A few millennia ago, Plato was anxious about a new technology called writing, fearing it would degrade people’s capacity for memory. Writing took hold, of course, despite the philosopher’s qualms. Today, we all accept writing as an indispensable tool for sharing knowledge and expressing the self. But new technologies are shaking up our educational philosophies around writing with increasing frequency. Typing replaced handwriting. Spell check left dictionaries gathering dust. The internet revolutionized traditionally slow processes of research and dissemination. And now, machines can write eloquently. What would Plato think of generative artificial intelligence (gen AI), I wonder?
While I can’t speak for Plato, I can speak for myself. I admittedly am not in the “early adopter” camp of educators who have devised creative ways to incorporate gen AI into learning (see, for example, TextGenEd). I empathize with widespread faculty sentiments around gen AI:
- Frustration that we’re in the role of reacting to decisions made in the tech industry, inconveniently thrust upon us on top of other seismic changes to our profession (and our society and planet more broadly).
- Exasperation that we need to now devote our limited time and energy to learning about something apparently irrelevant to our scholarly interests.
- Alarm that, although we may ban all AI in our syllabus policy, students still seem to be using it, burdening us with nauseating decisions about surveillance and punishment that make us feel more like police than teachers.
- Confusion at the mixed messages circulating about the importance of AI literacy for our students as rising professionals versus scholarly beliefs in originality, writerly voice, intellectual property, and the purpose of higher education.
As the CITL’s writing specialist, I’m not here to tell you what to think about gen AI’s capacity for writing. I do want to help you dialogue with your students about whatever your stance is. My colleague Maggie Gilchrist and I will be facilitating a workshop on this topic on January 9, “Articulating Your AI Philosophy to Your Students.” As a preview, I’d like to share some ideas as you prepare for spring semester.
How can you ensure your students understand your AI stance? Syllabus statements are a start, but the more you can engage students in discussion about the guidelines, the more likely they are to understand and respect them. Some ideas:
- Are you open to student input on your guidelines? If so, you could present a draft, open the floor to discussion, then take a vote on any proposed changes. Students might be more inclined to follow the policy if it feels more like a social contract supported by their peers and less like the peculiar perspective of an individual instructor.
- How can you learn where your students are coming from in their own approach to and understanding of AI? Approaching teaching like research, you can ask your students about their experience with and perspective on gen AI. This could take the form of an anonymous survey (or notecards), or a quick writing assignment graded on completion or not graded at all. What gen AI tools have they used? For what kinds of writing? Do they know what “hallucinations” are? Do they understand the basics of how large language models work (guessing at probabilities)? Do they think gen AI writes well? Do they think it writes better than they do? All this information could inform the ways you talk to your students about AI—which ideally should come up before every major assignment.
- Can you tie your stance to the bigger picture—your teaching philosophy and your ideals of higher ed? I often hear faculty members expressing concern that many students take an ultra-pragmatic view of college that goes something like this: we are here to check requirements off a list so we can earn credentials that we will redeem for employment. Most instructors take a loftier view of college as cultivating curiosity, ethics, and critical thought. Connecting your stance to your values could help your students understand and appreciate your assignments as more than an obligation to be completed as efficiently as possible. Taking some class time to talk about why we’re all at this thing called a university will, in my view, be some of the most productive minutes we can spend with our students.
What ideas do you have? I’d love to hear them; please consider leaving a comment or emailing me. Also, beyond participating in the January 9 workshop with Maggie Gilchrist and me, check out:
- The CITL’s self-paced modules on gen AI
- The CITL resource “How to Productively Address AI-Generated Text in Your Classroom”
- My colleague Eric Brinkman’s great posts and recordings on this topic
- The book Teaching with AI, available online through the IU Libraries
- The Campus Writing Program
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