post. I asked her to grade this news article using that rubric, and pasted in a student’s news article. Surprisingly, it worked. She put the two prompts together and graded the article. It was okay, but there wasn’t much detail and it didn’t really meet the standards I was looking for. I decided instead to ask Maud to build me a rubric and added the essential things and the total points I needed. She created this.

Okay, that was interesting, but could she grade a news article using that rubric? I wondered. Yep! She gave the article a 47/60, provided the tally from the rubric AND added this feedback:

Strengths:

  • The article follows the inverted pyramid structure.
  • The information provided is relevant to the target audience.
  • The article includes quotes from reliable sources.

Weaknesses:

  • The lead is weak and could benefit from being more focused.
  • The article could use more clarity in its presentation of information.
  • The article could be more concise.
  • The article could be more explicit in identifying biases or opinions.

Suggestions for Improvement:

  • The lead should be more specific and focused on the key point of the article.
  • The article should be more clear and concise, with shorter paragraphs and simpler language.
  • The author should explicitly identify any biases or opinions and explain how they might influence the article’s content.
  • The author should consider additional sources to provide a more complete understanding of the issue.

Crazy, right? I probably would have scored it a bit higher, but I noticed Maud didn’t say anything about grammar and punctuation in her feedback and I found a couple of specific errors, so I asked her about them. I typed in, “What about grammar and punctuation?” She replied:

As an AI language model, I don’t have the capability to fully analyze grammar and punctuation, but I can tell you that there are a few errors in the article. For example, in the sentence “This issue goes for not only students but members of the community who live downtown,” the phrase “goes for” should be replaced with “applies to.” Additionally, there are a few instances where punctuation could be improved for clarity and readability. Overall, however, the article is well-written and understandable.

She was right. In another instance, Maud pointed out two run-on sentences in the article and offered a suggestion for how to fix it. Amazing.

Yep, I’m obsessed, but that took a lot of work. In fact, I paused playing so I could quickly grade those news articles and get them back to students. This was going to take all day. First, Maud would forget my rubric after a few follow-up questions about the article she graded, so I’d have to start all over. Then sometimes she would ignore my rubric and just give a paragraph analysis of the article or she would leave out key elements. Basically, she was not consistent and I had to keep retraining her. She gave good feedback, but not the same feedback for each student.

AI, chatgpt, Write6x6

Trashy Romance Novels & Chat GPT

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Okay, this could be good. Or not. How exactly does a trashy romance novel help shape my current approach to your work here at GCC? OMG! I’m going to ask Chat GPT to answer that. That’s a good question for her, Maud. We’re on a first-name basis now. Maud said, “It is unlikely that reading a trashy romance novel would have a direct impact on a teacher’s approach to teaching at a community college. However, there are some potential ways that reading for pleasure could indirectly impact a teacher’s teaching approach.” Well, that’s not very exciting. She’s good at changing the topic or guiding me away from salacious topics and back to more sensible ones. I think I’ll pass on that for now and write about my obsession with Maud (Chat GPT) instead. I’m completely fascinated by how easy it is for students to cheat using AI tools now, and it’s amazing how freaked-out educators across the country have become. Frankly, I find it all amusing. It’s the perfect scenario for forcing people to change, adapt or get out of their comfort zone. I think we get too comfortable in our jobs at times. We like a certain textbook, and even though it’s 20 years old, it still works somehow. Or you might have a lesson or lecture that you started using when you began teaching 10 years ago. The course content hasn’t changed; the lecture is still good, right? Well, that’s the comfortable mindset. We’re in our comfort zone. A comfort zone can be described as “a psychological state in which things feel familiar to a person and they are at ease and in control of their environment, experiencing low levels of anxiety and stress.” Well, Chat GPT and other AI innovations have blown most of us out of our comfort zones. We need to face reality. Just like when Covid hit and we all had to magically transform to online learning almost overnight, we are now once again being challenged to get out of our comfort zones and “reimagine” our assessments. I recently wrote about how to Robot-Proof Your Writing Assignments which includes a few tips for how to create assignments that are more difficult for AI to complete. I’ve also been doing a lot of reading on AI and came across a few resources that I found useful, including this page from the University of Utah which is an excellent resource for AI Generative Tools and tips for assignment design and how to discuss these tools with students. Good luck getting out of your comfort zone once again.