How instructors are responding to the rise in AI
Artificial intelligence (AI), while not a new topic, has risen in popularity since the development of software like ChatGPT and image generators that create visuals from phrases such as ‘purple dog riding a bike.’ Now, the widespread use of AI, from being built into our phones, assisting us with creative pursuits, and being implemented into our workplaces, is appearing in on college campuses.
Our marketing team spoke with a few authors across subject areas about their thoughts on the rise of AI within the college classroom. While some instructors are embracing the changing digital landscape, others are unsure of what AI will mean for their teaching, their students, and their field. Here’s what our authors had to say.
How do you implement digital tools within the classroom?
Dan Reiter, author of Understanding War and Peace
“Narrowly, I don’t use digital tools in the classroom, other than occasionally showing videos.”
Austin Lim, author of Understanding Figures in Neuroscience Research
“Digital tools are a necessary component of data collection in my lab courses, especially for the collection of EEG, EMG, and EOG data. After collecting these data, students come up with strategies on how to most meaningfully analyze those data.”
What are your thoughts on the use of AI in the classroom?
Dan Reiter, author of Understanding War and Peace
“I don’t see any reason to use AI in the classroom, in the literal sense that I don’t know what you would use it for in class that would accomplish my central in class goals, which are to teach students material and foster their intellectual engagement.”
“A central point of teaching is to teach students how to think. Using AI means asking a computer to think instead of the student, which undermines the central mission of teaching. If would be like if I was teaching a wood-working class on how to make furniture, and allowed students to go to a store, buy a chair, and submit that for an assignment. I know that some people say that the workplace will use AI more and more, so students need to get ready for that. However, any job for which you can accomplish workplace tasks using AI is probably a job that will soon be eliminated, in the sense that humans won’t be doing that job much longer. Also, I fear that using AI too much makes students and all people lazy, in the sense that we will get used to asking AI to do a task, and then we won’t even bother to check to see if AI did the task properly.”
Taylan Mavruk, author of Quantitative Research Methods in Corporate Finance
“I do not use AI in my courses yet, but I plan to use it to grade students’ lab work. The quantitative method course for finance and accounting students that I have been offering at University of Gothenburg (GU) has become very popular, so the number of students keeps increasing. I believe using AI for grading their labs will save a lot of time in the course that can be spent on interaction with students instead.
When students use AI to learn and develop their skills, for example, coding, it is fine. But sometimes I recognize that they try to solve the lab work only based on the answers they receive from AI or ChatGPT, I do not see any development in this. It should be used as a tool for developing their skills not as a final answer.”
Austin Lim, author of Understanding Figures in Neuroscience Research
“It has a place to aid in learning. Although I do not allow use during exams, I encourage the use of AI to generate practice questions for their own review during exam prep.”
“Since learning code is not a major course objective, I ask students to use AI for the generation of Python code for the creation of graphs. I ask students to go back and forth with the AI to add specific parameters to their graph: Label the x- and y-axes, put a certain color on certain data sets, add a legend, and add lines of best fit. My philosophy is if they can make the graph the way I want it to look, they can learn to “speak” with the AI to get it to look the way they want it.”
We would love to hear your thoughts on the use of AI in college courses. Share your comments below and keep an eye on this space for more AI related content in the future.
Explore AI related textbooks and books from Cambridge University Press, here.
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