The University of Alabama is embracing the usage of AI in the classroom with the Artificial Intelligence Teaching Enhancement Initiative, which guides faculty on incorporating the technology in the classroom.
Initially classes started out at around a dozen faculty members. Now interest has ramped up and classes max out at 20 faculty members, with many more showing interest, according to the campus. The program also partners with UA Teaching Academy to host workshops about how to create innovative assignments while maintaining academic integrity.
University of Alabama associate professor of history Lawrence Cappello and assistant professor of anthropology Katherine Chiou founded the AI Teaching Enhancement Initiative in 2023. The two were intrigued as to how AI could be used to address student disengagement after the pandemic.
“Naturally, we’re instructors, first and foremost,” Chiou said. “We come from different disciplines. We think that we’re able to contribute by basically telling other faculty how we have found it useful and how we have decided to begin to incorporate things into our own classes.”
UA’s policies on using AI include that students shouldn’t use AI to “substantially generate” an assignment. For instructors, AI should not be the primary method for grading work.
“Generative AI, if used at all, should be an aid to rather than a substitute for learning in the classroom, whether in-person or virtual,” the policy states.
Cappello said educating faculty will encompass more than in-person classes. There are plans to have online modules on assignment generation, and how to AI-proof assignments as well as AI experts available to faculty who have questions.
Educators must understand that artificial intelligence isn’t a fad. Cappello said AI is “one of the most transformative things that’s happened to education in 100 years, and we’re on this brink of a new era where employers are going to be expecting that anyone with a college degree, regardless of their major, will be at least somewhat familiar with how AI is used.”
Chiou artificial intelligence is in the classroom and the academy to stay. A June study from Pearson indicated students are using AI to help them get better grades. Students are using AI tools to help them understand more complex topics and study better.
However, that doesn’t mean students are using the technology to cheat. An anonymous survey by Stanford University in 2023 showed students cheating more because of artificial intelligence.
“The truth is, regardless of whether or not we ban AI in our classrooms, the students are using it, and that’s what the research is showing,” she said.
Chiou said AI shouldn’t be seen as a threat but as an opportunity to “enhance pedagogical aims.”
Educators shouldn’t be afraid of AI. Instead, the first steps to embracing AI are playing with the technology and having thoughtful discussions.
Chiou said teachers need to learn how generative AI has developed over the last several years, how data is obtained, and how it’s trained.
“We teach workshops for faculty across UA to upskill them on AI and how to use AI in generating assignments and assessments and help with lecture prep, while also teaching how not to use AI for certain things,” Chiou said.
There’s no need to be an expert, but being “conversant with these tools” is expected regardless of major, Cappello said.
One of the main components educators need to understand is the need for extensive policies and strategies about privacy and ethical usage.
“It is adapt or die time,” Cappello said.
One recent creative application Chiou read is how an anthropologist used AI to “develop a visitor guide to certain periods in time.” She said image generation technology can help students bring art history to life.
Cappello believes incorporating AI into lessons can increase student engagement lost during the pandemic.
“It makes students think differently about the kinds of material that they’re dealing with in perhaps less of a of a passive way,” Chiou said.
Cappello created a chatbot to advocate for one particular viewpoint in a debate. Students interact with the chatbot to discuss subjects like whether or not capital punishment is cruel and unusual punishment. To complete the assignment, students must engage using three different counterpoints and present evidence.
Artificial intelligence can serve as opposing counsel in mock trials. For example, a chatbot can create jury selection questions that students must answer verbally.
While understanding and learning AI is essential, ensuring students are still learning using traditional methods is also important.
“It’s absolutely crucial that we make sure students are still learning these old-school problem-solving skills that have been taught for generations that have nothing to do with tech, Cappello said.
Blending traditional assignments with artificial intelligence can be an innovative way of introducing students to the technology.
Cappello said these methods include conducting independent research, considering objections, making conclusions, learning trial and error, and learning how to think for themselves. He said this is important to prevent AI from being a crutch or a tool used for plagiarism.
Some of those “old school” methods include asking students to put tablets away and using pen and paper or standardized testing booklets like Blue Book.” Teachers can employ oral testing for students or use technology like web browser blockers.
Adjustments need to be made to classroom and homework assignments. He said teachers would be “irresponsible” to assign students a paper to take home and “hope that they don’t use AI because you told them not to.”
Cappello suggested students keep an artificial intelligence log. For a take-home assignment, students take home three questions they must answer and show how they interacted with AI for the final paper.
Because AI has a tendency to “hallucinate,” meaning it can create incorrect answers that sometimes “smacks of the truth,” students must “verify the research” to figure out what’s wrong.
Chiou said it’s important to put students in the “driver’s seat” so they can control and verify the information they glean from AI.
Because AI isn’t foolproof, Cappello creates history assignments where 25 percent of the text from ChatGPT is incorrect. Students must determine where the errors are and make the correct changes.
“So that’s the challenge right now for teachers and students in this moment,” Cappello said. “How do we balance teaching old-school critical thinking skills without the use of tech because it’s so important but also recognizing that we have this ethical duty now to integrate AI into the classroom on at least some level because we do have to prepare students for the future?”
Artificial intelligence may not be needed for instructors in foundational or introductory subjects. Cappello used mathematics as an allegory for how AI is an added tool for student mastery. Elementary school students must learn multiplication tables. However, in higher-level courses like trigonometry, students must use calculators.
Chiou and Cappello said AI is not “the devil,” and students aren’t looking for the easy way out. AI is not “the death of learning and expertise.”
“If you give this to good teachers, it can make them great teachers,” Cappello said. New teachers can create innovative curricula, and more experienced teachers can “connect easier with their students.”
Teachers can use AI to repackage material into more creative or humorous assignments. A two-hour lecture can be broken down into shorter, more digestible segments to accommodate students’ learning capabilities. Chiou said teachers can guide students in transforming lesson content into podcast segments or social media posts.
Cappello calls AI a “force multiplier.”
“It just allows me to do a lot more in the same amount of time,” he said.
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