Fundamentally this goes back to your previous point: we need to think deeply about what we are doing and discuss that with our students. Why are you making the assignment? Why should they engage with it rather than offloading it to AI? Why are you grading the assignment (and how)? Why should they value your feedback instead of just getting it instantly from AI?
We have a lot of first generation students at our college, so this kind of discussion would be really helpful to them anyway. Still, incredibly irritating to be forced to do that work by forces outside our control, in an environment where some of the answers are no longer clear.
Thanks for this Marc. Very much aligned with you on this, and especially appreciate the list of provocative “what ifs” you included to make these dilemmas concrete.
I’m curious to hear about any takeaways from your 2-day workshop. How did the folks there respond to these questions and what sort of responses were discussed?
Very thought-provoking piece Marc. I will admit that I have been building an AI grading platform for mathematics for the past year. It started as an experiment that quickly transitioned into a passion. It is truly amazing what AI can do with reading student handwriting and assessing work for correctness. Ai's abilities improve every day, it seems. The question now becomes not whether AI can score effectively, but what is best for students? The allure of efficiency is real. In some ways, we can improve large-scale, high-stakes assessments with the integration of AI.
For me, education is about preparing students to thrive in the world. Can an AI system help educators accomplish that? I think there are real examples where it can. Like all things, I expect the answer will involve finding balance. Teachers looking at their students' work is one of the most important elements of being a good teacher. Yet, spending HOURS grading when you teach up to 150 students can be paralyzing.
Thanks for your thought-provoking piece! (And yes, AI did help me spell check and improve my grammar in this comment.)
Fundamentally this goes back to your previous point: we need to think deeply about what we are doing and discuss that with our students. Why are you making the assignment? Why should they engage with it rather than offloading it to AI? Why are you grading the assignment (and how)? Why should they value your feedback instead of just getting it instantly from AI?
We have a lot of first generation students at our college, so this kind of discussion would be really helpful to them anyway. Still, incredibly irritating to be forced to do that work by forces outside our control, in an environment where some of the answers are no longer clear.
Gosh, these are provocative scenarios! Thanks for sharing them, Marc.
I think a lot of this question boils down to how much human beings would ultimately like to become plants, where all of our needs are met and none of our potential is activated: https://open.substack.com/pub/sandridge/p/sixteen-key-concepts-regarding-the?r=4acxal&utm_medium=ios&shareImageVariant=overlay
Thanks for this Marc. Very much aligned with you on this, and especially appreciate the list of provocative “what ifs” you included to make these dilemmas concrete.
Just before reading your post here I happened to be catching up on the latest one from Mike Sacasas on waiting. It has some interesting parallel themes that I think you might appreciate. https://open.substack.com/pub/theconvivialsociety/p/waiting-is-a-revelation
I’m curious to hear about any takeaways from your 2-day workshop. How did the folks there respond to these questions and what sort of responses were discussed?
Very thought-provoking piece Marc. I will admit that I have been building an AI grading platform for mathematics for the past year. It started as an experiment that quickly transitioned into a passion. It is truly amazing what AI can do with reading student handwriting and assessing work for correctness. Ai's abilities improve every day, it seems. The question now becomes not whether AI can score effectively, but what is best for students? The allure of efficiency is real. In some ways, we can improve large-scale, high-stakes assessments with the integration of AI.
For me, education is about preparing students to thrive in the world. Can an AI system help educators accomplish that? I think there are real examples where it can. Like all things, I expect the answer will involve finding balance. Teachers looking at their students' work is one of the most important elements of being a good teacher. Yet, spending HOURS grading when you teach up to 150 students can be paralyzing.
Thanks for your thought-provoking piece! (And yes, AI did help me spell check and improve my grammar in this comment.)