Wrestling with AI
I admire the foundations of Cate's approaches to engaging students in discussions of AI: trust and transparency. The examples she provides are well designed, applicable across classroom contexts, and perfectly packaged for instructors.
I am sure I am not the only educator who wilted a little as they learned about ChatGPT in early 2023. After three years of pandemic instruction, in a variety of modalities, with our institutions demonstrating varying degrees of respect for public health, it felt (at best) exhausting to have circumstances demand we rethink our pedagogies once again to factor in generative AI. It was also tempting to rush to one stark choice or another–to ban ChatGPT and its ilk, or to permit it in every instance–if for no other reason than to feel some sense of clarity amid another period of rapid change. But in giving myself time to wrestle with the nuances of ed tech over the summer, I realized that I needed to give my students the same opportunity I had given myself: time. So much about generative AI has been sold to us at speed, promising quick resolutions to writing problems for students and demanding urgent responses from faculty. I wanted to slow things down, and to offer students the opportunity to weigh the pros and cons of AI use so that they could make critical, informed decisions about how it would shape their educational experience.