There are lots of ways to use generative AI to improve student assessment, but what about using it to make your life easier as an instructor? If we think about generative AI as an assistant, what kinds of tasks could generative AI help you finish them more effectively (both improving the quality of your work as well as finishing in a more timely manner)?
Why not ask Copilot? After logging in with my IU credentials, I put the following prompt in Copilot (using the formula from our Canvas modules course):
You are an experienced teaching and learning instructional consultant at an R1 university. I am an instructor teaching a large enrollment course for the first time. What are some best practices I should be aware of as I begin to prepare for teaching my large enrollment course?
After looking at the list it generated, I also wondering if Copilot could help me create a rubric for an assignment I am designing for the W131 writing course I am currently teaching. Rubrics are one of our tips for instructors of large enrollment courses and a great way to add transparency to an assignment. They can be a big time-saver with regard to managing the amount of time it takes to grade while also still providing useful student feedback. So I entered:
You are an expert in teaching and learning (on student assessment in general and rubric design in particular). Please create an analytic rubric (reference the Cult of Pedagogy website here: https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/holistic-analytic-single-point-rubrics/) for the [performance task]. Here are the standards/criteria: grammar, spelling, thesis, supporting evidence. Here is the performance task: write a 1000 word essay comparing Roxane Gay’s “Bad Feminist” with McDougall’s “I Hate Strong Female Characters.”
Copilot generated a fairly detailed rubric in seconds. I would not recommend just using the rubric it generated—I would edit it to make sure that it met all my desired specifications—but getting this quick start saved a lot of time. So try this formula for yourself to quickly produce a rough draft of a rubric you can use for an assignment in your large enrollment course:
You are an expert in teaching and learning (on student assessment in general and rubric design in particular). Please create an analytic rubric (reference the Cult of Pedagogy website here: https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/holistic-analytic-single-point-rubrics/) for the [task]. Here are the standards/criteria for this task: [criteria]. Here is the task: [enter assignment description].
Try it out and let us know how it goes!
We also have a new Faculty Showcase coming up soon (October 17th), where you can hear from three excellent instructors who will describe how they are successfully using generative AI to support teaching their large enrollment courses. Otherwise, to learn more about using generative AI in your classroom read our previous blog posts, watch our previous Faculty Showcase on AI assignments, or contact CITL with questions or for a personal teaching consultation on how to get started or how to improve your use of generative AI in your teaching.
References:
Gonin, Madeleine. “Tips for Instructors of Large Multi-section Courses.” CITL blog.
Gonzalez, Jennifer. “Know Your Terms: Holistic, Analytic, and Single-Point Rubrics.” Cult of Pedagogy, May 1, 2014.
Lovett, Marsha C. et al. “Appendix E: What are Rubrics and How Can We Use Them?” How Learning Works: 8 Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching (Jossey-Bass, 2023), 232-241.
Wise, Mark. “Rubric Repair: 5 Changes that Get Results.” Cult of Pedagogy, March 17, 2019.
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