Missouri State University faculty will start the year with their annual Showcase on Teaching & Learning this August.
This year’s event features a keynote speaker, and multiple panels focused on a hot topic, AI in education. Professor John Turner is a senior instructor in the English department teaching in the professional writing program. He is on one of those panels and teaches a course on using AI in writing.
Professor Turner told KSMU public perception, driven in part by media, focuses on the idea that AI is leading to rampant cheating by students.
“From a professor's perspective, there's some of that in terms of how do I police it? How do I make sure my students aren't taking advantage of the technology in ways that that circumvent their learning?” Turner explained, “but there's also a lot of people who are interested in how can I help my students understand how to use this technology effectively? How can I help students understand how to use it ethically? How can I prepare my students for what they're going to be facing when they go out into the work world that now exists with AI?”
In his field of professional writing, many students are most concerned about whether there will be any job at all for them in the future. He says AI still requires a human touch, and employers should not be too quick to think they can replace their workforce, but employers are understandably seeking AI skills and experience. He makes sure students understand how to use it well.
“The goal,” he said, “is to be able to use the AI to your advantage as opposed to kind of being, I don't know if this is the right word, but oblivious to the options you have to control it.” He explained, “when students are maybe misusing AI, they just pull up the only platform they know, which is generally ChatGPT, and they'll ask it to do something, and then they don't check the work and they turn it in.”
As concerns grow, he thinks in the context of education, it may also be a chance for schools and faculty to rethink assessment.
“I think it has raised some kind of healthy questions about what are we trying to assess?” Turner said. “What is it that we want to accomplish? How do we want our students to demonstrate their learning? And maybe the essay isn't the thing that does that.”
Professor Turner says he has used AI to help prepare new classes, asking it to help create learning objectives and discussion prompts. He has his students do work like writing exercises comparing their work and AI.
He says ethical use of AI in work and school means being upfront about acknowledging your use and being aware of its limitations and potential for hallucinations and mistakes, thinking of it as a tool to make your work better. He says in education, there should be less focus on cheating and misuse of AI, and more on the transformative impact of the first generation of young people entering college and the workforce with AI as an everyday tool.
“Most of my students are afraid to use it,” Turner said, “because they're afraid they're going to get accused of cheating. And so, they don't want to touch it. And so, I think the thing that, I want people to know is that we have an opportunity to shape how people use this and think about using this, and they're open to hearing about ways that they could use it well.”