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AI & WCU Writing Professors:
Introduction
Introduction
We’ve all heard about it. Teachers have embraced, threatened, and questioned it. Students have toyed, enjoyed, and sometime misused it. What are the best ways that WCU professors can prepare their students for the continued emergence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in academic context and in preparation for life after college? How do you as writing teachers at WCU have a special responsibility to teach their students about the promises and challenges of using AI in their work? While AI presents new opportunities and challenges, WCU encourages their professors to weigh and develop their own classroom policies on using AI in assignments. While AI tools can offer students valuable assistance, their potential for misuse raises ethical concerns. This guide equips WCU professors who teach WRT or Writing Emphasis courses with best practices to navigate the complex landscape of AI in their classrooms.
Generative Artificial Intelligence
Generative Artificial Intelligence
It is difficult to imagine a college student or teacher had not interacted with (or heard about) Generative AI. Cade Metz explains that generative artificial intelligence, or the tools we know of as Alexa, ChatGPT, or copilot for example, operate on a mathematical system that “learns” by searching and analyzing huge amounts of digital data. This process is called a neural network. More complex neural networks developed about five years ago, Metz describes, and began to pull from digital books, Wikipedia, and other digital repositories, along with the internet overall. These “large language model” have become adept at mimicking and anticipating human language (Metz). We writing teachers, by our nature, are concerned with language, expression, and authenticity. To a point, it is the writing teacher who can shape and guide students’ thinking, understanding, and use of AI, not just in the classroom, but also with an eye to their futures.
Best Practice:
Best Practice:
Educate students on how to use AI tools ethically to improve writing and how academic honesty promotes real learning
Educate students on how to use AI tools ethically to improve writing and how academic honesty promotes real learning
Clear Writing
Clear Writing
Clear writing does not have a single definition. Here at WCU, our General Education program emphasizes the value of good, clear communication through writing. Your students are required to take two WRT courses, as well as nine credits of “W” or Writing Emphasis courses. Clear writing, to some degree, includes attention to grammar and mechanics, tone, style, and word choice. While we tend to be concerned with the output of AI, John Bailey posits that the composition of the prompt is also important. This, like a good Boolean search in a library database, focuses the user on clear, precise, and exact wording. In addition, students can employ tools like Grammarly and ProWritingAid to identify and correct grammar errors, improving sentence structure and clarity. Baily also describes that AI can act like “Instructional assistants” and offer constructive feedback on students work. As WCU writing professors, you should consider harnessing the power of these free and freely accessible tools to demonstrate the power of language and the importance of clear writing.
Caution: Academic Dishonesty
Caution: Academic Dishonesty
College students are busy; college students are stressed. While they can help students improve the mechanics and style of their writing, AI tools are also tempting to use in unethical ways. In “AI in Education,” John Bailey cautions teachers on the misuse of AI in an academic setting: “AI-generated essays threaten to undermine learning.” To combat this, he suggests Instructional assistants” and offer constructive feedback on students work Instructional assistants” and offer constructive feedback on students work Instructional assistants” and offer constructive feedback on students work. As writing professors, you must encourage students to use AI tools wisely. However, you also must instill the value of learning as a core component of writing and thinking through writing.
Suggested tools:
Suggested tools:
Grammarly
Globamba Feedback
Word Editor
Best Practice:
Best Practice:
Employ accessible tools to promote an inclusive classroom
Employ accessible tools to promote an inclusive classroom
Accessibility & Inclusivity
Accessibility & Inclusivity
Education must be open to students of all abilities and backgrounds, and AI tools offer opportunities to level the playing field for students. Writing teachers can easily incorporate accessible and inclusive tools in their classrooms through activities and assignments. In the article “Designing Generative AI to Work for people with Disabilities,” Henneborn articulates five significant tools for you to build inclusivity that can easily translate to the writing classroom. While we are familiar with screen readers and alternate text, AI takes accessibility to the next level. Currently, the most significant and most used features include text-to-speech and voice dictation. These tools, whether stand alone or built in, can support students with learning disabilities or visual impairments (Henneborn). In addition, BBC reporter Christine Ro suggests that language translation (speech and written) is easier to access with more reliable results. In addition, AI can adapt to a user’s needs and provide drills and examples that become more and more challenging (Ro). Demonstrating that writing can be produced, reviewed, and revised in a variety of ways not only makes a more accessible classroom, but also invites maximum inclusivity and perspective.
Caution: Biased Information
Caution: Biased Information
Baily and “Practical AI” both explain that AI systems learn from the data they retrieve and analyze. “If this data contains biases, those biases can be learned and perpetuated by the AI system. For example, if the data include student-performance information that’s biased toward one ethnicity, gender, or socioeconomic segment, the AI system could learn to favor students from that group. Less cited but still important are potential biases around political ideology and possibly even pedagogical philosophy that may generate responses not aligned to a community’s values.” To combat these biases, Ro stresses the importance of your oversight and mentoring and the importance of explaining how and why the biases exist – and how to teach them better. Like other challenging topics, you, as writing professors, can use their expertise and rhetorical knowledge to understand the source of bias and to navigate students through overcoming biases to true learning.
Suggested tools:
Suggested tools:
Speech-to-Text
Audio and Podcasts
Auto Translation
Conclusion
Conclusion
AI is here to stay, and writing teachers are at the forefront of arming students with the power to use these tools effectively. WCU allows its professors to establish their own AI use guidelines, and that freedom comes with power. If you educate on how to use AI tools responsibly and emphasize why academic honesty promotes real learning, students will be ready to face new challenges. Also, if you as writing professors actively work to employ accessible tools, your classrooms will be rich, inclusive environments. AI is not without is potential challenges, like misusing or cheating on one hand or finding disruptive or bad data on the other. With the freedom to determine policy and the emphasis on writing through General Education, WCU writing professors are on the front lines of making our students strong students and critical thinkers.
Works Cited
Works Cited
Baily, John, “AI in Education,” Education Next, Vo. 23, No. 4, 2023, www.educationnext.org/a-i-in-education-leap-into-new-era-machine-intelligence-carries-risks-challenges-promises/
Henneborn, Laurie, “Designing Generative AI to Work for People with Disabilities,” Harvard Business Review, 18 Aug. 2023. hbr.org/2023/08/designing-generative-ai-to-work-for-people-with-disabilities
Metz, Cade. “Why Chatbots Sometimes Act Weird and Spout Nonsense,” New York Times, 16 Feb. 2023.
“Practical AI for Instructors and Students Part 1: Introduction to AI for Teachers and Students,” YouTube, uploaded by Wharton School, 31 July 2023, youtu.be/t9gmyvf7JYo?si=FBg9ZtpDAQe3SPFj
Ro, Christine, “Students Switch to AI to Learn Languages,” BBC, 22 June 2023. www.bbc.com/news/business-65849104
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