How Educators Can Make the Most of AI

Last week I attended the Teaching and Learning with AI conference, organized by the University of Central Florida Division of Digital Learning. I spent three days immersed in the world of AI, attending sessions and talking to vendors who are on the cutting edge of this new and disruptive technology. I wanted to learn how educators can make the most of AI and I wasn’t disappointed. I came away with a better understanding of what AI can and cannot do for teachers, professors, and organizational trainers.

AI Is Not a Threat

A lot of what we’ve seen in the hysterical media since Chat-GPT launched in 2022 was how AI would destroy education by enabling students to cheat without detection, and that it would mean the end of humanity itself. This is not an unusual reaction to a new technology that induces anxiety over the potential harm that it can produce. On the positive side, this conference brought together faculty, librarians, teachers and vendors to explore the limitations and promise of this emerging technology. Some of the presentations concerned potential cheating by students who ask AI to write their assignments, but most of the conference was devoted to how educators can make productive use of the technology to improve teaching for students and themselves.

How Educators Can Make the Most of AI

There are three areas where AI can be a useful technology. In these days of information overload, AI is one set of tools that can help tame the information beast for our students and ourselves.

• AI to Help Students Learn. Many of the presenters talked about ways to use AI to help students learn. One that caught my eye was presented by Tracy Elliott and Chrissann Ruehle from Florida Gulf Coast University. They included in their classes an AI coach that students use as their personal teaching assistant, able to provide feedback on answers to assignments. They found that the coach enhances student learning both inside and outside of the classroom. It is hard for a student to cheat because using the AI is part of the assignment, and the instructor can monitor what the student does with the tool.
• AI to Lighten the Teaching Workload. Several presentations concerned the use of chat bots. For example, a college instructor can upload the course syllabus and other course material into a bot. Students can then ask the bot questions that otherwise they might email the instructor about. Questions like “Is chapter 4 on the next exam” or “When in the paper due” can be answered by the bot. Students have 24-7 access to this personal assistant and can ask it basic questions rather than bothering the instructor.
• AI As the Topic of Instruction. Students are eager to learn about AI, as it is becoming an important tool for many jobs. For this current generation of students, computer literacy will include skill in using AI tools in the workplace in a variety of ways. The more they use it in school, the better prepared they will be for the modern and future workplace.

Getting Started with AI

Thinking about other computer technologies that have come online in the past, AI is relatively easy to learn. There are a wide variety of AI tools that can be used for education and training. The limit is only the imagination of the instructor in creating assignments that make the most of it. I got inspired by a presentation at a different conference, and opened a subscription to Chat-GPT. It was amazingly easy to tell Chat what I wanted. Some things it did very well and some not so much, but the potential for the tool was apparent. This conference was the perfect place to learn how educators can make the most of AI. I came away with a few ideas that I can’t wait to try out.

Image created by DALL-E 3

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