Photo by Igor Omilaev on Unsplash
By Diane Janes, Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (CELT)
This post was also shared internally via TRU Connect
So, I have been around the classroom for a while…I can remember as a child when calculators were banned in K-12 (it would ruin mathematics understanding), when the internet was a novel thing and a daunting concern (how do we navigate the digital citizenship needed to ensure that media literacy was understood by our learners; we’re still working on that one!), cell phones (distracting), and now generative AI has arrived. Don’t get me started on the issues raised (before my time) of the dangers of publishing to the common folk via the Gutenberg press (Jarvis, 2023), and the dangers of the radio, telephone, and television (all destined to ruin family and learning lives). Did they disrupt? Yes, they did. Do we still need to find ways to navigate some of the older technologies I have mentioned? Yes, we do.
What all of the technology that I mentioned from Guttenberg to ChatGPT today have in common, is that within that disruption came things we wished to retreat from (my cell phone is sometimes the bane of my existence), and things we need to think about and find solutions to potential issues that arrived with them, all the way, to the benefits and wonders of that technology (I hold in my hand technology that far exceeds the sophistication of the technology that led to the moon walk; an event that I was able to watch with curiosity, as a child, on my grandmother’s black and white television, bought just for the occasion).
Sometimes what is disruptive can be useful to learning by pushing educational boundaries and entrenched beliefs; that disruption can change the way we think about education and take us out of our comfort zone. From that can come opportunities that allow us to move our learners even closer to the world they will live in and away from the one we were born in. Educators throughout all of history have understood this.
The Center for Teaching Innovation (CTI) at Cornell University defines Generative Artificial Intelligence as “…a subset of AI that utilizes machine learning models to create new, original content, such as images, text, or music, based on patterns and structures learned from existing data” (Center for Teaching Innovation, 2023, para. 4). We know that Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) in education is not new. According to Woolf (1991), work in this area appeared as early as the 1950s (John McCarthy, Arthur Smauel, Oliver Selfridge, and Alan Turing, to name a few, were engaged in this field) that led to ELIZA, SHAKEY and STUDENT in the 1960s (Karjian, 2023), while by the 1970s projects like SCHOLAR, and SOPHIE were created “…to parse student questions” (Woolf, 1991, p. 7) and GUIDON and MYCIN advanced AI in medical education for medical students, around the same timeframe.
In trying to see how generative AI might fit into your classroom, CTI suggests that educators might wish to consider how AI could potentially impact their teaching by thinking through the following (Center for Teaching Innovation, 2023, para. 9):
- Reflect – what is your reaction? What do you need to know more about to make an “…informed decision about whether or not to incorporate it into your courses?” (para. 9).
- Try it out – what would it look like if you picked “…a tool, then ask[ed] it to complete an assignment you’d give your students” (para. 9); what are the possible academic integrity issues or are there prospects for new learning?
- Predict and inquire – if your students use this, how do they use it? Do you need to modify, redirect, or change outright, current assignments? How can you identify areas in your class where AI might “…encourage deeper or more critical thinking?” (para. 9).
- Learn more – have you talked to colleagues, students, or others, “…about the impact generative AI is having” on your discipline or classroom? (para. 9)
- Set your parameters – do you want your learners to use AI? Then “Clearly communicate your parameters and expectations with them” (para. 9). Do you and your colleagues want to consider a departmental perspective on AI usage? Does your syllabus need some updated statement and/or guidance on its use by learners? Might this be an opportunity to redesign your course vs just your assessments or syllabus?
Clearly there are issues here – social justice, academic integrity, and inaccuracies (or complete fabrication) in the information produced by these tools, are just a few of the ethical considerations that are currently being discussed. Universities, faculty, and learners have some real concerns on how to go forward. These are early days, and the conclusion that this will benefit, or hinder, learning remains unseen. Like all other new technology that is introduced, approach it carefully, with an open mind; and become engaged and informed.
I encourage you to explore the CTI Cornell website, as they have some ideas on how you might use AI in your classroom. Finally, I leave you with this thought: “…developing AI literacy will be an ongoing process, but one that is vital to helping you and your students become more informed and responsible users and creators of AI technologies” (Center for Teaching Innovation, 2023, para. 18). If you want to have a conversation about AI, and your teaching and learning practice, reach out to CELT at CELT@tru.ca.
Want to discuss generative AI with colleagues? Join our TRU Faculty Reading Group, co-hosted by CELT and LTI faculty. Click here to register!
References
Center for Teaching Innovation. (2023). Generative Artificial Intelligence. Cornell University. [website] https://teaching.cornell.edu/generative-artificial-intelligence#:~:text=Generative%20artificial%20intelligence%20is%20a,structures%20learned%20from%20existing%20data
Jarvis, J. (2023). The Gutenberg Parenthesis. Bloomsbury Publishing. https://www.bloomsbury.com/ca/gutenberg-parenthesis-9781501394829/
Karjian, R. (2023). The history of artificial intelligence: Complete AI timeline. TechTarget. [website] https://www.techtarget.com/searchenterpriseai/tip/The-history-of-artificial-intelligence-Complete-AI-timeline
Teach Democracy. (2009). Gutenberg and the Printing Revolution in Europe. [website] https://www.crf-usa.org/bill-of-rights-in-action/bria-24-3-b-gutenberg-and-the-printing-revolution-in-europe
U.S. Department of Education, Office of Educational Technology. (2023). Artificial Intelligence and Future of Teaching and Learning: Insights and Recommendations, Washington, DC. https://www2.ed.gov/documents/ai-report/ai-report.pdf
Woolf, B. P. (1991). AI in Education. In Shapiro, S.C., (Ed)., Encyclopedia of Artificial Intelligence (2nd ed). NY: New York, John Wiley and Sons. Retrieved from https://web.cs.umass.edu/publication/docs/1991/UM-CS-1991-037.pdf
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