Using AI to Enhance Education
The AI ChatGPT hasn’t been around for all that long, but it has made and outsized impact everywhere, including education.
There have been bouts of handwringing about cheating and a teachers’ inability to distinguish what is student generated and what isn’t, but as an efficiency tool and a way of enhancing classroom content, AI is proving to be a boon.
Dr Kuan Liung Tan of UniSA has been quick to leverage the AI’s ability to take the drudgery out of creating teaching materials and is using the tech to enhance what he does in his tutorials.
He understands AI is an advantage and an essential skill. Major technology corporations such as Microsoft and Google are in the process of integrating AI into their productivity tools, foreshadowing an imminent future where AI will be ubiquitous.
"By using AI generated learning materials, I have provided more relevant and engaging learning to my students.
“Therefore, as educators, it is not just a responsibility, but an obligation, to equip ourselves and our students with the knowledge on how to use AI effectively and ethically.
“To this end, I have leveraged AI to improve my teaching materials, including assignments and lecture slides. For example, when teaching in health finances, I have utilised AI to identify gaps in my materials and suggest enhancements. From there, I have been able to add more in-depth content, formative quiz questions and improved visuals. I also used AI-generated case studies to provide students with engaging scenarios for practical application of their knowledge.
“In a different teaching scenario, I generated synthetic data for student projects to enable early data analysis and tool familiarisation. This approach allows students to refine their techniques before receiving the actual data, ensuring they can make the most of the limited time available between obtaining the real data and the project deadline.
“By experimenting, and with practice, we can begin harnessing AI today to improve teaching and learning in very practical ways. In doing so, we are also taking the first decisive step towards fulfilling our duty as educators in this new era.”
The ability to use the AI will be central to how anyone who works in a white-collar job operates.
Professor George Siemens the Professor and Director of the Centre for Change and Complexity in Learning at UniSA says "AI isn't a thing that must be understood, it's the only thing."
"AI will be a part of education and learners approaches to it, the only question is, will the inclusion of AI in learning be intentional, or will it be mindless? Will it enhance thinking and learning in educational institutions, or will we miss that opportunity?"
AI’s adoption today can supplement existing practices such as student support and tutoring and soon usher in dramatic systems redesign both in terms of what we teach and how we teach.
"As well as taking part in research that advances our understanding of how to live and work with AI and the impact that it will have on education, I am also taking an active role in GRAILE, an organisation chartered by several Australian and US universities to provide knowledge, resources, and policy ideas in response to the challenges of AI."
Associate Professor Negin Mirriahi from UniSA’s College of Education and the Centre for Change and Complexity in Learning within Education Futures at the University of South Australia, thinks that the AI will be revolutionary in learning.
"AI is similarly changing the way we learn. Simply put, it becomes a personal tutor. Whether that is a tutor that helps you while baking chocolate chip cookies or whipping up beef stroganoff or whether it is a tutor that helps you through a mathematics question or helps you better understand the characters in a 19th century novel. One only has to look at the opportunity provided by the AI super tutor, Khanmigo. The opportunities are bountiful.
"However, just as we had to learn how to use Google effectively and develop our digital literacy skills, we now need to learn how to engage with AI in a way that it will help us learn. For example, how can we have a useful ‘conversation’ with ChatGPT? What questions should we ask? What prompts should we give?
"AI will affect how we learn. That much we know. What we don’t know yet is how to integrate in the best possible way within our institutional policies and processes, and most importantly how we support our students’ development of AI literacy."
Image by Cottonbro studios