I recently observed (but did not participate in) a conversation of higher education faculty and (to no one’s surprise) AI came up when they were asked about challenges they face. Although the research seems somewhat ambiguous, and the recommendations are even mor ambiguous, I think we can confidently assume that most of our students are using AI to complete their work.
Because I did not participate in the conversations, I saved this snarky observation for this post: We should congratulate students on their use of AI to complete their work. Here me out.
Many students are in our course because they are required. To get your degree, you need to fulfill distribution requirements which means they need to take courses that are not of interest. Of course, even if students are “majors” they still use AI. I am convinced teachers have relied on the “you need to know this later” argument to motivate their students for too long.
If we leave motivation out of the mix, we still have students who are in courses because they need to become certified, to get a job, to keep a job, or to get a raise. When I taught in K-12 school, many students cared only to get a grade and move on, just like folks taking courses for their jobs. In these circumstances, we must assume that students want to just get a grade and move on.
We should congratulate those students on using AI. I spent most of my career in educational technology arguing that folks should choose the appropriate technology. Those students have found it and are using it. They make the work for teachers much easier too. Work submitted by AI is generally good enough for a passing grade, so we spend less time grading.
Of course, we want our students (even those who do not want to be there) to develop skills and knowledge they will be able to use in other settings. I suppose I am being presumptive in this claim. I did ask a teacher who was complaining about an initiate underway at the school with the words “I just want to know what works?” I asked him what he meant by “What do you mean by ‘what works’?” His response was “I want them to pass the test.” If teachers want their students to learn rather than just perform well on tests, then they are going to have to update their courses to include assignments that cannot be done by AI.
Back to the teachers whose conversations I was observing; they had a pretty good list of ideas of how to address some of their concerns. They suggested strategies they had already tried:
- Blue Books or pencil and paper tests—Great ideas, unless your students can write (physically). Of course, we can replicate that with lockdown browsers, but don’t tell IT they need to troubleshoot them on remote students’ computers.
- Presentations—Where students’ grades are based on the questions they ask and answer. Another great idea, but it will take time.
- Cases studies completed in class—Another great idea except for online students; well maybe online students. During the pandemic, I had some good results having students solved cases during recorded video meetings.
I am convinced these are all great ideas, but they have nothing to do with AI. They are great ideas even if students are taking traditional tests and writing traditional essays and research papers. The reaction to teachers’ perceptions to AI are no different than they were for the internet, calculators, or even the encyclopedias my classmates copied essay from when I was a student. In each case, the question from teachers was “Who do we stop students from just copying?”
I think the answer is contained in the question: assign work that cannot be copied. The next step for teachers is to ask, “How do we do that?”
They just did. See the list above.
I will take time. That is not correct. These solutions have always taken a long time. The AI has not changed that reality.