AI and My Classroom - How Things Are Going
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In my previous article, AI and Me: How I’m Integrating this new 21st Century Technology into My Teaching, I mentioned that I was integrating AI policies into my classroom teaching. After attending a professional development workshop, I drafted a pretty good AI policy for my class. Here is a snippet of it:
GENERATIVE A.I. POLICY
Centering the concept of “human in the loop”, the idea that human beings must remain relevant and in control of the development and use of artificial intelligence, this course will help reinforce the skills you need to ensure that A.I. (artificial intelligence) is a tool you use and not the other way around.
The skills of success in school and in life will require you to understand the importance of A.I. and learn how to utilize it to enhance your learning and the assignments you submit for this course. In the end, my goal for you is to develop habits for success that include notetaking, analysis, and synthesis, all of which will inform the written work you submit for assessment and evaluation.
I go on to explain the different uses of A.I. (transparent, explicit, and inclusive). I provide students with guidance on how to utilize A.I. to complete assignments. I remind them that they already use A.I. when they turn on Grammar Checker or Spell Checker in word processing applications. A.I. helps with suggestive text.
And of course, Grammarly is a wonderful A.I. tool that helps us learn to be better writers by suggesting phrasing and word usage. These tools are not what I am prohibiting in my class. What I am prohibiting is excessive use where almost all the content is not their own.
I’ve had students turn in whole papers using A.I. Recently one used it to draft their responses to questions that were submitted in an audio format (FlipGrid). The A.I. usage is obvious to me because I require using our course resources in their assignments, including quotes.
Their papers and audio did not contain any of them. The tone and word choice are also a giveaway: they are above the level I expect of a first-year student. Some submissions sound like master’s or doctoral-level discourse and analysis.
To be fair, I also measure their written work against their classroom participation. I do my best to triangulate the information before I make any accusations. When students do submit something that I think may have excessive A.I. use, I give them a few options:
Take a Zero on the assignment
Redo the assignment using a paper essay writing book (i.e., Blue Book) that I provide, and hard copy notes of their annotations
Show me the annotations and drafts that informed the final version of the assignment they submitted
This puts the onus on the student to defend their work. If they can, then I compliment them on their mature writing ability and reassess their work. If they cannot, they get a Zero on the assignment.
If the student still does not take responsibility for their actions, I elevate the consequence to an Academic Dishonesty report. I have not had to do this yet but am prepared to do so if the student response warrants it.
As I’ve mentioned before, I continue to treat A.I. like all other technology that enters my classroom. I do my best to keep it in check so that it does not hijack the learning. I will continue to remind the students that it is just a tool. I then continue to help students develop their uniquely human skills to ensure that they remain the “human in the loop”.
What are you doing to implement A.I. policies in your classroom? How is it going this semester? If you need help drafting an A.I. policy, let me know. I’d be glad to share mine with you.