Student Centric GenAI

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What is generative AI?

• Artificial Intelligence tool that generates content:
• Text
• Images
• Videos
• Music

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AI may be a misnomer

• Not artificial:
• Most AI tools are neural-net-based.
  • Machine learning from observing numerous human-created content
  • Humans also filter and select samples for training
  • A lot of human thumbs in this pie!
• Not intelligent:
• Knowledgeable? Yes.
• Intelligent? Not yet.
• Limited critical thinking and problem-solving abilities.
• Very limited creative thinking and theorizing abilities.

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Examples

• ChatGPT
• Claude
• Gemini

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Student-centric objectives

• Get employed.
• Learn skills.
• Gain knowledge.
• Qualify for advancement.
• Transfer.

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Common ineffective ways of using G-AI

• Use AI in assessments intended to assess the students.
• "If AI can do your homework and take your tests, AI will take your job!"
• Prompt engineering may be obsolete soon.

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Computer science as a case study

• In-demand: employment growth of 23% from 2022 to 2032, considered a high growth.
• High recent graduate unemployment: 7.8%
• Why? (Hint: read the article linked in the previous point.)
• Will G-AI improve the situation or make it worse?

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Big question

• Are the SLOs applicable to G-AI or our students?
• If a student meets the SLOs but only with G-AI tools, is this student successful?
• How do we define student success?

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Learning versus assessment

• Use G-AI in the learning phase, not the assessment phase.

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G-AI explanation

• G-AI can help explain many concepts, but can it be relied upon?
• If there is plenty of human-generated content that is correct, then the G-AI answer is more likely to be correct.
• Does not work as well for concepts that do not have plenty of human-generated explanations.
• Can a student validate the G-AI explanation?
• Neural-net-based G-AI are probabilistic, there is always a chance of error.

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G-AI Q&A

• G-AI can generate questions for faculty and students.
• Is the answer (key) correct?
• Can a student validate the G-AI answer?

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A responsible way to use G-AI

• Instructor originates G-AI Q&A.
• Instructor validates and hides the answer.
• Students work on the question.
• The instructor discloses the answers and potentially evaluates the answers from each student.

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Practically no way to stop students from using G-AI

• Especially for fully online (and asynchronous) classes.
• Instructors need to point out and explain self-defeating ways of using G-AI.
• There are ways to "poison" prompting text, but it is defeatable.

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G-AI as a study tool

• Practical in some classes.
• ChatGPT accepts Markdown format as input.
• Input text from reading material, then interact as a way of studying.
• Is the result reliable?
• An example, from the beginning..
• Note how the prompt begins with "The following is some material that I want to understand. My questions will be in the following prompts."
• The material source format is in Markdown, all the mathematical equations are captured correctly.
• In this case, ChatGPT is correct in the subsequent interaction.
• Q&A prompt: "How is a P-type transistor different from an N-type transistor?"

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G-AI to generate a quick summary

• An example, prompt: Can you summarize the source material as a bullet list that includes all the important definitions and notations?.
• This can be helpful to a student who has already studied the material and attended the corresponding lecture. The summary is easier to study and refresh memory.
• This example is technically correct.

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G-AI as Q&A

• An example of answering a question correctly, prompt: I think I understand the material now. Just to be sure, can you ask me a question, let me answer it, then evaluate my answer?.
• [An example of answering a question incorrectly, prompt: Can you ask me another question?]
• An example of asking for clarification in the explanation of an incorrect answer, prompt: Can you clarify that you mean by "The P-type transistors (Q1 and Q2) are turned on because they are controlled by a low voltage"? Specifically, what does a low-voltage at the gate of a P-type transistor do?

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G-AI for general study strategies

• Study strategy that is specific to the context material: I still find this material difficult to understand, can you recommend a strategy that is specific to this material?
• Note how the response is specific to the context material.
• Modeling effective note-taking in a specific context: If I were to take notes while reading this material, what would that note look like? Assume that I am fairly new to this material, but otherwise have a basic understanding of programming.

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G-AI can be a patient teaching assistant

• Perhaps one of the best application of G-AI that is productive for students!
• Need the licence of the source material to allow copy and paste as part of a prompt.
• The source material can be in any format, but Markdown is the best format.
• Shameless plug: check out Tak's OER workshop on 8/29!

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