Spotlight
Good afternoon all,
In today’s newsletter, you’ll find articles about US community colleges’ responses to AI, recommendations on where educators should focus their attention with respect to this technology, and reflections on the future of higher ed and critical thinking.
If you’ve missed our latest One Thought to Start Your Day blog on AI, you can read it here.
Finally, don’t miss out on the last AI Roundtable of our 2024 Winter series, focusing on Decolonization. See below for more detail.
Next Roundtable Meeting
Date: Tuesday, May 28th, 2024
Time: 12h00-1h00PM ET
Join us Tuesday, May 28th, from 12:00PM to 1:00PM ET, for our next AI Roundtable, which will focus on Decolonization. In this session, we will have the pleasure to hear from different guest speakers: Dr. Gurnam Singh, Hon Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Warwick, will talk about his book chapter “Can AI Be Anti-Racist?” from Chris Rowell’s book “AI Conversations: Critical discussions about AI, art, and education”; Dr. Oscar Mwaanga, Associate Professor at the University of London and Fellow at the Centre for Online and Distance Education, will talk about Decolonizing curriculum; and Dr. Eric Atwell, Professor of Artificial Intelligence for Language at Leeds University and LITE Fellow, will talk about AI for Decolonizing reading lists. The audience will be able to ask questions following each 10-min presentation, and the session will conclude with an open discussion. This session will be facilitated by Sandrine Desforges, Research Associate at Higher Education Strategy Associates and lead of HESA’s AI Observatory. Register now (it’s free!) to save your spot!
If you missed last month’s AI Roundtable on Pedagogy and Curriculum, you can watch the recording here.
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News & Research
Coffey, L. Inside Higher Ed. May 9th, 2024
The Digital Universities U.S. Conference that took place earlier this month in St. Louis brought together hundreds of college administrators and education technology company officials to explore the possibilities and challenges of digital transformation in higher ed. In this article, the author shares some of the main highlights from the conference.
Connolly, C. Work Shift. May 8th, 2024
US community colleges are increasingly starting to develop AI-focused certificates and courses. “As employers increasingly seek out applicants with AI skills, community colleges are well-positioned to train up the workforce. Partnerships with tech companies, like the AI Incubator Network, are helping some colleges get the resources and funding they need to overhaul programs and create new AI-focused ones”. “Businesses need to be involved to help design curriculum, so that students can learn the exact skills they’ll need to get jobs after they graduate.”
Coffey, L. Inside Higher Ed. May 6th, 2024
A recently released report from the Art & Science Group LLC found that many college-bound students fear they will face disadvantages due to AI. “More than half of the students surveyed worried about AI’s impact on them achieving their college and career goals and many had competitive concerns about how other students were using AI […]. Of the more than 1,300 students polled, 55 percent said they were somewhat or strongly worried that other students’ AI usage will hurt their chances of getting into their chosen college. Similarly, about three out of five said they believe other students’ AI usage will affect their chance of getting scholarships and limit career opportunities after college.”
Williams, T. Times Higher Education. May 9th, 2024
Paul LeBlanc, the departing president of Southern New Hampshire University, considers that “there will be ‘more victims than winners’ as AI disrupts universities, but institutions that use it properly will find new technology can help make learning more human”. “Institutions should learn from other industries that have faced existential threats that they are going to have to be ‘brave’ and ‘play by different rules’ to survive”. “Universities would never evolve sufficiently through their own ‘internal change mechanisms’”. Rather, “university leaders are going to have to be brave about this because they are going to have to save that space and create resources – when resources are tight – to reinvent education.”
Bledsoe, R. Inside Higher Ed. May 10th, 2024
The author of this article identifies six areas for educators around which to focus action: 1) Leveraging faculty expertise; 2) Learning and practicing prompting; 3) Moving beyond ‘boxed’ tech mindsets; 4) Considering ethics and future preparation; 5) Knowing your ‘personnel’; and 6) Building in the human loop. The author also provides concrete ways to turn ideas into action.
Schroeder, R. Inside Higher Ed. May 8th, 2024
In this article, the author shares how he incorporated GenAI in his daily professor tasks – from enhancing his curriculum to using it to plan and take notes during meetings. “The message for those of us in higher education is that we must pay close attention to these developments for the sake of our students, our institutions and ourselves.”
Schofield, L. and Zhou, X. Times Higher Education. May 3rd, 2024
The authors of this article reflect on the common phrase “I can tell it is written by AI”, and their personal experience of restricting themselves from using certain terms in their writing that might cause their text to be deemed AI-generated. “A new wave of paranoia appears to be sweeping across higher education as everyone becomes an amateur expert in AI detection.” “This could have the effect of making non-native speakers paranoid about engaging fully in academic discourse for fear that their work will be deemed AI-generated. This could stifle their creativity and hamper their development of the genuine voice that is an essential component of effective writing and critical thinking.” In addition, “there is a whole world of power dynamics involved in determining who assumes the authority to detect and whose work is subject to detection”.
Arés, M. Times Higher Education. May 9th, 2024
This THE podcast episode focuses on the potential impacts of extended reality and artificial intelligence on teaching and learning. The guest, Monica Arés, executive director of the Innovation, Digital Education and Analytics Lab at Imperial College London, talks about the evolution of these tools over the past couple of years, and shares what she thinks teaching technology will look like in 2034.
Stratton-Maher, D. Times Higher Education. May 6th, 2024
In this article, Dianne Stratton-Maher, lecturer in nursing in the School of Nursing and Midwifery at the University of Southern Queensland, reflects on the incorporation of GenAI in nursing teaching and assessments. She argues that two key aspects to consider when incorporating ChatGPT into assessments are: 1) Ensuring first-year nursing students are familiar with ChatGPT; and 2) Embracing ethical integration of ChatGPT in assessments. “The ethical and effective use of AI is not a possibility; it’s a certainty. As our graduates embark on their nursing career, AI technologies will play pivotal roles in patient care, research and decision-making processes. Banning the use of AI in their undergraduate studies is not the answer to addressing academic integrity concerns; rather, it’s about preparing our students for the realities they will face in their professional lives.”
Holland, D. Times Higher Education. May 8th, 2024
In this article, David Holland, lecturer in psychology at the University of East Anglia, reflects on implications of GenAI on critical thinking. “One of the helpful by-products emerging from the advent of AI is that we are beginning to reflect more critically on the way we think.” The author believes that the term ‘critical thinking’ should be bypassed, rather putting the emphasis on “tractable and demonstrable thinking concepts such as ‘analysis’ or ‘evaluation’.
More Information
Want more? Consult HESA’s Observatory on AI Policies in Canadian Post-Secondary Education.
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