Are you embracing, curious about or resisting teaching with Generative AI?

  • Are you embracing, curious about or resisting teaching with Generative AI?

    Posted by Kelly Williamson on April 16, 2024 at 5:46 pm

    In the year and a half since Generative AI burst onto the scene, higher education faculty’s attitudes have run the gamut from embracing to resisting GenAI. Two articles published days apart from one another just before the fall 2023 semester demonstrate this divide. On the embracing side, Elizabeth Blakey wrote in the Los Angeles Times (21 August 2023), “Instead of letting chatbots change the learning process, I’ll show my students that anything that chatbots can do, they can do better… I want my students to learn to use AI effectively, since these tools will become ever more common and maybe even indispensable in workplaces and in education.” On the resisting side, Mark Massaro in an article for The Hill (23 August 2023) wrote, “AI has infected higher education like a deathwatch beetle, hollowing out sound structures from the inside until the imminent collapse. With the news media’s devolution into unbridled entertainment, and the internet feeding the misinformed their own narrow-minded rhetoric, the subjective process of critical and logical thinking is a more important skill than ever.”

    Considering the continuum of opinions regarding GenAI in higher education, what is your attitude toward using GenAI in your teaching and what supports your attitude?

    Michael Pelaez replied 1 week ago 3 Members · 3 Replies
  • 3 Replies
  • Mary Kate Terrell

    Member
    May 7, 2024 at 4:33 pm
    42 Points

    I am definitely curious about it. I WANT to embrace it, but I just don’t know enough about it yet. I watched the first lesson and earned a badge about writing prompts in AI and that was interesting. I want to be able to have students prompt AI to do something and then we discuss how it does or doesn’t match information we covered in video lectures and reading assignments. I think that is going to be one of the first ways I use it in my intro classes. But that is just my initial brainstorm about it. I’ll definitely morph that idea over time. Looking forward to the community’s help as ideas develop……

    • Kelly Williamson

      Organizer
      May 7, 2024 at 5:04 pm

      Thanks for getting us started, Mary Kate! I agree that it is difficult to know where to start, but you taking the ACUE AI course is one great place to get started. We will learn together.

  • Michael Pelaez

    Member
    July 19, 2024 at 1:58 pm
    214 Points
    Commons Launch Leader Recognition: Top Founding Contributor

    Good article.

    I liked the idea of using “AI Moments” where the professor lectures on a topic and then asks ChatGPT to do the same and the students decide who did it better.

    My attitude towards Generative AI is that we have no choice but to embrace it. Not doing so is like not embracing online teaching. The best thing we can do as educators is learn everything we can about it; see how we can use it in our classrooms and then choose whether to use it or not while we still can.

    I have a positive view of it as I have used GenAI for tasks in the past and have always been pleasantly surprised by the results.

    I am looking forward to doing the multiple AI courses available including the ACUE ones.

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