黑料老司机

Generative AI offers opportunities for learning, but its use can also be considered cheating.聽

Likely appropriate use:

• Have AI explain a concept to you and identify resources for you to learn more

Likely inappropriate use:

• Having AI generate an answer for you to consult
• Copying and pasting directly from AI and submitting that as your own work

Tips for Responsible AI use

• In general, you should never assume it is okay to use a resource beyond what your instructor has given you.
• Always ask your instructor before using AI tools.
• Keep copies of your written and digital work.
• Ask AI to highlight / bold / underline the changes
• Fact check everything!
• Review the recommendations and get input from others

Introducing: PAWS Before AI – A student’s guide for AI use

The following guidance is from the 黑料老司机

Generative AI tools (referred to here simply as 鈥淎I鈥�) offer both opportunities and challenges for students鈥� learning and engagement. Although most students will be expected to use AI in the workplace, studies show that reliance on AI tools limits students鈥� critical thinking development and social interactions. This page offers considerations for helping students approach AI in ways that are intentional, discerning, and that support their learning.

Key points about AI to share with students

Many students already use AI, but aren鈥檛 necessarily using it in ways that best serve their learning and long-term interests. Because UW graduates will live and work in a world impacted by AI, it is important to provide them with opportunities to better understand the issues associated with AI, how to use AI ethically, and AI鈥檚 relationship to their learning.

You do not have to be an AI expert to help students develop a critical and thoughtful stance toward AI. Knowing a couple of key points about the nature of AI is enough: AI tools draw upon huge datasets to quickly perform tasks, and do so in ways that resemble human problem-solving and decision-making.

These capabilities can be incredibly useful to expert researchers, but they can also impede students鈥� development of foundational skills and knowledge. Therefore it is crucial that instructors have candid conversations about AI with students. The following strategies can help instructors communicate with students about AI and increase students鈥� motivation to develop their own skills and ideas.

• Set expectations about student use of AI. Establish and communicate this with students through the syllabus and assignment instructions.
• Remind students that AI only seems competent. Because AI responses are so quick and varied, it is easy to mistake them for human thought. But AI output is based on probability, not accuracy or reason. Moreover, as computer scientist Timnit Gebru has made clear, AI models often reproduce the values and biases encoded in the datasets used to train the models. Students may approach AI tools looking for answers, but what they find may be unreliable or false.
• Explain what research suggests about AI鈥檚 impact on learning. A number of studies now indicate 鈥渢hat using AI can short-circuit the cognitive effort required for sustainable, deep learning鈥�with potentially long-term consequences.鈥� Using AI too soon or too often may prevent students from developing the cognitive processes and skills necessary for critical thinking ().
• Acknowledge that struggle is part of learning. Talk with students about how intellectual struggle is a necessary part of learning. Learning happens only when we move into the unknown, which can be uncomfortable. Explain to students that when they use AI as a shortcut to complete an assignment 鈥� a habit known as 鈥榗ognitive offloading鈥� 鈥� they miss the opportunity to become more effective thinkers, writers, researchers, and creators.
• Communicate the importance of all college learning. Many students may be more willing to use shortcuts in courses they deem irrelevant to their career aspirations. Talk with students about how they will likely change careers at least once in their lifetimes and that the relevance of your course may only become apparent years from now. The skills they learn in your course may transfer to other careers鈥攅ven careers that do not yet exist!
• Discuss the social, ethical, and practical issues surrounding AI. The processes that support generative AI tools raise issues related to privacy, disinformation, environmental impact, bias, exploitation, and academic integrity, among other things. Discussing with students the can help them see the social context of AI and can position them to make thoughtful decisions about their own use of AI tools.