Yes, many colleges have provided language to include in your syllabus so that students are clear on when or if they can use it. Some have also provided workshops on how to use AI tools. But bigger questions are looming. What is AI literacy and how do colleges teach it? Is it possible to incorporate AI strategically to enhance learning? How do instructors keep up to date with the ever-evolving tech?
My latest story looks at how colleges are beginning to tackle these foundational questions. They are building “walled gardens” in which people can experiment with AI without worrying about data privacy and security. They are discussing how to define and incorporate AI literacy into departments and majors. Some are doing rigorous experiments to explore AI’s impact on learning.
One of the questions I asked people was: How do you avoid creating a world of haves and have-nots? Many of the most ambitious projects, such as these walled gardens, are being done by major research universities with relatively large budgets and a stable of AI talent. These institutions are also supplying high-quality AI tools for free to students and professors. But what about the rest of higher ed? How do small colleges and those on tight budgets adapt to the existence of generative AI?
Several people I spoke to at those big institutions said that they hope to share some of the tools they are creating — such as AI tutors — with other campuses. The same goes for the research they are doing on AI’s impact on learning. Those results can help others more clearly consider whether AI might be relevant to their own teaching. But the equity question remains top of mind to many in higher education. And, of course, the sweeping ethical and environmental challenges presented by AI’s mere existence are another issue that needs to be discussed alongside these projects.
I will continue to explore the complexities of AI in teaching and learning. And I want to hear from you. What do you want to see us report on? If you come from an institution that doesn’t have a lot of resources, have you found or created any economical and effective ways to support students and faculty members? Write to me at beth.mcmurtrie@chronicle.com and your ideas may appear in a future newsletter.
What’s good about Gen Z?
In recent months I’ve been writing about the challenges of teaching Gen Z. There are also no shortages of advice pieces focused on how to connect with and support students who often seem like a puzzle to their professors.
But there’s another side of Gen Z that I want to explore. Many professors I speak to say that today’s students are empathetic, creative, insightful, and passionate — and that when you can tap into those traits, great things happen. So I want to hear from you. What about your students impresses, inspires, or challenges you in your teaching? Have you found that particular topics or assignments resonate with students in ways that shape how you approach this generation in the classroom?
I want to hear your stories. Write to me at beth.mcmurtrie@chronicle.com or fill out this Google form.
Treating students as adults
A recent Chronicle advice piece, by Kristi Rudenga, gives practical tips on how to connect with students. Disengagement, she notes, remains a real challenge. I also tackled the issue of connection and engagement in a couple of recent newsletters, sharing stories from instructors who redesigned their courses or assignments for transparency, with good results.
This week, I want to share another reader’s experience. Jason Evans, a professor of developmental writing and English at Prairie State College, a community college in Illinois, wrote in to say that his students feel intense pressure “to figure it all out — declare their major, get college right, secure an economic foothold. They seem to feel like they’ve gotten this pressure for a lot of their lives, and that part of the pressure is the implicit message that they have to figure it out on their own, or else.
“I’ve found that students respond really well to being treated like adults with a stake in the world (because that’s exactly who they are!),” he writes. He had success asking students in an English 101 class to read Elizabeth Kolbert’s New Yorker article “Climate Change from A to Z,” which has since been turned into a book: H Is for Hope.
“I was interested to see what they’d make of her choices as a writer, but the conversations soon became variations on ‘Why didn’t I know this about climate change?’ That is, recent high-school grads couldn’t think of a time when they had been confronted in school with the enormity of climate change. So we’re processing writerly questions about how to connect with an audience about climate change as well as human questions about what we’re each going to do about it. They like that Kolbert doesn’t ‘sugarcoat’ things (something my students appreciated in previous years when we’d start with essays by Nikole Hannah-Jones).”
I’m continuing to collect examples of how instructors connect with this generation of students. If you have one you’d like to share, write to me at beth.mcmurtrie@chronicle.com
Thanks for reading Teaching. If you have suggestions or ideas, please feel free to email us at beth.mcmurtrie@chronicle.com or beckie.supiano@chronicle.com.
- Beth
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