An English instructor at the University of Victoria is one of many at the school trying to figure out how artificial intelligence can be used as a tool to help students and how it also has the potential to be harmful to studentsB次元官网网址 learning.
In associate professor Erin KellyB次元官网网址檚 young adult fiction class, she allows her students to use AI to write a 500-word essay in one of the assignments. The class is given the choice if they want to experiment with ChatGPT and generate a short essay, but after students are tasked with writing another essay critiquing the botB次元官网网址檚 work.
B次元官网网址淭here are a number of students who have opted to pick those choices for assignments because in a lot of cases what theyB次元官网网址檙e saying is, B次元官网网址楾his is something I hear a lot about. IB次元官网网址檝e never used it. IB次元官网网址檓 interested in experimenting with it a little bit,B次元官网网址 Kelly says. B次元官网网址淪ometimes I will even get something like, B次元官网网址業 am an English major interested in becoming a professional writer and researcher and IB次元官网网址檓 anxious about ChatGPT because of all the things I hear,B次元官网网址 and this is a new chance to finally get to play with it and see what it can do.B次元官网网址
Kelly explains that allowing her students to use ChatGPT lets them engage with the course material from a different perspective, but is also giving them an informed sense of what type of tool the software is.
The associate professor also works as the director of the academic and technical writing program at UVic and says sheB次元官网网址檚 had instructors come to her suspecting a student could be using AI instead of their own writing, violating UVicB次元官网网址檚 . Within the guidelines it states, B次元官网网址渉anding in a paragraph generated by ChatGPT as an example of your writing is a form of plagiarism and thus would violate .B次元官网网址 According to the policy, plagiarism can result in either a failing grade for the assignment or even a failing grade for the course.
Derek Murray, an education developer at Camosun College, says AI has brought both opportunities and challenges to post-secondary education. He told Black Press Media in a statement that easy access to software like ChatGPT can make it tempting for students to take shortcuts which has made academic integrity a major and valid concern for the college.
Murray also found that students had a hard time identifying when it is okay to use AI.
B次元官网网址淭he lack of clarity and consistency around appropriate use of AI is something we need to address as educators,B次元官网网址 said Murray in a statement.
Camosun CollegeB次元官网网址檚 policy on plagiarism is similar, noting that B次元官网网址減lagiarism is the intentional or unintentional presentation of work, ideas and expression of ideas that is other than oneB次元官网网址檚 own.B次元官网网址
Depending on the instructor, if a student uses AI at the college the student can fail the paper and have it go on their permanent record, according to Bronwen Welch, an English instructor at the school.
Welch tends to heavily discourage the use of AI in her writing and literature classes because she wants students to learn how to think critically for themselves. She says AI might be used to come up with ideas for students, but that could get in the way of the creative and analytical process.
B次元官网网址淎s far as IB次元官网网址檓 concerned, we should start brainstorming on our own before we seek out things which will do the brainstorming for us.B次元官网网址
Welch says she and her colleagues are at their limit because AI is being used as a tool for plagiarism constantly in their classes. Recently, Welch had to speak to eight students in one day about how AI-generated material is plagiarism. She says some of the students intentionally plagiarized while others were confused about using it as a tool.
ItB次元官网网址檚 become a cause of frustration for her and other instructors, as well as an enormous problem that takes several steps to weed out.
B次元官网网址淲e have to locate the plagiarized portion of the paper, but then we have to make sure that we can demonstrate that this is indeed AI. So it means we have to go back over the studentB次元官网网址檚 previous writing. It means we have to have a conversation with the student.
B次元官网网址淚t all takes hours and itB次元官网网址檚 wasting so much time.B次元官网网址
At UVic, not only does using AI-generated material come with penalties, but all the assignments Kelly has seen that contain large amounts of AI-written content are not even passable.
B次元官网网址淚 have not seen a single piece of student work B次元官网网址 where we believed that it was possible that a student might have been using an AI tool B次元官网网址 where that piece of work was actually a successful, effective, good passing assignment,B次元官网网址 Kelly says.
Allyson Hadwin, a professor in educational psychology, is also one of the many professors at UVic figuring out how the software can be used in schools.
But she says itB次元官网网址檚 on the educators to help the students with the skills and strategies to figure out when, how and why to leverage AI in their work.
B次元官网网址淗ow can we really use these tools to improve human capacity to learn, to work, to be creative, those are things that are really going to matter more as AI can step in to do more menial types of things,B次元官网网址 Hadwin says.
Using AI as a research tool is what Hadwin has been specifically exploring. Semantic Scholar, Inciteful and Research Rabbit are some of the software she uses to compare to more traditional research tools. Hadwin has found that AI is good at finding a fair amount of research, but not as good at finding accurate research.
B次元官网网址淲hen weB次元官网网址檙e using these types of tools and we find those articles, then how do we know if theyB次元官网网址檙e good? How do we judge the quality of the research that weB次元官网网址檙e reviewing.B次元官网网址
Second-year psychology student Ziya Cassam has used ChatGPT in a similar way to research topics.
B次元官网网址淚t helps me get more information on topics that IB次元官网网址檓 kind of unsure about. If thereB次元官网网址檚 a project and I want to get more information on something IB次元官网网址檒l tell them to explain this topic and then I can use some of that in my work, but not directly.B次元官网网址
Cassam is also using ChatGPT to help her connect topics within her writing.
B次元官网网址淚 wonB次元官网网址檛 copy exactly what they say, but IB次元官网网址檒l just ask if it sounds well or if I should change anything in the sentence.B次元官网网址
However, the student has also noticed the flaws of ChatGPT, with the writing sometimes sounding unnatural or B次元官网网址渞eally artificial.B次元官网网址
Hadwin says some of the examples ChatGPT will provide are unclear, but if the right questions are asked the AI can find better-quality answers. It can also be used to connect ideas while researching and writing.
B次元官网网址淚f you come at it enough ways you can start to see the patterns and sometimes it can help students who are new to research to figure out what the right terms are to be finding more information on that topic.B次元官网网址
Assistant professor in educational psychology Mariel Miller says that to use AI responsibly students need to define what theyB次元官网网址檙e aiming to achieve before jumping in and using the software.
She says they need to be aware of the capabilities B次元官网网址 and limitations B次元官网网址 of AI, so itB次元官网网址檚 about building that literacy.
B次元官网网址淎I is not more inherently trustworthy or less prone to error than humans. The information might be inaccurate or out of date..B次元官网网址
Miller also emphasizes how important it is for students to understand the ways AI can be effectively and ethically used.
B次元官网网址淪tudents need to ask themselves, how is AI helping me to learn in this situation? And on the other hand, how is it actually taking away from my learning?B次元官网网址
Instructors are uncertain how the future of AI will exactly fit into the education system, but regardless Kelly believes that this will impact several departments and areas of study across UVic. She is certain that working with a variety of departments will get everyone closer to reaching a consensus on how this new technology can be responsibly used.
B次元官网网址淚t really forces us all to talk to each other and to learn from each other and to have a bigger sense of whatB次元官网网址檚 going on across the university in order to come up with good responses and policies. So I actually think that this is an opportunity for universities to think at of a grander scale about what it is we do and how to do it well.B次元官网网址
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