Thanks so much for this. I teach 9th grade English. As the year wraps up, I'm thinking hard about how to rework assignments to account for the growth of AI. This offers a lot of food for thought. Your 4th point about being more welcoming to students is important, though it's also hard to achieve when you have big class sizes. I kind of feel like all of this comes back to the issue teachers have been screaming about for years: "WE NEED SMALLER CLASS SIZES." When you've got 15 kids in a room instead of 30, you can support them in ways that don't make them want to run to ChatGPT or Claude instead of coming to you. Excellent work here.
Oh my, I couldn't agree more! The kind of teaching I could do as a college prof with 40 students versus what I could do teaching 110 students high school English was different in part because I could meet with all the them individually in college. The best answer to "personalized learning" isn't tech or AI, but better teacher-student ratios! I'm glad you find this work helpful. :)
100% this. I work at a school with small ratios and therefore have time to consult with students. And more often than not, it's the students who opt in to consultation who don't use AI as they have a sense of purpose after our collaborative discussion and can write themselves. It's those who resist the conversations (and there are a few) who will gravitate towards it as a crutch. Furthermore, when I ask graduates who have the privilege of attending prestigious universities (such as Oxbridge) what the experience is like, the number 1 feedback is the highly personalised, friendly and collegial tutorial groups. They have multiple meet ups a week with tutors to discuss their writing. AI is filling the gap we have created by assigning teachers too many students, so we all resort to managerial techniques to survive.
Thanks, Mark! I'm glad you appreciate the data here. I am working on publishing on my current data. I've been giving the survey to Pitt students every term since Dec 2022, so I might continue that--pending patience from my dept and the students! It's interesting longitudinally.
Hi Annette, thank you for another thoughtful article. Some of us are thinking about how we can create new writing assignments to allow students to make thoughtful choices with AI. One barrier seems to be that writing instructors may feel that adjusting previous assignments to integrate AI is additional and unplanned labor. Therefore, it may be easier not to deal with AI. I think continuously interrogating our writing assignments is an opportunity for growth as teachers, but do you have any advice for teachers who may feel hesitant, or even resentful, that they now have to fold in additional steps accounting for AI usage into assignments? Thank you for this fantastic series!
Well done. It's a complex picture that'll continue to evolve each year.
yes, already studies from 2023 are quite dated....!
What a comprehensive look at what we know about AI and how we can help keep students engaged. I loved the Marie Condo analogy!
I try to apply her philosophy for my house, too, but I'm less successful there! haaaa.
Her philosophy plays a big role in Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, so I feel special affection for it!
Thanks so much for this. I teach 9th grade English. As the year wraps up, I'm thinking hard about how to rework assignments to account for the growth of AI. This offers a lot of food for thought. Your 4th point about being more welcoming to students is important, though it's also hard to achieve when you have big class sizes. I kind of feel like all of this comes back to the issue teachers have been screaming about for years: "WE NEED SMALLER CLASS SIZES." When you've got 15 kids in a room instead of 30, you can support them in ways that don't make them want to run to ChatGPT or Claude instead of coming to you. Excellent work here.
Oh my, I couldn't agree more! The kind of teaching I could do as a college prof with 40 students versus what I could do teaching 110 students high school English was different in part because I could meet with all the them individually in college. The best answer to "personalized learning" isn't tech or AI, but better teacher-student ratios! I'm glad you find this work helpful. :)
100% this. I work at a school with small ratios and therefore have time to consult with students. And more often than not, it's the students who opt in to consultation who don't use AI as they have a sense of purpose after our collaborative discussion and can write themselves. It's those who resist the conversations (and there are a few) who will gravitate towards it as a crutch. Furthermore, when I ask graduates who have the privilege of attending prestigious universities (such as Oxbridge) what the experience is like, the number 1 feedback is the highly personalised, friendly and collegial tutorial groups. They have multiple meet ups a week with tutors to discuss their writing. AI is filling the gap we have created by assigning teachers too many students, so we all resort to managerial techniques to survive.
YES: "AI is filling the gap we have created by assigning teachers too many students, so we all resort to managerial techniques to survive."
Let's funnel the VC funding going to AI education initiatives into better teacher student ratios. We already know this works!
Loved seeing all this data collected in one place! Thank you!
This is really interesting and useful data, Anette. Thank you.
Do you plan to update your own study at any point? Would be interesting as a gauge of change
Thanks, Mark! I'm glad you appreciate the data here. I am working on publishing on my current data. I've been giving the survey to Pitt students every term since Dec 2022, so I might continue that--pending patience from my dept and the students! It's interesting longitudinally.
Hi Annette, thank you for another thoughtful article. Some of us are thinking about how we can create new writing assignments to allow students to make thoughtful choices with AI. One barrier seems to be that writing instructors may feel that adjusting previous assignments to integrate AI is additional and unplanned labor. Therefore, it may be easier not to deal with AI. I think continuously interrogating our writing assignments is an opportunity for growth as teachers, but do you have any advice for teachers who may feel hesitant, or even resentful, that they now have to fold in additional steps accounting for AI usage into assignments? Thank you for this fantastic series!