Don’t Fear the Robots: Using AI to AI-Proof Your Course

PRESENTER

Kenna Norman

Kenna Norman is an experienced Instructional Designer at Los Angeles Pacific University, who is dedicated to creating engaging and effective learning experiences. With a passion for innovation in education, Kenna integrates AI and emerging technologies to enhance instructional design processes. She is actively involved in developing AI-driven learning solutions, creating innovative assignments, and fostering collaboration across teams. In addition to her work in higher education, Kenna is the director of an AI case competition and working on publishing research in instructional design.

TRANSCRIPT

Pete Morgan:

But I am incredibly pleased to be able to shift gears from our keynote and bring you into just a wildly exciting topic here with our secondary host. Welcome to today’s session of Don’t Fear the Robots using AI to AI proof your courses. Now, as I start to introduce Ken, our speaker here, the only real thing that I have to say beforehand, before a little bit of housekeeping is such as I’ve only been mistaken as an AI bot or an AI agent. One time where someone thought that I was an ai, face the curly hair, all the things right? But you don’t have to fear. This is the moment where we know what AI should and can be doing to accelerate incredible work. And we’ve got some great insight here from Canada today. A few pieces of housekeeping, remember the chat is here and at your disposal to be able to introduce yourselves, share thoughts, communicate back and forth with your peers that are listening, use the q and a function to ask deliberate questions so that towards the end of this discussion I can facilitate those and bring ’em up to Kenna making sure we get as much discussion as possible in your space For a general overview, let’s just jump there.

I know we want to preserve as much time for Kenna as possible. We’ve got some great things to share, but I’m very pleased to announce Kenna Norman. She is an instructional designer at Los Angeles Pacific University, incredibly passionate about developing AI driven learning solutions and is the director of an AI case competition as well. Now, we just chatted beforehand a few minutes and I’m incredibly excited to hear what you have to say, Ken, just knowing the work that you were going in and around the general topic of AI that is so popular right now. So Kenna floor is yours. I’m going to be here to facilitate on the side, but let’s have some fun.

Kenna Norman:

Alright, thank you for that wonderful introduction, Pete, and I want to say hello to everyone. I’m so excited to just get started here and to share everything that I have prepared for you. So as we get started here, I do just want to share a little bit about myself. I’m a senior instructional designer at Los Angeles Pacific University. I have a background in HR and training and development. So that is kind of where my mind is creating, impacting impactful learning for adults and to help individuals grow their skills and abilities, especially in the workforce. And I also have a Master’s of Science and Instructional Design and technology and an MBA. So it’s kind of where my head is a little bit of training and learning and a little bit more of the business side and hr. But let’s jump right in. So first I want to open this up.

Let’s take a poll. If you are an instructor or teacher, do you think that your students use AI to complete course activities? So a course activity here can be anything like a discussion forum, an assignment, really anything like that. So I would like to know your thoughts here and we’ll just give that a few seconds for you to answer that. And even if you’re not an instructor, a teacher, do you have thoughts on this? Do you think that your students or individuals that you’re training or teaching utilize AI to complete their activities? We’ll give it a few seconds here,

Pete Morgan:

Ken. While people are answering, I have an inkling to jump in because I can’t vote in the poll as a host or, but my world, especially the people that I work with on a day-to-day basis, those utilizing GoReact normal courses and why people are shifting to GoReact in that way. I think that anyone that is not at least dabbling in the use of AI to speed up their process, make their life a little bit easier, I just don’t see very many people not trying something to lighten the load. I think that students absolutely are utilizing it, or at least that’s the perspective that I have.

Kenna Norman:

Yeah, Pete, absolutely. And the argument can definitely be made that in today’s day and age, AI is everywhere. So if you’re not using it, you are behind a little bit, whether that’s as a student, an employee, or whatever role the individual may have. But that’s a really great point. Everybody is probably testing it out. I would say that the only way that students are not testing it out is maybe that they’re scared and they don’t understand how it works. I could see that being one hold up. But anyway, alright, do we have the results here? So 100% of you think yes. So that is an incredible result there. I definitely am also in that yes category. I do think that students use AI to complete course activities. And I don’t have a poll for this one, but I have a follow-up question for all of you.

How do you know or why do you think so? What do you see that leads you to believe that students are doing that? And you can chime in the chat or whatever works for you, but I would like to know that as well. So go ahead and type that in the chat. I’m going to keep going, but we will circle back to that for sure. So I do want to address some valid fears that we have before we jump in. So definitely there’s the fear of cheating. Are students utilizing AI to cheat on assignments or to do the work for them? I know that that is the number one red flag, like red alert thought of many instructors. If we allow students to use ai, they’re just going to use it in a way that’s unethical to complete the work for them. And then secondly, here, we have plagiarism so students can use it and do it in a way where they’re not citing, where they’ve gotten their information and they could potentially plagiarize.

All of those concerns definitely are valid. The third point here is are students actually learning? So if we encourage students to use ai, how do we know that they’re actually learning and mastering the content that we would like them to master? And when we go to assess their work, how do we know that it’s even their work and that they even know what they’re talking about? I know that that’s also a fear that we oftentimes see. And then is AI even correct? There are so many instances that have been identified where AI isn’t correct and it’s giving false information and it’s whatever it’s processing or answering for you, it’s providing false information, it’s making things up. And there’s actually something called delusions where the AI tool has been trained to answer the question that it’s been asked or to deliver on the prompt that the individual has put into the tool. And it will go to any extent to do that. And even if that means making up sources or just again, spreading false information just to answer the prompt that it has been given. And another question. So what are some other fears? What else do you fear about utilizing AI or at least promoting the use of AI in the classroom? I know we have some chats here

Pete Morgan:

With that question. There’s a number of chats, a few of them that I’m just reading through and I’m sure is on everybody’s mind, initial hesitations and fears about cheating, not doing any of their own work and things like that. But also the realization through time and through exposure to it, being able to see that a lot of times this is a starting point, this is an accelerant to get kickstarted to feeling comfortable and being able to produce better work. Maybe a little bit from you on that note, where is the fine line? How do we successfully promote the use of AI to settle down those fears to make sure that it’s done constructively in that way?

Kenna Norman:

Sure. And I will jump into that with examples later, but I don’t know that there is a defined line on that. I think it is very situational in that you can ask students to utilize AI or even promote it, have them utilize it to get to that starting point to feel comfortable or even as the first draft, but then asking them to build off of that and do their own work. That’s what I’ll be jumping into later, but definitely I know that there’s a lot of fear. I know that there’s also, you can kind of tell when students have used AI and then just copied and pasted it directly into the assignment. And I’m sure any instructor out there would agree it sounds too perfect. It doesn’t sound real and it doesn’t sound like their authentic voice. And I think that that’s where that sweet spot is where you can design learning so that you are actually asking for and putting not only point value but an intrinsic value on that personal voice and that the actual personal thoughts of the student, which I think is where a lot of the design can lie.

Pete Morgan:

Another one that just popped into the chat, I think students use ai, they won’t actually retain information, build inquiry skills or check for viable information. Talk to me a little bit about that Kenna.

Kenna Norman:

Sure. So yes, that’s definitely a great point and something that comes to mind with that is one thing that we’ve built out in one of our courses recently is use ai but then figure out where the errors are. So put a prompt into AI and then have the students actually pick it apart and look for errors or misconceptions or anything misleading that the tool has given. And I know that that may not necessarily fit in every course, but that’s something that you could try as well because realistically, as I mentioned, every person, especially students, are going to need to know how to utilize AI when they get into their career. So it is our responsibility at this point to teach them not only how to use it, but how to use it ethically and to realize that it is just a tool. It shouldn’t be used as we know to complete all of their learning for them. But if students aren’t trained and taught that and given opportunities to pick that apart in their schoolwork, we’re doing them a disservice. So I think that that’s where a lot of our influence can fall, especially as we’re designing things.

Pete Morgan:

Definitely. I mean, as a selfish plug here, Ken, I mean one of the things that I do every day on the GoReact side is that we utilize an AI tool, but we also know that GoReact as a basic functionality is video as evidence of competency and skills demonstration. In that way, we utilize AI to AI proof the demonstrable scale and competencies being shown, but there are absolutely ways that we can build a learning experience around real authentic demonstration of skill, also powered by AI to accelerate my ability to learn, retain, recall, and put into practice real applicable skills in the real world.

Kenna Norman:

Oh, absolutely. And that’s another great point. Video is an incredible way to not only help with all of those things, but if students are going to utilize ai, they at least still have to make a video where they’re engaging with the information at some level. So again, not a complete fixed situation, but a solution that kind of helps with it.

Pete Morgan:

Definitely. One more for you that just popped in as we were chatting. What if we still have questions about how to use it ethically but feel guilty for using it as a tool?

Kenna Norman:

Would that be as an instructor? I would say

Pete Morgan:

Great question, Mikayla, maybe we can do this. Carrie, you got a fantastic question there and you’re saying yes as instructor, but Mikayla, could we possibly unmute Carrie just to get a little bit of back and forth with Kenna?

Speaker 3:

Sure can. One second.

Pete Morgan:

Sorry, Carrie, if I put you on the spot, but this is great. I think this could be some fun interaction and you have a perfect question that way.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, one second. Let’s see. All right, Carrie, you should be able to, can you hear me? Yes.

Pete Morgan:

Perfect.

Speaker 3:

Okay, so we keep having this conversation at work. As a professor, I want to utilize it in a capacity that enhances my teaching and my interaction and my ability to engage with students specifically in online learning. However, I still feel like I am feeling guilty about using it as a tool. There’s this hidden secret like, oh, don’t let anybody know that you’re using AI because it feels potentially like you’re not smart enough to do it yourself.

Kenna Norman:

No, definitely not. I would absolutely encourage you to use it and you really set it yourself, and this is my personal philosophy. I believe that it is a tool, and if you can use a tool to enhance your own abilities, then why not use it? If you’re teaching a math class, would you not use a calculator?

Speaker 3:

That’s the exact analogy that I keep using and that it’s still my ideas, my thoughts, my prep for everything. However, it’s a refinement to it and I feel like it just allows me to extend my abilities, my reach, but there’s still a guilt in that.

Kenna Norman:

Yeah, and I think that that is something I would encourage you not to feel guilty for using it. If it is going to enhance the experience that you’re providing for students, then that is something that’s definitely a value add across the board. And I think for sure there’s a difference between using it to, let’s say, create assignments or to brainstorm or something like that, rather than maybe if you were using it to do all of your student engagement pieces or something like that, then I could see how that would make you feel guilty. But I would encourage you to maybe implement it little by little and see the difference that it makes. I would maybe start there.

Pete Morgan:

Ken, if I can jump in here for just a sec. Carrie, if you don’t already go in and look up Dr. Felipa Harmon. She’s an AI analyst as well, and writes tons of information around the appropriate use of ai. But I just read an article from her recently talking about the trust factor behind someone using ai. And to your point, if you’re going to utilize it regularly, but it feels like a secret when somebody finds out that it actually was driven by AI behind it, the trust factor in the instructor or the utilizer of that piece diminishes. Students are very apprehensive around it. But what she found in through some of the research that she shows in her most recent article is if you upfront call out and fully embrace the utilization of AI to accomplish a goal and get me to this point so that we can fuel better discussion, there actually was a higher percentage of trust in the instructor to gaining more relevant information in something specific for the topic than on their own speaking alone. Look her up, find a few of those articles. They’re phenomenal and a great way to support your thought there.

Speaker 3:

Thank you, I appreciate that. Thanks Pete.

Kenna Norman:

All right then let’s jump right in. So how can we fix this? So if we have all of this fear around ai, and I know that we’ve had this great discussion about it so far, what can we do as instructional designers or instructors or whatever role you play to help fix this? And as you have probably guessed by the title of my presentation here, we can use AI to AI proof our course. And the whole thought process behind this is if we further ingrain AI within the course activities and actually ask students to use them and promote the use of them, then this will help not only diminish the use of AI in a way that may not be ethical or may not be the most reasonable way for students to use it and actually teach them the skills that they need moving forward into their career or the rest of their academic journey.

So I want to bring this term to all of your attention if you haven’t heard it before, AI resilience. So how can we create assignments or learning activities that are AI resilient? And what that means is they have AI integrated in ways that enhance learning. So where students will apply, analyze, or incorporate the use of AI into the actual activity and in a realistic way. And the AI tool is not used in a way that goes hand in hand with all the fears that we discussed. So cheating, plagiarism, all of those things. So some ways that we can do this are through thought partnership, which I’ll jump into in a minute where I go through some of the examples, a higher level of content engagement. So using AI as more of like a study buddy or a teaching assistant, and then more creative learning applications.

So that could mean utilizing AI to complete something or in part of actually completing a artifact or something of that nature. So again, this is not a cure all, but it is a potential solution to help us in many, many learning activities. So I’m going to jump right into an activity here. You can go ahead and chime in the chat. So this or that. I’ll read through both of these assignment types, but which one do you think would be more AI resilient? So the first one is rate a five paragraph essay analyzing the themes of power and corruption in the novel animal farm or the second one, use AI to generate an initial analysis of power and corruption in the novel animal farm. Then critique its response

Pete Morgan:

While people are starting to write out of their answers on your share. I see a pretty large blue box that’s covering half of your second question. Oh no. Would you mind just quickly and resharing to see if we can fix that? Oh, that actually worked. Yep, it might’ve turned the zoom over the top of it. That worked. Perfect. Thank you.

Kenna Norman:

Sorry about that everyone.

Pete Morgan:

Tons of responses coming through right now that everybody is responding to the second.

Kenna Norman:

Yeah, perfect. That is the answer I was hoping that you would give. So I’m sure we can all agree that the first one is something that you could easily copy and paste, throw into chat GPT or something like that and it would return a five paragraph essay where it has done all of that. And realistically, students could complete this in about five minutes, copy and paste it into the tool, copy and paste the response into a paper and submit it. And we would have no clue if they actually wrote it, if they actually learned what we asked them to learn. And we’d be wasting our time as we’re assessing all of these things. The second one builds in AI to the actual assignment and students have to utilize a tool and then critique its response. So that’s kind of what I was touching on earlier, utilizing it as a tool, teaching students to utilize the tool ethically and using the tool and then building on it from there so that we can actually assess what they’ve learned. And I know that this probably doesn’t seem life-changing to you, but it is just an example of what I mean by AI resiliency here. Alright, I have one more example for you. This one could be rather quickly, we can go through it rather quickly too. If you want, chime in the chat and pick which one you think would be more AI resilient.

We have a utilize AI to generate a response about the ethics of AI in hiring very timely here. And then the second one is discuss the ethical considerations of AI in hiring processes. So I’m sure we can all agree that the second one is probably something that could be completed with ai. And the first one is a little bit more AI resilient there. They engage in a debate with the AI tool to talk about their own perspective about this topic here of analyzing the AI ethics and hiring. Same kind of thing though, they’re utilizing the tool and then kind of looking at its faults, which I think is a very important thing to do. And that’s what I mentioned earlier, look for any errors, misconceptions, those kind of things. And there are some really great different assignment types that you actually can do with ai. And a great way to brainstorm those. Just going back to the conversation with Carrie is utilizing AI tools to brainstorm some different AI assignments. I know that sounds so meta, but that’s something that I’ve definitely done before where I pull up a topic and say, Hey, chat GPT, give me some really interesting AI assignments that have to do with this topic. And it’s really neat to have that back and forth discussion with the tool about itself. So that’s another tip for you,

Pete Morgan:

Ken. I want another tip from you too. I want to extract as many tips as we can from you today, but I’m also getting through the chat a couple of responses around we can recognize which one is definitely the more AI resilient, but I also still believe that students are going to use AI to even answer the critique. So maybe a few tips of yours around being able to facilitate appropriate response in ways that we can further AI proof or be AI resilient within the response and the critique itself.

Kenna Norman:

Absolutely, and this goes into something that I mentioned before. So writing is very easy for AI tools to do quickly. They can create any type of text response relatively quickly within a few seconds. Now tools are getting a little bit better at creating videos, infographics, that type of thing, but there’s still some types of assignments or some things that students can create that are more difficult for AI to do. And I would rather students create something with their knowledge so that there is some evidence that they have mastered whatever outcome you want them to master or whatever you are assessing rather than just ask for a text response because you don’t have any idea of whether that’s what the student has written and what they actually think or if that is an AI tool. So in that case, I would ask students to create something.

So that could be a presentation, an infographic, a video, a podcast. And yes, I am aware that there are tools out there that can easily also do those things, but by asking for that additional piece, especially if you also ask for the students’ own opinion and where they’re bringing in personal examples or that type of thing, I would say it deters the use of AI a little bit. There’s no way for us to really stop them from using it. There’s no way that we as instructors can stop them from using it. But by bringing in all those little elements, I think students are less likely to do it.

Pete Morgan:

Yeah, on that point, I think what I see in examples day-to-day in my world is that there are ways of fueling the use of AI in what can be group video, even gathering as a group, opening up a shared screen to prompt AI on the ethics of hiring inside of the world and utilizing AI for those functions and creating discussion around what the prompt returns, utilizing the ai, fueling the discussion, but discussing in real time, real conversation, actual recorded video on that topic as the critique the defense in those matters, right? Yeah, there’s lots of ways to be able to combine the worlds of true authentic response and utilizing AI appropriately.

Kenna Norman:

For sure. Yeah, definitely agree. All right. So how do AI proof? So the first thing that you’re going to want to do is determine the objective. So what do students need to do to show mastery? And I do just want to back up for just a second. You can use AI to help you with all of this, and I highly encourage you to, because again, it is a tool and it’s there for us to use in brainstorm and all of those things. So first, again, find the objective. What do students need to do to show mastery? Second, incorporate ai. How can you incorporate AI that actually promotes active learning? So that would mean how can students interact with AI bridging to that objective so that they’re actively learning about it, whatever that may look like for the specific activity that you’re designing. Third, some things that you can do to build in that reflection piece are talk about the student’s experience with ai, reflect on its faults or ethics.

And again, that really does depend on how you’re building it and what assignment type, what course, all of those things. And then fourth, you can also ask students how they would utilize this in real life, investigate it’s used in that particular career field or industry, and go from there. And a lot of this does also have to do with student exploration. Some students are still scared of ai. They think anytime they use it, it’ll be flagged for plagiarism or something of that nature. So some of it is a little bit of handholding and letting them explore the tools. And of course there are many students who have already explored the tools and do use it for other purposes, which is fine. But that really is reigning in those experiential pieces and making sure that you are hearing their authentic voice or building into the assignment, different creative things that they actually have to tie to these objectives and their experience with the ai.

So again, that could be a podcast, an infographic, a video, something of that nature. Or as Pete mentioned, a group discussion about it, whatever it may look like for the specific activity, that is how you’re going to tie everything together to help AI proof and then build that AI resilience that we were talking about earlier. So here are just some activities and you can chime in the chat if you have more. I’m always looking for more activities as well. So please do share if you have other ideas, but AI as the starting point or not the final product. So that could be AI to help brainstorm or to help with the first draft or to provide feedback on something that has been super helpful for some students where they create something, upload it to a tool, and then actually get feedback on it and talk about that personalization so it can lead to greater personalized learning for students.

As we all know, not every student is the same and they all need a little bit of enrichment in different areas, and AI tools are great for that real world applications, so students can investigate what are the real world applications for AI in this particular industry or career field and go from there. The opportunities are truly endless as far as what you want the deliverable to be as well. And that is something that you can again, tie into whatever the objective is or whatever the type of course it is that might kind of guide you there. But yeah, world application is a great one as a research assistant. So utilize the AI tool to help students gather different research. I will say the caveat with this one though, it’s a great one if you want students to look at if what the AI tool is giving them is actually real research because again, AI tools can hallucinate and create things that aren’t actually real.

So that’s a great one there. Interviews, you can train the AI tool to actually create an interview situation. So if you want the students to conduct an interview on in the field, you can utilize the AI tool as that person tell it in a prompt to act as a certain professional or something like that and have the students interview them. Branching scenarios and games are fantastic. If you create a really good AI prompt for that. There are fantastic games and branching scenarios that can be created. And of course, I made just a few months ago, I created a branching scenario for a CDC investigation. The course was an epidemiology course, and we in the game walk through the seven steps of a CDC investigation where the students would have to choose what they do next, and it was a great way to assess and really fun for the students.

Let’s see, as a study buddy, again, that’s kind of similar to a research assistant, but have the students study with the AI tool or practice before a quiz or an exam. A debate again is a great one. Ethical use cases, also a great one really. There are just so many wonderful use cases for ai and it does take a little bit of work on the front end as we create these assignments, but there really are so many wonderful use cases and endless opportunities. As I mentioned, it just really comes down to tying the objective to whatever the activity is and how you want students to engage with it and what deliverable you want. But all of these activities are great for, again, that experiential learning for active learning. And then hopefully if you would like to go that direction, you can ask students to reflect on their experience as well.

Not only what they learned about the topic, but what they learned about the tool and how they’re going to take those skills into the future. Because again, that’s what’s important as instructors for us to build into our learning. Students are going to need to learn how to utilize AI for their future, so we need to help ’em with that now. So I do just want to end with one thought. AI is not the problem, but it is the solution and really us teaching students how to utilize AI ethically and properly is our responsibility at this point, and we need to learn different ways to do that. And hopefully all of the ideas that I shared will help you in your endeavors to do so, but I am more than happy to hear all of your ideas as well. I hope that you shared some in the chat because I’m always looking for things too. All right, so does anybody have any questions?

Pete Morgan:

Please go ahead, add those into the chat. Or as a question in the q and a area really quick, while people are filtering their thoughts and putting things down in the text for you, there was a question from the chat, more of a request asking you if you could share the prompt that you used to create the branching assignment for the CDC analysis. They loved that. Is there a way that you could share it or maybe even just your access to speak to you, your contact information somewhere to be able to pieces across?

Kenna Norman:

There you go. My email straight there, it’s kNorman@lap.edu. Please do send me an email. I’m more than happy to share prompts with anybody who’s interested. We’ve had just another example, I guess at LAU, our biggest program is our psychology program. And in the state of California, unlicensed individuals are not able to practice psychology, but we really wanted students to be able to practice their therapy skills. So we actually also designed some really neat chat bots that acted as different clients with different psychological profiles and needs, and the students are able to give them therapy because it’s a robot. Their therapy’s not going to be detrimental to anyone because it’s not real. But that’s just another use case too, an idea. But that was just another example. I’m more than happy to touch base with anybody who wants to learn more or share prompts as well. Just shoot me an email.

Pete Morgan:

I’m not seeing any other deliberate questions right now. Anybody else? Your questions, your thoughts, throw those into the chat. I know Kara, I see your request for some of the articles that I had shared. I’m grabbing that for you right now. But anybody else, thoughts, questions, even just things for Kenna tips and tricks to ask of her because obviously we’ve got somebody of an expert here available to you take a peek at into her world. Matthew, great question saying, have you tried or tied this Indi GoReact and can you share examples? Great question. Kenna, you first, do you dabble in GoReact at all? Do you know what we do or have you utilized it in that way?

Kenna Norman:

Yes. Well, indirectly, so as an instructional designer, our education programs use GoReact, but I personally have not tried any AI with GoReact. So I can’t provide examples, but maybe Pete can, after hearing these ideas, maybe he has something sparked that he can share with you.

Pete Morgan:

Yeah, happy to. I think Matthew, on that point, what we see, especially in my world, scalable GoReact areas of where we can improve authentic assessment and skill development. The topic from my world is always how can we utilize ai, especially some of our embedded tools to be a steroid and an accelerant for great work. That’s from the student perspective and being able to submit something of authentic review, a video, an audio clip, something that way that can be analyzed by our a AI tools and have immediate access to generative feedback, progressive suggestions, something to work along my progress in learning. What do I do next before my busy instructor ever has time to actually look at my work? How can I begin to self-teach and self-analyze and gain some inspiration that way? Then you flip that world over to the instructor point of view and the design of these tools, especially through GoReact is very much so.

How can I allow the AI to accelerate an instructor’s perspective to the most important moments of skill demonstration? What needs my attention right now and where can I add additional context coaching and feedback to help accelerate that student’s learning opportunity? So in GoReact, we utilize this in so many different ways, probably more examples that I could list in the time that we have allotted, but the entire purpose is correctly utilizing it to accelerate authentic assessment and skills validation skill mastery. Okay. I do have a question, Ken, for you that just popped up through the chat. So great time for me to stop talking and ask you a question here Kenna, a question coming in from one of our attendees as an instructional designer, what are the biggest challenges that you have faced with faculty when it comes to ai such as rights to knowledge, green energy concerns? How are you addressing those types of questions and concerns coming from faculty?

Kenna Norman:

Yeah, that’s a great question. I will say that actually the hardest part I think was just getting them on board. That was the initial hurdle. I will say though, I think that LIP were a little bit unique because we’re pretty small, so the instructors, we all know each other. So I think that that was a little bit more helpful and after they could see the impact that we could make with ai, they were a little bit more on board. The initial hurdle though was how are we going to make sure that students don’t plagiarize and is this ethical, should we be doing this? All of those questions that have come up, and definitely there are still some lingering concerns. I’m sure some professors are more on board than others, but I would say that that was the biggest hurdle. But I do really think that by showing what the tools can do and by showing the impact that it makes and by obtaining positive student feedback about their experience, I think all of those things really do play a big part into it. But again, I think we’re a unique little school, so it’s probably different in bigger universities,

Pete Morgan:

But a unique perspective is also a breath of fresh air in my personal opinion. And one of the other questions that just popped through with a few quick minutes left is we’d love to hear your thoughts on AI detectors.

Kenna Norman:

So I mean, those are tools too. So is ai, it’s all tools and some, I don’t really think any of them work as well as we’d want them to, but that’s also not life. Students are, well, when students graduate and they’re in the career field, they’re going to use AI however they want. And there’s not going to be anybody detecting them there. And I’m not saying that we should just get rid of them and not use them now, but that’s really the, I think probably the most important message that I’m trying to get out to you. Obviously these skills are important and obviously they will be important as students continue their academic or career journey. So we want to make sure that we’re building in those skills and hopefully building in the moral compass of when should I use the tool, when should I rely on the tool?

When should I not check it to make sure that it’s giving me the right information? When should I make sure that all the information I’m getting from it is correct? All of those questions, that’s what we really need to instill in students now and give them the opportunity to practice and build and get used to before they’re in that career field. But to answer your question, I don’t think they’re as effective as we’d want them to be, but I also dunno how realistic it is to rely on them because students won’t have them in the future.

Pete Morgan:

And Ken, that brings up a great point in my mind, which is number one, your tie back to one of your previous slides around real world application. They’re not going to be there in the future. And so part of making sure that this is appropriately and ethically used is also setting and managing deliberate expectations. What is the appropriate use of it? Making sure that’s upfront and called out early and knowing that part of life, especially going forward, is going to utilize AI to the greatest of its abilities to accelerate my day-to-day work in the real world.

Kenna Norman:

For sure. Yeah, completely agree. And just touching off of that, that’s something that as an instructor you can definitely put forth too. What are your expectations in the classroom for use of ai? There are some instructors that say, use it for whatever uses you want. And then in their assignments, they are more deliberate as far as here’s what you actually have to turn in and here’s what I expect you to do. But in so many ways, it is a great, great tool for students to use to help get that personalized learning just as they’re going through the course content, aside from activities and assignments and those types of things. But there’s also other instructors that say, do not use AI at all in my classroom. So there’s really not a hard and fast rule with it. I just think it’s something that we have to try to ingrain the best of our ability and to help students with.

Pete Morgan:

Well, Kenna, we can’t thank you enough for this session for all your information. This has been absolutely fantastic. I mean, one of the earliest comments that I saw through the chat was, bottom line, embrace it. And I love that topic around this idea. Don’t fear the roadblocks, but even knowing through what you’ve discussed and the way that you’ve laid this out, embracing it doesn’t mean fully diving into the deep end with all of these tools. There’s also a way to do this on a level of comfortability and confidence and being able to move into these faceted utilizations of tools. So we appreciate you so much. You’re absolutely incredible. For everybody that needs to reach out to Ken and go direct to the source for information you saw, heard contact information earlier. So we thank you very much, Kenna, for all you should.