AI and Me: How I’m Integrating this new 21st Century Technology into My Teaching

ChatGPT is on every college professor’s mind these days
(Image courtesy of Emiliano Vittoriosi on Unsplash)

Well… I finally did it. I decided to face the enemy and learn how to work with it. What enemy am I talking about? AI, artificial intelligence… specifically Large Language Systems like ChatGPT and the like.

I’m a low-tech person by nature. I would not consider a power outage or a battery drain a reason to stop my learning or teaching. As a GenX person, I have lived in the world before and after the advent of the internet. I see the importance of knowing how to not let a technological glitch keep me from accomplishing my goals. Therefore, my goal is to help students practice and strengthen the unique qualities that make them human – creativity, innovation, analysis, originality, and compassion. My classroom is set up to help foster the development of the things that only humans can do and do well… with or without technology.

I was at a fitness class a couple of weeks ago, and the instructor brought her 7-year-old daughter to sit in the corner to wait for her. During the class, the daughter had her electronic tablet and was playing games on it. After class, some of the students said things like, “These kids were born with this technology”, and “It’s like second nature to them”. I saw many people try to provide their two cents to the instructor about her daughter and the tablet. I was about to, but then I heard the instructor say something to one of the students, “I didn’t have childcare today, so this is what I had to do”.

As a parent of two children who are now in their mid to late teens, I can sympathize. I brought my children to class with me a couple of times because of a lack of childcare during the random day when their school was closed. Technology helps provide a good enough distraction so that we adults can get other important work done. I did not agree with the sentiments of the other students in the fitness class. Students are not “born with” technology.

Neither are they “naturals” at it. We decide to give them the devices. They are not old enough to work to make the income to purchase these devices on their own. We as the adults in their lives give them these devices. Because they have no other alternative before them and are driven by a natural curiosity, children do figure out how to live and thrive with technology.

I say all this to make the point that technology is not part of our human nature. It is a tool that we use to – ideally – amplify our creativity, innovation, analysis, originality, and compassion. AI in the form of ChatGPT, Dall-e (graphics generator), and others attempt to do all these tasks for us… if we let it. In my classroom, I emphasize the importance of keeping the “human in the loop”. This is a concept with AI innovation that emphasizes the importance of maintaining the human being in control, or at least at the forefront, of the technology.

Developing our uniquely human qualities allows us to develop protocols to know when the technology is going array. For example, when AI uses bigoted or insensitive language in a narrative. Human beings should not relinquish responsibility to the technology. We should know to step in and correct, edit, and replace incorrect information. Deferring to technology is a dereliction of our responsibility to our fellow human beings. Assuming that the technology is correct all the time is ignoring the inherent errors of the technology that we put in it. AI and other LLS are only as good as the data we provide them… and we have provided it with imperfect data that reflects our own human imperfections.

So, how will I help my students develop these skills and sensitivities? Through low-tech approaches to learning. At my institution, there are faculty workshops and courses to learn about AI and develop utilization policies in the classroom. I took one of those courses this week and developed a pretty good policy that I will share with my peers in my department.

In my policy, I provide a rationale for why I deemphasize the use of technology in the classroom. I require a paper and pencil/pen notetaking practice. We use handouts to annotate film and audio material. And I ask for periodic audio submissions of their ideas as they relate to a prompt. Once again, I want students to remain the “human in the loop”. Not doing so factors them out of the equation of the 21st-century workforce.

I am clear that AI and other technologies will be important to the work my students do in the 21st century. I encourage them to practice using AI technology more deliberately in other classes. I then remind them that turning on Grammar Checker and Spell Checker in their word processor is utilizing AI technology. It is not prohibited in my classroom. I just don’t want them to use it to replace themselves in the process of learning. I’ve had students turn in whole papers using AI. I know this because I require them to use our course resources in their written work and their papers did not contain any of them. The consequences are substantial point deductions.

In the end, I will treat AI like all other technology that enters my classroom. I will keep it at bay so that it does not hijack the learning. I will help students see it for what it is and what it should be – a tool. I then help students develop their uniquely human skills to ensure that they remain the “human in the loop”.

What are you doing to implement AI policies in your classroom? If you have not gotten that far in your course prep, let me know if you want to see a copy of my AI policy. I’d be glad to share it with you.