Symposium addresses the impact of AI on higher education at Henry Ford College
A September symposium between Henry Ford College and University of Michigan-Dearborn brought together more than 100 professionals in higher education to discuss the impact artificial intelligence will have on education in the future, as well as its current impact.
In September, Henry Ford College and University of Michigan-Dearborn came together for the “Thinking Outside the Bot: Optimizing A.I. Good While Minimizing the Bad" symposium. The purpose of the symposium was to examine the ways the increasing integration of artificial intelligence in everyday life is going to have an impact on higher education – and the ways it already has.
The symposium included presentations from keynote speakers Nick Gaspar, who serves as the Director of Online and Digital Education at University of Michigan-Flint, and Dr. Julie Hui, who is an Assistant Professor of Information at University of Michigan-Ann Arbor.
In an article on Henry Ford College’s website, the symposium and the keynote presentations are laid out with the culminating conclusion that artificial intelligence is here to stay, which means that higher education needs to adapt to its presence.
The symposium as a whole acknowledged that AI and tools like ChatGPT are not completely without beneficial aspects or without a place in academics. When utilized correctly, it can help with research and even can assist faculty in creating lesson plans and curriculum.
Of course, many in higher education are understandably wary of the tools. Plagiarism and misinformation can run rampant if ChatGPT is utilized in an unethical way. The best path forward for faculty is to try to work with the tools instead of against them.
Gasper said, “Faculty needs to build a relationship with A.I.It is up to you to make your own value judgments about how you want to interact with this technology.”
He went on to discuss ways faculty can accomplish this, like feeding their assignments into AI to see what happens. If AI outputs a response that is “bad,” that likely means the assignment was a good one. On the flipside, if AI achieves a passing score on the assignment, educators should change up their assignment to become more difficult for anyone who is utilizing AI to complete the assignment.
Hui focused on the ways instructors can help their students so that they don’t find the need to rely on AI when completing their assignments. She suggested trying to help students understand complex writing. She also shared the tool she created called Lettersmith, which she intends to help students become stronger writers.
In addition, Hui said, “Faculty need to go beyond recall and superficial understanding. Making something ‘A.I.-proof’ is an impossible standard. Faculty need to adapt rubrics to assess creativity, design, performance, and multimedia elements.”
She provided a few recommendations, as well, to help faculty navigate the increasing likelihood that students will turn to AI in some fashion as they complete their assignments. Her recommendations included setting clear policies, enacting an honor policy, and changing the weighting of grades to make things AI can’t predict and help students with worth more than things AI could definitely help with.
“A.I. detection is an unwinnable war. The A.I.s learn from each other and adapt. Generative A.I. has a ‘yes’ bias when asked if it wrote something. If students use Ai to cheat, it’s likely because they don’t find the work meaningful or are unengaged, which leads them down the road that ends in academic dishonesty,” Hui said.
In addition to the keynote speakers’ presentations, the symposium included two interesting performances with creative uses of AI: Henry Ford College music instructor Anthony Lai presented AI-generated music pieces, and Henry Ford College theater instructor John Michael Sefel performed an AI-generated play along with some of his students.
Alison Buchanan and Scott Still, both instructors from Henry Ford College, were among the symposium’s organizers. At the end of the event, they reflected on its success.
Buchanan noted, “Our keynote speakers shared a wealth of information about A.I. They illustrated the power of A.I. within the educational setting while also reminding us of diversity, equity, and inclusion issues related to A.I. They provided great examples of how A.I. can be used to enhance student success, as well as strategies for keeping us as A.I.-informed as possible. The symposium was a wonderful event that allowed us to have frank and important discussions about the impact of A.I. on our lives.”
Culminating with what is perhaps the message of the entire symposium, Still added, “A.I. in higher education is here to stay. That’s reality. Replacing teachers with A.I. – that will never happen. A.I. can be used as a support tool, but it will not replace human beings. We need to have an active voice outside our own campus and find out the emerging best practices of using A.I., so we can be informed.”
For more information about Henry Ford College, visit its website. More information about University of Michigan can be found on the school’s website.