Concerns of AI Use | Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) | Seneca Polytechnic

Setting Expectations

Setting clear expectations around GenAI use in teaching and learning will not only promote mutual trust and respect, but will help students see their way through a forest which can, at first, appear very dense. Having conversations with your students around using GenAI, or any other technology for that matter, is crucial to helping students prepare for the skills of the future - inside and outside the classroom.

It is acceptable to set clear rules of engagement with GenAI. This will help students to adopt the mindset that GenAI use is context dependent and that its use is fluid, requiring flexibility and constant reflection.

When decisions are made around acceptable levels of GenAI use, it is important to have the discussion around why these decisions have been made. For example, it is reasonable to say that a given assignment is AI-free or AI-friendly, or AI-limited as long as a rationale is provided.

A great suggestion for providing this rationale is by using your course learning outcomes (CLO’s) as guidance. By aligning learning activities, assessments, assignments and evaluations with your CLO’s, you’ll be in a position to communicate the goals and objectives each teaching goal. For example, consider a CLO such as “Students will be able to analyse a piece of persuasive writing to determine the persuasive strategies used by the author, making reference to the strategies discussed in class”. This particular CLO allows for discussion around what GenAI can, and cannot, be used for. Maybe it is decided that students can use GenAI to help foster their understanding of the different persuasive strategies that authors use and that were referenced in class, but that the critical analysis of the writing piece is AI-free.

Ethical Considerations

Explore the curated list of videos that examine and explore some of the ethical issues of Generative AI:

Ethics of AI: Challenges and Governance

AI Is Dangerous, but Not for the Reasons You Think

The Incredible Creativity of Deepfakes — and the Worrying Future of AI

Can artists protect their work from AI?

AI's Hidden Climate Costs

Algorithmic Bias and Fairness: Crash Course AI

Explore the concerns of AI use in more detail below:

What do you think?

Share your thoughts in the Padlet below! 

Adapted from Algorithmic Awareness Toolkit: Teaching Algorithmic Literacy in Academic Libraries and Beyond by Marta Samokishyn is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. 

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