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Assessments in Teaching and Learning in the Age of AI
Clearly, many aspects of everyday living have begun to change in the emerging, evolving “Age of AI.” Higher education must acknowledge and adapt to those changes and anticipate the ones yet to come.
Some faculty members fail to recognize that the world has changed and we must respond to those changes in how and what we do to prepare learners for their careers and personal aspirations. It is frustrating to many to be required to re-design their teaching content and methods in response to the larger worldwide technological changes. Yet, here we are, the world in fact has changed. We are confronted with exciting and sometimes frightening new capabilities in this, the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
The first impulse by some colleges and departments was to ban AI use by students in order to preserve the pedagogies and processes of teaching in the last century. That, of course, has mostly fallen, with notable exceptions. For example just this fall, the University of Chicago has issued a ban on AI in its core Social Sciences Courses:
The University of Chicago will prohibit AI use in its core social science courses starting this fall, a decision detailed in a Social Sciences Collegiate Division memo. This new policy, reflecting a strong consensus, aims to establish an "analog" pedagogical setting where students learn to read, write, and think independently, without AI dependence. Key elements include device-free classrooms, mandatory in-person attendance, and strict requirements for independent assignment completion.
While individual cases may be exempted upon petition by the faculty member, the policy seems to limit the rich digital experiences that are available to students at most universities. Those are experiences that will be highly relevant for their ensuing careers. To deny them in problem-solving and skill-building is akin to denying the calculator, computer and internet.
As a result of the Third Industrial Revolution, the Information Age, higher education shifted from an emphasis on passive information storage and rote knowledge building to creative and critical thinking. This came as a result of our near instant access to much of the world’s information and knowledge via the internet as a kind of digital memory extension. As AI advanced, the human skills needed to oversee these innovations expanded to emphasize higher order thinking and problem processing.
Therefore, different learning outcomes emerged to meet the expectations of employers and needs of professionals within careers. Hence, faculty need to change from conveyors of information and knowledge to cultivators of higher order critical and creative thinking as well as associated skills of analysis, synthesis, prediction, projection, interpolation and extrapolation.
As with most teaching, a key element can be to fold assessment into the teaching and learning process as a formative process active within the teaching and learning so that the assessment becomes a part of the learning process. Linked to the teaching approach of Socrates, described in Plato's writings, one of the oldest and most effective approaches is the Socratic method that utilizes a series of questions to ultimately lead to truths and insights.
In this column last year I featured a prompt for a Socratic Method AI tutor that effectively runs on most frontier models even today. There are many such tools available to online educators, but I chose this one as a free example of a way in which AI can be used to insert active learning of critical and creative thinking into instruction. It can easily be implemented by individual faculty members without additional costs and, in most cases, without additional approvals.
This prompt turns AI into an advanced, patient, and intellectually rigorous mentor whose only role is to guide users to their own clarity and insight through a structured series of targeted, open-ended questions. The Socratic Questioner never offers direct answers, advice, or opinions. Instead, it listens closely to the user’s stated situation or dilemma, restates their core question for clarity, and proceeds one question at a time, each building on the last, to help the user examine beliefs, surface assumptions, and consider new angles. The entire process is calm, empathetic, and paced to the user’s comfort, creating a safe space for deep self-reflection without judgment or pressure.
The tool can be used in each module in a class, guiding students to develop deep thinking and creative applications of the content. Yet, there are other creative ways in which GenAI is being used by higher education faculty to assess and enhance learning. Published just this month in the International Journal of Technology in Higher Education is “Higher education assessments in the age of GenAI: a systematic review” by Helen Crompton and Elaine Burke. It is an open access article that I encourage all of my colleagues in higher education to review for a broad perspective of how our field is responding to the opportunity to engage AI in assessment. In examining 73 empirical studies conducted over the past three years, the research uncovers policies, practices and implementations.
The emergence of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is now placing renewed pressure on these established principles, prompting institutions to reconsider how assessment is designed, delivered, and evaluated. While a growing body of research has examined GenAI’s role in teaching and learning broadly, less synthesis exists on how it is reshaping assessment specifically, and how these shifts relate to long-standing assessment theory and practice….. Using PRISMA, 72 studies were identified and analyzed. The findings show that research was conducted across 24 countries and 20 academic disciplines…. Three major assessment design approaches emerged in response to GenAI: (1) process orientation, (2) authenticity, and (3) oral and dialogical approaches. Five ways educators used GenAI across the assessment process were identified: (1) creating assessments, (2) practice for assessments, (3) grading, (4) transparency of learning, and (5) feedback. Together, these findings situate GenAI’s influence with the broader trajectory of assessment scholarship and provide researchers, educators, institutional leaders, and policymakers a clearer picture of how assessment practices are being negotiated in response to GenAI.
AI offers us very powerful and efficient tools with which we can enhance and assess teaching and learning in higher education. As evidenced in this study, AI is being implemented effectively by college and university educators worldwide in assessment redesign which is converging around process, authenticity and dialogue. It is incumbent upon us to introduce these tools and approaches to our learners who are entering a worldwide workplace that increasingly depends upon AI. Our teaching and assessment quality as well as our students’ learning outcomes can be enhanced as a result. Examine Compton and Burke’s study and share widely with your colleagues who might benefit from learning more about AI assessment tools in their teaching.
Online: Trending Now: https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/blogs/online-trending-now
Link to Unanticipated presentation: https://sites.google.com/view/unanticipated/home/
Link to Ray's EduAI Advisor: https://chatgpt.com/g/g-pLDOh2PHk-ray-s-eduai-advisor
Link to Ray Schroeder Brief CV https://bit.ly/44ZHlu9