Ellen Moore

Classroom Policies

[Note: this was taken/adapted from a source provided by Marisa/the UWT Library]

• USE OF AI IN THIS CLASS: Your instructor will discuss in class the ways in which students could use ChatGPT or similar systems that are acceptable. Except for those situations, the following policy will apply.

  • Purpose: This policy aims to ensure the academic integrity and originality of university writing assignments by prohibiting the use of chatbots to complete assignments.

  • Scope: This policy applies to all students taking this course. The policy applies to any assignments submitted for academic credit, including but not limited to essays, research papers, and other sundry class projects and assignments.

  • Policy: It is strictly forbidden to use chatbots or any other automated software to complete the assignments except under the conditions explained in class by your instructor.

  • Violation of this policy may result in disciplinary action, up to and including revocation of credit for the assignment, and other sanctions as described for plagiarism in the university's academic honesty policy.

Assignment/Activity

This is a two-part assignment I designed for first-year students, where the first part consists of a handwritten assignment they must do in class, and the second part is where they must compare Claude AI’s version of the assignment to their own. The purpose of this assignment is to foster skills related to writing, critical thinking, evaluation, and reading. 

Learning Outcomes (note: Claude and I worked on this together) 

• Demonstrate an ability to accurately summarize key ideas, arguments, and findings from an academic article in students’ own words.

• Critically analyze and evaluate an academic article, commenting on the strengths and weaknesses of the article. 

• Compare and contrast their own summary and analysis of the article to one generated by Claude AI, evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of each.

• Assess the capabilities and limitations of AI tools like Claude for summarizing and evaluating academic texts. Consider biases, errors, or lack of nuanced understanding an AI might have compared to a human reader.

• Reflect on the role and value of AI tools in academic and educational contexts. When might an AI summary be helpful, and when is nuanced human analysis preferable?

• Be able to tie ideas, concepts, and theories from an academic article into material they have encountered in their course. 

Tools/Resources Used

• Claude AI

• An old-fashioned “blue book”

Approximate Time to Complete

Three to four hours

Step-by-step Instructions

Part I: 

THIS IS PART I OF YOUR PAPER ASSIGNMENT/GRADE and it is done in class. You will be doing this part in class and you will need to bring a blue book (see West Coast Grocery for books) in which to write. You also need to be in class for this -- no Zoom is available for this class and you must be present to complete this first part. In addition, you cannot complete the second part (Friday's exercise) if you don't do the first (this one).

To understand how to do well on this assignment first go to Canvas, then Files, then Rubrics to see the guidelines for this short paper (or just click here). The key part is answering all the central points needed from the rubric itself in order and with detail from the reading.

Here is what you need to do in brief:

Your article evaluation must include (usually in this order):

(1) the key research questions and themes identified in the article (eg, what the article is about). Pull out two good quotes.

(2) the methodology in the article

(3) the key findings

(4) an analysis of the strengths and/or weaknesses of the study

(5) Your own thoughts and words about how the article adds to what you have read about on this particular topic in the class (tie in a class reading or more than one reading from class, even if the topic link is broad).

Part II

THIS IS PART II OF YOUR PAPER ASSIGNMENT (submit here on Canvas)

You have already written your own summary and analysis of your chosen academic article. Now it's time to have Claude try it, and you'll be comparing the two results.

So, navigate to Claude AI, upload (or copy/paste) the academic article for it, then engineer your prompt much the same as my prompt (eg, ask it to summarize, list the methods and findings, identify strengths and weaknesses of the study, etc.). Ask it for about an essay summarizing and evaluating the Depounti et al. article. Specifically,, give Claude this prompt while also uploading the following doc for him (available under Files as well): "Write a 700-word essay (with clear headers for each section) that details the following: 1) The central goal or topic of the article; 2) the methods used in the study; 3) the findings; 4) challenges and limitations of the study; 5) how this relates to the field of artificial intelligence."

1 - Copy and paste Claude's response into the assignment.

2 - Then, analyze the paper you wrote as compared to Claude's version, specifically:

2A - How were they similar? [That is, what did both you AND Claude pick up on in the article?]

2B - How were they different? [That is, what did you get that Claude missed and vice versa?]

2C - Who wrote in clearer language -- you or Claude? Explain.

2D - What skills do you think I intended for you to learn by doing your own analysis of the article first? List all the skills and be thorough. [You are welcome to pose this question to Claude to get ideas: just note that you did so, and make your prompt to him clear.] 

2E. If you think Claude's paper was better than yours, does that mean you didn't learn anything? Say more about the potential benefits of you doing the written exercise first.

Reflections on Creating the Assignment

I ran this exercise a week ago in my TCORE AI class and loved the results. We prepared for the in-class handwritten assignment by reading another article and trying to summarize/evaluate it together. That gave them practice and helped them to know what to expect. When they had Claude AI follow the same steps to summarize/evaluate the same article, their responses were really thoughtful: one student wrote that Claude didn’t catch that all three authors were female (which she tied into a feminist perspective), and another noted that he disagreed with Claude’s assessment of flaws in the article. All students wrote that they understood that I assigned this two-part exercise to help them with reading comprehension, writing skills, and critical thinking. In all, it was a very successful exercise considering that this was the first time I’d ever tried it. 

Post-Implementation/Testing Reflection

What about your project worked well? What would you revise for future iterations?

Well, Claude didn’t produce a 700-word essay and students couldn’t get him to do it, so I’ll have to understand what Claude’s problem is 🙂 because students needed more detail to evaluate. 

When you tested this policy or assignment, how did you feel working through the steps?

The architecture of the assignment worked incredibly well: students knew what to expect and it was very easy to grade accurately and well.