Artificial intelligence (AI) seemingly dominates everywhere, as its predecessors are evident in almost every situation. These dialogues happen virtually daily in corporations and sciences but are just fledging among most professors in the idea-selling platforms of colleges and universities. The buck stops with many faculty members from different academic backgrounds here because their teaching and research touch AI occasionally.
Faculty AI adoption
While students are already taking off in terms of AI, figuring out how to apply it to their everyday lives and using it in class, instructors are still coping with the disruption that AI brings to their teaching methodologies. Be it blog content, coding assignments, or coursework, 54% of college students found AI helpful while working on these tasks in the latest survey by BestColleges, according to the year 2023.
This research reveals that faculty members use it to either incorporate it into their assignments or to grade papers without entirely depending on it, or they use it to collect ideas for studies they may conduct in the future. I conversed with some faculty members who are positive toward AI. They shared their approaches to utilizing AI in the classroom. Angela Seaworth, Assistant Professor of Instruction of the College of Agriculture and Life Science at the Texas A&M University in College Station, TX, is actively incorporating AI usage towards her teaching. Seaworth provides a lesson on covering training costs.
She mentioned, “I’ve done this for assignments to let learners see the results of processes they’ve done.” This composition includes writing donor letters and expressions of appreciation—with AI and without. Next, she asks the children to relate the letters to the music they make. Seaworth believes that students have enjoyed the exercise, and they often make their writing.
AI concerns and caution
Since fundraising is a personal matter that takes time, AI may be able to encompass the feelings that a human would know a donor. Brittany Myburgh is a University History Art Assistant Professor at the Historically Black Institution in Jackson, MS, Jackson State University (JSU). Using AI as a tool for imaginary enhancement, Dr. As she expressed, “At Jackson State University, we truly care where our generative AI provides benefits but at the same time challenges the issue of algorithms bias.”
Recently, she and her colleagues in the series of Leadership and Legacy trained AI assistants in advising students to think about their careers and paths as students creatively. She said, “These AI chatbots are trained in the dataset of our degree maps and general education These initiatives reflect our commitment to student success in a tech-driven world.” She also emphasized how important it is to Jackson State that AI is ethically integrated and used to prepare students for the complexities of the future job market.
In his LinkedIn post, Meer suggested using the 80:20 rule to boost your efficiency. He suggested the following prompt: “The 80/20 rule can be applied in [insert subject or field]; what among the 20% concepts that I will learn can give me an 80% understanding of the topics?” Please concisely explain the concepts.” Why this prompt: Research showed that the 80/20 Principle (or in other words – Pareto’s Principle) could be one of the most effective techniques for studying, meaning that 80% of your learning outcome could be achieved while memorizing just 20% of the material. This way, the most essential information will be selected, leaving you with an understandably high level of information without much effort. Hence, strides can be taken, and students can create a directed reading list on any topic.
Balancing innovation and ethics
However, some faculty members may have various doubts about the new educational landscape of AI since more and more students are choosing AI. Marc Watkins is the Innovation Fellow attached to the Academic Affairs of the University of Mississippi, which thinks students won’t use AI to complete assignments but will use it “for the aid of their work, not replacing it.”
Many lecturers, consequently, are uninterested in integrating AI into the learning process, either in class or in general. This occurs as can be expected from the personality view of the lecturer from Harvard University on education, as Houman Harouni said. He said, “That disclosure creates a shockwave in people’s minds.” This distinctive shock puts faculty in a dilemma, and they cannot even bear it.” Harouni thinks that faculty must not pretend that AI doesn’t exist; they can involve students in the process, teach students to ask AI questions, and use AI to teach students how imagination can be developed.
Ross Aikins, Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, stresses that “Instructors who consider these technologies as a downside or just a cheating tool are oblivious of the big picture they should be seeing now: today students are leveraging AI tools to compensate the shortcomings they face in the academics, and they have the better support.” There are arguments here and there that limit its use to an extent, but I guess everybody will agree that educating students is of great significance as long as it is used responsibly. Following interviews with the students, the researchers found that the faculty rarely mentioned AI in their courses and did no more than 2 or 3 policies dealing with AI in the curriculum.
As the AI landscape evolves and the speed of the transformation becomes clear, all people involved in AI have to be prepared to use it wisely, in both creative and transformational ways, while also remaining concerned about possible academic integrity issues.
This article originally appeared in Forbes.
