AI in Higher Education
ChatGPT and Artificial Intelligence in Higher Education: Quick Start Guide (by Emma Sabzalieva and Arianna Valentini, UNESCO, April 2023) "raises some of the main challenges and ethical implications of AI in higher education and offers practical steps that higher education institutions can take." The guide [page 9] suggests these teaching and learning applications of ChatGPT in higher education:
| possibility engine | Socratic opponent | collaboration coach |
| guide on the side | personal tutor | co-designer |
| exploratorium | study buddy | motivator |
- Chronicle of Higher Education This link opens in a new windowThe Chronicle of Higher Education has a wealth of articles, advice, and opinions surrounding AI in higher education, from graduate student Leonard Cassuto claiming, "You don't need to be Nostradamus to predict that you will need more in-person exams and in-class writing assignments" (25 July 2023), to pedagogy specialist Flower Darby writing, "If we aim to prepare today's students to tackle tomorrow's problems, we would do well to teach them how to think about and use AI tools to enhance their work" (13 Nov. 2023).
- EDUCAUSE AI Landscape Study (Feb. 2024)From EDUCAUSE's AI Hub: "Moving from reaction to action, higher education stakeholders are currently exploring the opportunities afforded by AI for teaching, learning, and work while maintaining a sense of caution for the vast array of risks AI-powered technologies pose. To aid in these efforts, we present this inaugural EDUCAUSE AI Landscape Study, in which we summarize the higher education community’s current sentiments and experiences related to strategic planning and readiness, policies and procedures, workforce, and the future of AI in higher education."
AI Tools
Would you like a writing and a grading assistant?
Packback is an AI tool available through Thomas Jefferson University and accessible through your course on Canvas. Packback offers 3 different tools to help students enhance their writing and critical thinking, and assists instructors with grading these assignments.
- Packback Questions Packback Questions is an inquiry-driven discussion platform. On Packback, students ask the discussion questions, giving students a space to develop their ideas, take an active role in learning, and practice writing. Packback’s A.I. Instant Feedback and Moderation ensure that the discussion stays on track, helping educators spend less time managing the discussion and more time engaging with students.
- Packback Deep Dives Packback Deep Dives is a platform for developing and assessing writing. Deep Dives helps every student build a strong foundation of writing and research skills. Through instant AI feedback, students have the opportunity to iterate on their work based on your specific assessment criteria. Instructors receive grading support from our AI grading assistant to help assess the writing mechanics of a piece, so you can focus your feedback on students’ ideas and content.
- Packback Writing Lab (New!) AI that actually teaches you how to write (rather than writing for you). Writing Lab is a powerful direct-to-student AI writing feedback platform for students to use to develop writing skills and confidence outside the classroom. Packback Writing Lab is intended to help students use AI for writing in ways that teach them how to be a great writer. Our goal is to build confident writers that can express themselves effectively with–and without–AI tools.
- Ready to add Packback to your Canvas course? Follow the instructions on this page or reach out to one of our Instructional Designers at the Academic Commons for one-on-one assistance!
Would you like to create images?
- Adobe FireflyAdobe's Firefly does not violate creator copyrights because it was trained exclusively on Adobe Stock and public domain content. Also, its images are stamped so they cannot be misrepresented. Its free model permits 25 "generative credits" per month.
Would you like help organizing your "to do" list, changing the tone of your writing, judging the tone of someone else's text, or estimating how long a task will take?
- Goblin ToolsFree (and ad-free) tool for organizing your work, changing and judging the tone of text, and estimating how long a task will take
Are you grappling with understanding a reading?
Would you like to convert text to speech (TTS)?
- SpeechifySelect from different voices, choose your playback speed, use online or download the app. Freemium access.
Do you need help coding?
- GitHub CopilotAn open AI development tool that autocompletes code and uses natural language prompts to create code
If you are considering using generative AI in research and writing, ask yourself, "When is it safe to use ChatGPT?"
Source: ChatGPT and Artificial Intelligence in Higher Education: Quick Start Guide by Emma Sabzalieva and Arianna Valentini, UNESCO, 2023. Flowchart by Aleksandr Tiulkanov, January 2023, p. 6.
For Instructors
Syllabi statements
- Syllabi Policies for AI Generative ToolsTeaching faculty are encouraged to clarify their policies for AI use by students in their classes. For guidance, see this popular Google Doc "created by Lance Eaton...for the purposes of sharing and helping other instructors see the range of policies available by other educators to help in the development of their own for navigating AI-Generative Tools (such as ChatGPT, MidJourney, Dall-E, etc)."
AI Prompting
- AI Prompts for Teaching: A SpellbookWritten by Cynthia Alby, PH.D. This document includes various topics related to teaching and how AI could be prompted to provide desired results to those different topics.
Pedagogy
- Integrating AI into AssignmentsFrom the Stanford Teaching Commons: "Here we offer strategies and perspectives on integrating AI tools into assignments and activities used to assess student learning."
- The AI Pedagogy ProjectThis site from the metaLAB at Harvard is a "curated collection of classroom assignments, designed to help educators facilitate critical conversations with their students about the capabilities and limitations of AI."
- Educator FAQThis set of FAQs from the OpenAI Help Center offers advice from the company that created ChatGPT. One article asks, "Do AI detectors work?" and answers, "in short, no, not in our experience."
- "One Useful Thing"This blog from Ethan Mollick, a professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, focuses on the impacts of AI on work and on education. See also the library's ebook copy of Mollick's "Co-intelligence: Living and Working with AI" (2024).
- AI Instructional ToolsThis gateway site of AI policy, presentation, prompt engineering, speech and language, art and design, and research tools is collected and organized by Joyce Valenza, professor at Rutgers University and former ed tech columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Guidance on using AI for writing assignments
TJU has not yet determined an institutional position on student use of AI. Instructors are encouraged to clearly state their own AI use policies in their course syllabi while also upholding the university's policy on academic dishonesty and plagiarism. That policy, as outlined in the TJU Handbook, states:
"Academic integrity is the foundation of all Jefferson teaching, learning, and professional endeavors and is vital to advancing a culture of fairness, trust and respect. All members of the University community must maintain respect for the intellectual efforts of others and be honest in their own work, words and ideas... Plagiarism: The intentional use of another person's language, ideas, or other original (not common-knowledge) material without acknowledging its source; engaging and incorporating the exact or closely paraphrased ideas, words, data, or images of others without consent and/or citation to the author. This includes text and images produced by AI tools without instructor permission or proper citation."
Model guidelines for AI in higher education