Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) refers to a subset of AI that involves creating or generating new content or data, such as text, images, or music, based on a set of patterns or rules. Unlike traditional AI, which relies on pre-existing data to make decisions or predictions, generative AI can create entirely new content that is unique and original.
Oxford English Dictionary: "The capacity of computers or other machines to exhibit or simulate intelligent behaviour; the field of study concerned with this. Abbreviated AI."
One of the main applications of generative AI is in the creative industries, such as music, art, and writing, where it can be used to produce new and original works, but keep in mind it is pulling its results from human created work. In addition, it has many potential uses in research, including generating new datasets, simulations, and models that can be used to explore complex systems and phenomena.
While ChatGPT is new and more sophisticated than its predecessors, educators have been coping with, and capitalizing on, AI tools for some time. For example, the plagiarism software Turnitin already utilizes AI; language instructors have long received assignments with answers generated by Google Translate; CodePilot is widely used by students in computer science; Grammarly is a well-established writing aid; and Wolfram Alpha is heavily used by students completing quantitative assignments. Meanwhile, AI bots are heavily used in customer service, financial services, and other transactional domains.
Thinking about Generative AI as a pedagogy problem, rather than a plagiarism problem, is a way to approach our teaching generatively.
Scaffolding mitigates library anxiety, imposter syndrome, and accidental plagiarism.
Rather than assigning a big, summative paper or project at the end of the course, breaking it up into stages with student reflection reinforces original work and a growth mindset that can reduce the perceived need for students using a tool such as ChatGPT.
Select Cline Library resources (requires an NAU login):
Our research and instruction librarians can also help.
NAU has an extensive list of AI resources, including information the TRAIL program (Transformation through Artiifical Intelligence in Learning).
Other resources here include:
meta(LAB) at Harvard - The AI Pedagogy Project
A collection of assignments and materials for educators curious about how AI affects their students and their syllabi.
Integrating Generative AI in Teaching and Learning: Faculty approaches across Barnard
Faculty across disciplines provide a glimpse into their approaches.
Critical Thinking with AI: Two Approaches
"How can we use AI to foster rather than replace critical thinking? The answer may lie in providing worked examples demonstrating the steps taken in the critical thinking process, using AI not as an answer tool but as a process tool."
Ethan Mollick, Wharton School at Univ. of Pennsylvania.
Student use cases for AI, Mollick & Mollick, Sept. 2023.
Start with these articles from his newsletter:
Sign up for his newsletter: One Useful Thing. And read his paper: Mollick, Ethan R. and Mollick, Lilach, Using AI to Implement Effective Teaching Strategies in Classrooms: Five Strategies, Including Prompts (March 17, 2023)