Dive Brief:
- With the use of artificial intelligence in schools proliferating rapidly, educators are looking for ways to ensure students create their own work instead of relying on the technology. At risk? Critical thinking skills, according to a recent study from Carnegie Mellon University and Microsoft Research.
- One of the best tools to help students effectively use AI rather than leaning on it to do all of their work is to sit directly with the educators who teach them, said Danny Liu, a professor at The University of Sydney in Australia.
- Two years after the launch of ChatGPT, Liu said, the idea of “AI-proofing” assessments no longer works. The sooner those in the educational sphere accept that fact, he said, the more quickly people can start engaging with how to use AI rather than thinking of ways to avoid the technology.
Dive Insight:
Educators bear some responsibility for developing a curriculum that works in tandem with AI, said Liu, who is also a member of the Educational Innovation Team in the university’s Office of the Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Education.
“Students are already using AI,” he said. “It’s our job as educators to help them use it better, in ways that will help them learn and develop as individuals and leaders — not to replace this.”
He noted that assessment design can shift and include 1:1 conversations where students engage with educators in a “face-to-face” scenario rather than take traditional exams and tests. At The University of Sydney, he helped co-author a guide on how to develop assessments that acknowledge the fact that AI is a tool that’s not disappearing. The guide walks educators through using AI as they develop these tests.
Ultimately, said Liu, teachers should work with their students on different approaches incorporating AI rather than avoiding or ignoring its growing use in schools, work and beyond. AI, said Liu, will be as ubiquitous in the future “as much as electricity is part of our present reality.”
As such, “educators should be encouraging students to responsibly and productively engage with AI in thoughtful ways as part of lessons and the curriculum,” he said.
