AI and Tech on Campus: Real Talk with Students and Faculty

Sophie White: Welcome everyone to EDUCAUSE Shop Talk. I am Sophie White. I am a content marketing and program manager with EDUCAUSE and one of the hosts for today's discussion.

Jenay Robert: And I'm Jenay Robert. I'm a senior researcher at EDUCAUSE, and I'm your other host.

Sophie White: Great. So today we'll be talking about a recently released EDUCAUSE report on students in technology and we'll be talking generally about students in technology in higher education. So we are so thrilled to have one of our EDUCAUSE researchers who worked on the report as well as a faculty member and an undergraduate student with us today as guests. So I'll introduce all of them and then we'll dive into it. So our first guest is Nicole Muscanell. Nicole is a researcher at EDUCAUSE. She holds a PhD in social psychology and has more than a decade of experience in higher education, including roles in research, instruction, and academic advising. Her recent work explores faculty and student technology use very fitting for today's conversation, workforce challenges, analytics and emerging trends, shaping teaching, learning, cybersecurity and privacy in higher education. Nicole also has a cute dog who I hope makes an appearance today.

Jessica Petko, PhD is an associate professor of biology and science at Penn State York. Jess has a PhD in genetics and has been teaching at Penn State York for ten years. She teaches mid to upper level courses in cellular, molecular and developmental biology, and it involves undergraduates in HER NSF-funded research on circadian rhythms in spiders. That is really interesting and I wish we had time to do a podcast episode on that because I'm intrigued. Sometimes we have tarantula as cross the road in Colorado, which is always fascinating. And Yvette Chan is a fourth year international politics major at Penn State University Park with minors in human development and family studies and Longevity, aging and generational studies. She's a student partner on one of Penn State teaching and Learning with technologies, faculty, fellow projects, helping embed AI literacy into public speaking classes so students are prepared for an AI intertwined future outside of the classroom. Yvette uses various technologies in student run television productions and in creating media assets ranging from social media posts to event and marketing materials. So thank you all for being with us today. Thanks for inviting us.

And it's interesting, we have two different Penn State campuses represented. So I know you two don't work together, but you're representing a range of Penn State experience, so–

Jessica Petko: Very large and a very small.

Sophie White: So to dive in a bit, I would love to just start with the students in technology report that released at EDUCAUSE in April. Nicole, you were a lead researcher on that report. Do you want to talk just a little bit about some of your findings and maybe anything that surprised or interested you in particular about the report?

Nicole Muscanell: Yeah, sure. So I mean in the report I will say that not everything is focused specifically on technology, but a good portion of it is. So this year we took a look at things like modality preferences, students experiences and satisfaction with technology and technology services and supports. We asked about AI use, that's probably the big hot topic right now, but we also looked at things like accessibility and mental health, which aren't necessarily tied to technology specifically. So a lot of interesting findings. I think that a couple of the most interesting areas for me where we saw a little bit of a shift in modality preferences this year compared to our last report, which was in 2023. So we saw a shift towards stronger preferences for onsite learning experiences and there are some interesting age differences in there. In particular younger and older students were the ones saying that they wanted more onsite experiences.

So I thought that was really super interesting, especially since a lot of what's been in the headlines and discussions has been like there's this push towards digital learning, online learning, and this is kind of suggesting that maybe we're starting to see students navigating back towards wanting to be on site for a lot of their learning experiences. That was a really interesting area. I have a few interesting areas that I would like to point out about AI and probably mental health, but if we want to use that as a starting point, maybe we can jump into that.

Sophie White: Yeah. Jess and Yvette, do you have thoughts on the modality preferences?

Jessica Petko: I do. So I am kind of surprised, but not really at the same time. I think it kind of depends on what mindset you put yourself in and I feel like too, I'm wondering if the preferences would differ between students of different disciplines. So from the biology perspective, I see students want to be in class for their biology classes, so being on campus, being engaged, going into labs and doing hands-on things. But when they come to me for advising about general education courses, a lot of times they would prefer that to be an online thing. So I think it would be kind of interesting to dive in and see if there's different disciplines that have different views on that or whether they have different views based on whether it's a core class for their major or maybe just a general education course.

Yvette Chan: Yeah, I think I also see that difference, and I think a lot of students do find it, it's harder to actually focus. They're more aware that when they're home and remote, they don't really are focused into the class. So I think there's definitely a shift in that. And personally I do find in person classes just easier to pick up on information because I know there are some students who might go off track sometimes on their laptops and stuff, but it's definitely when you're outside your house you're more like, I'm outside, I'm doing something and I'm engaged in the learning. But yeah, for sure,

Jenay Robert: I think there's so many factors that go into modality preference, and when I talk to colleagues or to students about this, a lot of what I'm hearing is it really depends on the class because it depends not only on the content matter as just a better pointing out, but also how is that faculty member using the time. So if you have a class where students are coming and they're getting kind of a chalk talk, they might start saying, well, this could have easily been an online class if this is what the format is going to be. So it depends on so many different factors that these bigger trends are really, really interesting. But we always want to encourage institutions to kind of take that deeper dive into what is going on with their students, what do their students want in specific programs and specific course types and what are their students' lived experiences too? So your whole life picture matters when it comes to modality. I mean, I'm sure back when I was working three jobs and trying to help raise my brother who was a toddler, that I would've much preferred all my classes to be online if possible. That was a long time ago though, so it wasn't actually even a thought in my mind. But that's something we have to think about too is what are the busy lives of our students looking like and what are their other commitments?

Nicole Muscanell: And I think those are great points, Jenay, and I think that probably ties into why we see some of the age differences that emerged in the report. Different lifestyle things going on. And I'm going to speculate for older students, they probably have jobs, maybe they're married and have families, kids whatnot, and they need the flexibility, or I'm sorry, that's the mid-range students, not older students, they actually prefer onsite. But the people in the thirties to forties range were kind of I think leaning towards more flexibility. And then for younger students, I don't know if it's just the engagement thing or I think one thing that we discussed, Kristen or I was also maybe that desire for more social engagement and community building. And I don't know Jess if you've seen this firsthand with some of these age differences because at Penn State York, we do kind of have a mix. You have a mix of students including traditional, older and then also these younger students.

Jessica Petko: So before covid, I feel like there were a few years, so when I first started teaching, there would always be this cohort of students that would gather out in front of our offices and study together and things like that. And so there was a lot of interaction and I feel like leading up to covid that had started to wane, but now as you're saying, they might be seeking that social interaction because I'm starting to see that start back up again. And I do feel like they're becoming more engaged with each other and they maybe can appreciate that more now that was kind of so away from them for a year, but I think it's growing the need for collaborative learning.

Jenay Robert: I really wonder about that impact of those covid years, especially the students who maybe did high school, middle school online, and that was really rough, especially for that age group. Yvette, what part of your school years were online from

Yvette Chan: Covid started my sophomore year in high school. I was remote till the end of my junior year and then in person for my senior year. Because of my situation, I was halfway across the world, so I did high school in the middle of the night, so it went from 8:00 PM to 2:00 AM For me, it was tough definitely, especially trying to do algebra at 1:00 AM but it was an experience. And then even we have breakout room sessions that I do have some friends that I managed to connect with online, but once we got back into person, oh, we finally saw each other in person kind of thing. But definitely much smaller of a social circle, but being that it's all your classmates are pretty much the same as before, unlike university, each class is different. I was able to still connect with my friends being like we know each other before that covid hit. So we still were connected in some way or shape or form, but yeah.

Jessica Petko: Did you feel like that put a negative view of online learning in your head? Just the context of doing it in that situation?

Yvette Chan: I don't think there is a negative view about it. It's more so it depends on the person knowing that if someone has very strong time management skills, they definitely would prefer they know they're busy during their day, they have a lot of extracurriculars, clubs that they manage, having flexible timing, getting that asynchronous classes or Zoom remote ones. They can actually plan it out if they have to be somewhere they don't need to be physically in person in the class. But then also those who can't really time manage well, it's like knowing that they need to be there somewhere. They have a responsibility, they'll make sure they get there. But if it's remote and asynchronous, sometimes those assignments just flies away and you just don't know where it went in the back of your backpack and it'll be like, I totally forgot I was even enrolled in this class.

But yeah, sometimes it really depends on the person I think. And then it's just really to adjust to the idea of if you prioritize socialization over actually getting the tasks done, or I personally think if you do any group project, definitely in person is way easier to do. At least meet in person first. And if the time doesn't work well, you can always do zoom group meetings. But the initial meeting, if it's online, you're missing that connection with working with those people. So either way there's a blend of in in-person and online. That's a mix that would be, I guess, preferable in some ways.

Nicole Muscanell: And I love that you're saying it depends on the person because I think that reflects the sentiments that students expressed in this year's report, but also in the 2023 report, which is that they really strongly recognize that I have my own preferences, but I think all students should kind of be able to choose because it might not work for them. And that's a major theme we saw across those two reports.

Yvette Chan: Yeah, I have some classes with professors where they would be like if they're sick, but they would still want to engage in a class because they don't want to miss any materials. Either they email the professors for getting back the materials or sometimes he would, because in upper level classes, students might get interviews and stuff that might interfere with class schedules. They would do Zoom records of their classes and they'll send it back to the students who missed the class. So in a way offering that kind of flexibility if something comes out, even though it's preferred if they're there in person for the discussions, but having that option sometimes relieve some of the stress some students have, knowing that, oh, even if I miss class, I'm not missing out too much from class because I'll get my materials back later on. But yeah,

Sophie White: That's a great example, and I hadn't thought about the interviews as you're a fourth year student maybe wrapping up. So that's an example of flexibility. That was really helpful for me. Yvette, are there specific assignments that you like to do asynchronously or that you found more effective? I'm just curious.

Yvette Chan: I love my asynchronous classes because some of my asynchronous classes, the topic can be quite heavy. Like my minors and the aging adults minor, it's one of my asynchronous classes right now is about death and bereavement. And then, so it's like all of the heavy topics, learning about grief and stuff. So most of my asynchronous classes involve discussion posts. I know a lot of students don't really discussion posts because it's often a requirement of you writing a 500 word discussion about a topic and then you have to go back in waiting for your peers to respond, and then you have to reply to them and then you'd be like, I have absolutely no idea how to resonate with them, but I just need to write a bunch of words just to seem like I know what they're talking about. But I love those discussions in some way because I know that the requirement makes me know that my peers are actually seeing my contribution to the class and then they're actually somehow responding to what I've contributed into class.

So even if someone's shy, I am not very active in class if I'm worried with things that I have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about. So having these discussions is a confidence booster because you know contributed something and then somebody will respond back in some way, shape, or form. So in a way it still engages the class knowing that even though you have never seen these people, but you see their name every single week seeing their posts pop up, so you resonate with them and eventually throughout the semester you'll be like, oh, I know this person through their discussion. And you show your personality through discussion posts as well. So you actually in a way, in the sense get to know that person through academic topics and stuff. But I have also asynchronous classes where they just give internet all the chapters on the book and then each week just at the end of the week, it's a quiz, which is nice.

So I can just go through the textbook and then check through what I've learned through the quiz each week. But then also sometimes it's like I am sure a lot of professors know already a lot of these asynchronous classes answers are already on Quizlet, so probably half the students aren't really going through the entire textbook. They're just spark notes the questions for the answer for the quiz. So it really depends on how the classes are operated. So general education, some of them would be like the answers are all up in the internet, and then the students will be just, I'm just here to answer past this class and call it the end of the day. But it's like higher upper level classes with the discussion, it'll probably be even more engaging for some of them. And people actually absorb the knowledge in the classes for sure.

Jenay Robert: You're actually making me miss being a student. I know it's mind blowing this many years out, but I do miss those days to some extent. I think that's conversation about a asynchronous work has led us inevitably, we knew this was coming, we have to go there, it's time to talk about it. AI, what's the lead up, what's best? You have to find ways to make it interesting because everyone brings it up. But yeah, I'm curious from the whole panel, but I hate to do that. I hate to keep putting you in the spotlight of that, but we're just so curious about your experiences. And I'm wondering, as you're talking about things like these asynchronous discussion boards, I'm just thinking how many of those students are just generating those answers with ChatGPT, and do you see stuff like that as a student? Do you use generative AI as a student? What's kind of your experience?

Yvette Chan: Right. I'll talk about how I started with my experience with AI first because AI really started when I was freshman year, second semester freshmen. So I started off without using any AI. I remember writing my papers and I would get feedback from professors telling me, I love how you write. It's very engaging. So I was very happy because growing up I was not told my English was good. I was always told I couldn't write essays, so I wasn't that confident in my writing. But coming to university and seeing professors with these comments, I've been so grateful knowing that I can actually write a paper. But then, so I've always been very into, I want to write my own word how it should be written. It's because I'm trying to express what I'm known in the class and just trying to show the research I've done.

So I am very pro with my own content as the stuff I've done, but then AI rolled out and then I've was so kind of against it because I was like, you're not doing your own work and then you're just typing something and then somebody created whatever you told them to do instead of you actually putting in the work. So I was like, and here I am putting a lot of work, and then I turn around and see somebody pull up ChatGPT, and then getting all this stuff done in five minutes. And then at that point I would be like, so all the time I put into my work and they use ChatGPT or any AI software and then end up getting the same grade when I probably could have maybe spent a little bit more time doing more extracurriculars or just enjoying the weather outside than just staying inside.

It kind of pushed me toward the thought that maybe I need to start leaning towards AI and seeing how it might work. So for me, when I use AI during my daily academics, I mostly use it for grammar, refining and mistakes and stuff, and just really getting feedback on how I wrote. So I still like to generate my ideas because I feel like my ideas are definitely often much better than what AI could come up with. So I still write my own ideas and sometimes just refine it just to see if there's any better academic words that I can use to replace some of the more commonly used words. So in a way, I use AI as a learning tool too. So these new words that pops up, I can actually see, oh, I can use this word and replacement of this and the next time when I write a newspaper, I can use that word to substitute some of the things that I've been using previously.

But I can also understand how some professors have come up. It's actually the start of this semester, or actually last semester, we are getting an AI guideline on how to use AI in our academic classes. And I have professors who will have a two page AI guideline that told me that I need to, if I use any AI, I will need to submit my entire dialogue with AI to the professor and then show all the work I've done between me and ai. And then there are professors who would just write one sentence, you use AI for certain things. And then in a way it's like a disclaimer. I've used AI, but I think one thing that students are very kind of wary about is, if I put this disclaimer, will you view my paper in a different way? So I'm sure some students might have used it and then prefer not to disclose it, prevent the so-called invisible punishment that they don't want to see on their paper.

But about back to the asynchronous thing with AI, I'm pretty sure because currently at least my asynchronous class is more a heavy topic, and I don't think a lot of people really wants to put in their experiences with death and grief and stuff with AI. So they probably are more into a more genuine discussion, maybe possibly using grammar, refining are better words. But other than that, I think it's more so a really true discussion that at least I've found, but maybe sometimes looking for resources, they would find a resource and then maybe try to figure out how to tie it into discussion. There might be some here and there, but to me, I think students at this time have figured out that copy and pasting ChatGPT right into discussion or assignments doesn't work so very often it's more so a mixture. I don't think, I haven't really seen any students with just copy and paste that entire ChatGPT made item into a work assignment. So that's how I think AI has been used between students right now. But yeah,

Jessica Petko: I've seen that a couple of times with, they've copied and paste it, not on my own assignments, but I had a faculty member that was teaching an online class and they had discussion posts and somebody had used ChatGPT to generate their discussion posts, and he knew because at the end it said regenerate response

And they left it in. So it was tells, and I think, I don't know if it's still like this, but it used to be where there was that weird background, like a grayish background if you would copy and paste. And I've had other faculty members that have built in little tells into the wording of their assignment. So if the assignment was copied and pasted directly in a ChatGPT, it would give them something like a telltale sign that it was written that way include Batman in there somewhere. And so she'll get a at least one paper from her whole class where somebody references Batman. She's like, that one was AI. I'll admit to it too. And they usually will admit that they didn't do their own work. It wasn't that they put their ideas in and get it to get generated into a more coherent argument or something. It's more they just didn't have the time, so they did it that way.

Yvette Chan: I also have a professor, this is more like an in-person class, not asynchronous, but she would send out discussion or quiz questions before a quiz as an open note quiz. Not much penalty, but she would put it out as a reading quiz each week. And she'll sometimes put in a disclaimer saying, I know this is a very popular reading, so probably ChatGPT will have very vast great answers, but I still prefer if you read the article as well. So in a way, she'll tested it out and acknowledge the fact that ChatGPT does it. So in a way students might appreciate to athletes spend some time reading the, but yeah.

Nicole Muscanell: Jess, I'm curious to know what your perspective is and your experiences, what student use of AI has been like.

Jessica Petko: So personally, it hasn't been extensive yet. A lot of what I do, I don't have a lot of writing assignments where students are writing at home and then submitting things. There's sometimes lab reports and things, but they're always usually so specific to the things that we've done in class. And I've written all my labs so that there's nothing out there where they can get the answer from that AI could pull the answer for them, and so they have to analyze their own data to give me their response. So I feel like I haven't seen it much, but I can say I kind of wish in some ways that they would maybe use it, especially when we have students like ESL students where their English is great, but it's not a hundred percent. And I feel like they could plug the thing that they've written into AI and have it just like you said, like Yvette said, grammar and things like that. That would be, I think, a really appropriate use of it. And I'm actually thinking about starting to put that in for, I have students make a scientific poster in their lower level cell bio class, and I'm thinking about having them just take your introduction and plug it in and make sure that the grammar's good and things like that.

Otherwise, I don't really use it much in class. I do have another faculty member who actually, I love this assignment. She has students debate ai. I think the course is called What it Means to Be Human. And I think the part where she, I know one of the students, I don't know if all the students do this, they were debating about religion or something like that, and so they would put a prompt into AI and then AI would spit something back and they'd have to respond. I thought that was a really cool use of it. So I feel like there's a lot of potential. I just haven't explored it in my own line of work yet.

Nicole Muscanell: Yeah. Well, I'd be curious for both of you too, because I mean we see this in the report, but also just I think more broadly and discussion throughout higher ed, there's this recognition that AI is going to be really important for the workforce. And so I'm just wondering if both you, Yvette and Jess have, are those discussions at least starting to happen? Are you starting to hear our faculty talking about we need to prepare students for using AI in the workforce? And then Yvette, is this something that your instructors are starting to discuss in your classes or are students even talking about it

Yvette Chan: Jessica?

Jessica Petko: Sure, I'll go first. Being on a really small campus, I feel like we haven't really gotten too far into educating the students about AI yet. I don't know if in the more technical majors we have it and things like that, if they might be using it a little more than we are in the natural sciences. But I do think that having those skills is going to be really important. And to pull in another statistic from your report that students really appreciate being prepared with those, what we consider kind of soft skills, even though I don't know that technical skills are really soft skills, but skills that are beyond the content of your coursework, but being able to use technology or communicate with things, I feel like it's going to be more important to educate them on how to use these things, how to use them appropriately. We just haven't gotten there yet.

Yvette Chan: Cool. So I kind of have to talk about the project I've been working on with Penn State's teaching and learning with technology. So I'm working with Dr. Tiffany Pati, she's at Penn State Barron, and we are working actually to integrate how AI literacy and CAS 100 classes. If you guys know what CAS 100 is, that's Penn State's general Ed and speaking public speaking class. So all students at Penn State, it's like their gateway to graduate. So every Penn State students will have to eventually take this course. And we're hoping that we'll teach the ethics of AI, how to use AI in public speaking and in general how to integrate AI into their learning space as well. So in a way, definitely we are looking at how to, I think a lot of students around me as well, my peers, we are always talking about how AI might be helping us in our careers.

I would put AI literacy in my resume sometimes just talking about what kind of AI softwares I've used. I feel like it's definitely when I go to job interviews, that's something they ask about me as well. So I've also looked for LinkedIn. The top skills like uprising skills right now is at literacy. So I'm pretty sure, at least in data wise, I'm pretty sure a lot of careers are looking for people who are competent in AI, not just in regular days, but also actual technical stuff in the AI. But having that skills and knowing how to use AI maybe ethically or at least ethically or morally. I think a lot of companies are hoping that they will have this new generation coming in knowing what's considered right or wrong. But here's the thing, our host society is still trying to figure out what's the right or wrong thing to do in higher ed.

Is this taring your integrity or it's something that's a tool that's helping you? This is still a very controversial debate. I think a lot of students are still struggling with this, definitely seeing their professors being torn between the two. So in a way we recognize how this is so important, but then knowing that our professors still torn between the two, sometimes we are torn between the two too. So I think we are still in between stage in the transitioning phase, and we're hoping that we will somehow find an answer, if not a little bit more clear than the blurry guidelines that we have right now. And I'm sure if there's a clearer guideline, a lot of students will be even more open to just engaging AI throughout their daily lives than eventually in their workforce as well. But yeah.

Sophie White: Can I ask more about the interviews that you've done where folks are asking about AI? I'm really curious because in the report we're seeing that students are saying they need AI to be ready for the workforce, but you're actively interviewing post for what you're going to do. So what are some of those questions that you might be seeing in job interviews and what do you think future employers are looking for?

Yvette Chan: Yeah, I think they're mostly asking what do you think of AI? Do you think AI is a tool? Does it help you or is like, do you think it's how could AI leverage be a skill that leverage into their jobs? Maybe let's say marketing. How do you plan on using AI, these new tools to help with their marketing campaign or into ways how to integrate into their future careers? How do you see AI as a tool to help them in the future? Because I find that a lot of, most of the hiring recruiters, not that they don't know how to use AI, but they're hoping to see how other new generations are coming in with more intertwined perspective on how they could use their own brain to also work with the AI's brain and see how they would intertwine them and see what they could produce instead of just our traditional just using human brains. But now that we, technically, if I think about it, AI is like everyone's brain combined. So if you see how you can intertwine everyone's perspective and see what new ideas and creativity can come out between human and softwares and technology combine and see what the new trend be possible to be coming out from it. But that's pretty much it. It's not really that into a core thing, but they would ask how you might use it in general purposes for a job position. But yeah,

Sophie White: That's really helpful. Thank you.

Yvette Chan: Yeah.

Sophie White: I'm curious too, Jess, have you received any training on teaching with AI up to this point?

Jessica Petko: Actually, I was something I was thinking about bringing up next, I really haven't. I know there have been a few workshops that some of our instructional designers have held on using AI in coursework, and the very few I've been to have usually been pretty much the same, where they maybe show you how to use it to build a lesson plan or something like that. I do feel like faculty are going to need to be trained in this if they're going to train their students how to use it properly. Because I can go in there and I can put in a prompt to help me write a test question or something like that, but I don't know how to help my students use it. And so the things that I've learned have been to help me use it not to help the students use it. And I think that's going to be huge.

And I think there will be a lot of faculty members that will be resistant to that as well. I mean, the older you get, you kind of become set in your ways. And I'm scared to learn it too because I'm like, I have all this stuff built up and I've made it so streamlined and everything's in canvas or whatever. But now if we're going to start bringing in new things, it's just changed and it's scary. But I do think that we're going to have to embrace it and take those trainings and figure out how we can incorporate it so that we can teach the students how to use it responsibly.

Jenay Robert: I just want to say I really appreciate your vulnerability in expressing some of those feelings because I think remembering back in my time in the classroom, it's very hard when you're teaching to kind of admit, I don't really know how to do this, or I am nervous about doing this because you've got anywhere from 15 to a thousand students staring at you a few times a week, and you're kind of expected to know all the things. And I think this is why this is such a destabilizing technology for us as educators because we are always the experts. We're always the ones who know. And this is one of those cases where so much is changing so fast and we don't know, and it's really hard to keep up with that pace of change. And the other reason I really appreciate your perspective is because I think that there is kind of this narrative that most faculty are either 100 percent for AI in the classroom or 100 pecent against AI in the classroom, and that's simply not true.

Most faculty from our research at EDUCAUSE and from conversations with folks like you is that most faculty are in between. They say, I see some of the opportunities. I also see the risks that are really serious, and I want to leverage the opportunities while mitigating the risks. And that is a hard task, and I don't necessarily have the training to do it. So I just really appreciate that that perspective is being represented in this conversation. I also wonder if this might segue a little bit into thinking about for those faculty who are 100% against or 85% against the use of AI in the classroom, what would you say to faculty who are kind of like, I don't even want to get started with this. I'm going to give paper tests from now on. Just kind of going more to that extreme. I'm wondering what both of you if that and Jess would say to that faculty member who's just saying Absolutely zero AI, that has no place in my classroom,

Jessica Petko: Right? It's hard because I do know some people that are like that. They're very old school and they want term papers and things like that. And I mean, it's a reality now, so it's not going away. So I think that's the biggest thing is you can try as you might and you can alter your assignments to try to mitigate it, but it's still there. And we do know that the workforce is starting to look for being able to use it and use it responsibly. So if we can't appreciate that, then we're not really supporting their career development. So I mean, hopefully that might sway them a little bit. It's best for them if we realize that it's a possibility that they're going to use it. So how can we help them use it in the right way?

Yvette Chan: I think I have pretty much a similar thought, and I think if I were to talk to any professors about it, it's more like even if you ask for paper exams, if you ask for any kinds of more in person, trying to think that it would mitigate the fact that students don't use AI, the chances are the students already are using AI to help them study to make their study guide. It's here. You can't really say that it's, you can't just say, put a pause and put ChatGPT out of the window, out of the door. When you close the door of your classroom, if you ask for paper and pencils notes and stuff, students are going to still use AI in some way, shape, or form. So it might seem like you're not using AI in the classroom, but probably once you get out of that classroom door, all the students are using it.

So in a way, it's kind of just understand the resistance, because I also have the resistance going into AI. So it's like maybe instead of being a hundred percent no, maybe just try opening ChatGPT, type a couple words and come back after you tested it out and let me know how you think about it now. Because I feel like a lot of people who are very against it now only tried it when AI first rolled out back in 2022, and if they were to go back to ChatGPT, now, it's a whole different world. The information generated is totally different from what we probably had back in 2022. So maybe just test it out for a bit before you come back and tell me you're 100 percent against it. And I would definitely like to hear back on why are you against it and just seeing what might be the reason that faculties and professors are still there against in this area. But yeah,

Jenay Robert: That reminded me when you were talking about students, no matter what you try to create, no matter what system, students are still living in this digital world, they're still going to figure out how to use these tools. And it reminded me of, I saw this video, I guess the student had, and I'm probably butchering this so someone can fact check me and tell me I'm wrong and angry, tweet me, that's fine. But I think the student had programmed some sort of a robotic setup to hand write what ChatGPT was generating. So it was kind of like, it was just, to me, it's obviously not every student is going to do that. It's very tongue in cheek, but I think the point is no matter what system you have set up, there's some way to get around that with technology. And so you have to live in the world we live in.

Nicole Muscanell: And I think this just presents an opportunity, right? I mean, I haven't taught since 2020, but if I were, I think my approach would be this is an opportunity for faculty and students to explore and learn together and know that things aren't going to be perfect. You're just both figuring it out. But maybe with some open discourse and transparency, both parties can learn and shape the infrastructure and guidelines that we need for ethical and responsible use moving forward. And we don't have to do this hiding my use from each other if we really just start to explore together these things, these tools that we all are going to just need in general.

Jessica Petko: I guess some of the fear though, just on the other side is that the knowledge, they won't gain the knowledge that they need to do their job if they're using AI so heavily. But at the same time, for me, I feel like since this stuff has been coming out, I do a lot more flipped classroom approach to the learning. And so I have students read and write about primary literature articles at home, but when we discuss them in class, that's when I figure out if they've learned about it. So I feel like it might foster some more active learning in the classroom so that faculty members can see that the students are understanding rather than just relying on answers to questions that were written. More interactive learning.

Yvette Chan: I like that idea as well because I think students in general, in classrooms with much rather an active, engaging class, than really sitting there listening to the entire lecture and just having the bouncing back and forth between students and even the professor. Everyone would be more engaged with the topic and whatever you're actually learning. So even with or without AI in general, I think a lot of professors consider making a more engaging class just for students just to it's play and learning. I think I've learned something called gamification in classrooms, and it has been so much fun just doing, I don't know if you guys know, but Kahoot in class, great. Doing live polls during class, getting to see what my peers are actually thinking about. Even in the classroom, like here at University Park we have the Thomas 100. With the 700 student classroom, it might be intimidating with 700 peers in the same class with you, but seeing that you're still engaging during polls and you see your students, how your friends and your peers are actually engaging the topic similar to you and see the results. I think a lot of students are very into classes like that for sure.

Sophie White: We interviewed three undergraduate students for a video related to this report, and I think all three mentioned gamification and Kahoot specifically. So there's something about gamification and connecting as a community that's really sticking. So I think that's a great use of technology, and I think we need to wrap up soon. I was just going to say, I think just thinking about this question about AI, I studied the humanities and I feel like higher ed at its best is the best position to explore this question. We have some of the best thinkers in the world working on these types of things, and just to tackle these thorny questions of what does it mean to be a human? What does it mean to be an AI? Can we create a safe discussion space for students and faculty to debate the merits, the ethics, all of the considerations related to AI. So I'm optimistic that we are in the right place to do that.