Alternatively or in addition to this, you can embrace AI and design new tasks and assignments that cause students to learn together with the AI.
This magical suggestion needs explication.
From what I’ve seen via Ethan Mollick, instead of copy-pasting, the new assignments that would be effective are the same as the usual—just “do the work,” but at the AI. Enter a simulation, but please don’t dual-screen the task. Teach the AI (I guess the benefit here is immediate feedback, as if you couldn’t use yourself or friend as a sounding board), but please don’t dual-screen the task. Have a conversation (again, not in class or on a discussion board or among friends), but please don’t dual-screen the task. Then show us you “did it.” You could of course do these things without AI, though maybe AI makes a better (and certainly faster) partner. But the crux is that you have to do the task yourself. Also note that this admits the pre-existing value of these kinds of tasks.
Students who will good-faith do the work and leverage AI for search, critique, and tutoring are...doing the work and getting the value, like (probably more efficiently than, possibly with higher returns than) those who do the work without AI. Students who won’t...are not doing the work and not getting the value, aside from the signaling value from passing the class. So there you have it—educators can be content that not doing the assignment delivers worse results for the student, but the student doesn’t mind as long as they get their grade, which is problematic. Thus, educators are not going quietly and are in fact very concerned about AI-proofing the work, including shifts to in-person testing and tasks.
However, that only preserves the benefit of the courses and in turn degree (I’m not saying pure signaling value doesn’t exist, I’m just saying human capital development value is non-zero and under threat). It does not insulate the college graduate from competition in knowledge work from AI (here’s the analogy: it would obviously be bad for the Ford brand to send lemons into the vehicle market, but even if they are sending decent cars out, they should still be worried about new entrants).
This magical suggestion needs explication.
From what I’ve seen via Ethan Mollick, instead of copy-pasting, the new assignments that would be effective are the same as the usual—just “do the work,” but at the AI. Enter a simulation, but please don’t dual-screen the task. Teach the AI (I guess the benefit here is immediate feedback, as if you couldn’t use yourself or friend as a sounding board), but please don’t dual-screen the task. Have a conversation (again, not in class or on a discussion board or among friends), but please don’t dual-screen the task. Then show us you “did it.” You could of course do these things without AI, though maybe AI makes a better (and certainly faster) partner. But the crux is that you have to do the task yourself. Also note that this admits the pre-existing value of these kinds of tasks.
Students who will good-faith do the work and leverage AI for search, critique, and tutoring are...doing the work and getting the value, like (probably more efficiently than, possibly with higher returns than) those who do the work without AI. Students who won’t...are not doing the work and not getting the value, aside from the signaling value from passing the class. So there you have it—educators can be content that not doing the assignment delivers worse results for the student, but the student doesn’t mind as long as they get their grade, which is problematic. Thus, educators are not going quietly and are in fact very concerned about AI-proofing the work, including shifts to in-person testing and tasks.
However, that only preserves the benefit of the courses and in turn degree (I’m not saying pure signaling value doesn’t exist, I’m just saying human capital development value is non-zero and under threat). It does not insulate the college graduate from competition in knowledge work from AI (here’s the analogy: it would obviously be bad for the Ford brand to send lemons into the vehicle market, but even if they are sending decent cars out, they should still be worried about new entrants).