Assessing Readiness

Generative AI should only be used for education if the instructor leading the educational activity determines it is appropriate to do so.  Several factors must be considered in making this determination. Two of these factors are:

  • Knowledge, skills or attitudes that demonstrate competency with the discipline being learned.
  • Educational activities that teach or assess the above.

Instructors, as subject matter experts and pedagogy practitioners, are uniquely positioned to consider these factors. 

Another factor needs consideration is how to best utilize Generative AI to make learning more effective.  To make this determination, the instructor must be proficient in GenAI as well as their pedagogical practice and discipline expertise. This can be challenging as GenAI is a new and changing technology and instructor proficiency can range from expert to novice.  To support instructor proficiency, these points will help develop GenAI readiness.

Instructor GenAI Readiness

To use, or teach GenAI effectively, instructors must be proficient with GenAI. This looks like:

  • Develop a practical understanding of how GenAI tools work.
  • Develop the skills required to have the GenAI achieve your intentions.
  • Understand GenAI’s strengths and weaknesses.
  • Describe GenAI’s impacts in your discipline and society.

As with instructors, Students need to be prepared to use generative AI in their learning.  These points are intended to guide the introduction and development of GenAI alongside the discipline content.

Student GenAI Readiness

  • Scaffold GenAI skill development with discipline content.
  • Discuss impacts of GenAI in discipline and society.
  • Demonstrate strengths and weaknesses
  • Deliberately discuss the ethics of GenAI use.
  • Assess students on what they need to know in a GenAI world.

Generative AIs, including Copilot, ChatGPT and others, have gained rapid popularity and stand poised to be integrated into many facets of society, including education. The rapid adoption of such a disruptive technology results in many practical opportunities and comes with many ethical and practical challenges for society and higher education.

  • Generative AI (GenAI) has the potential to exacerbate the digital divide in the student experience.
  • Any consideration of the use of GenAI in the class must be transparent, accountable, and consequential.  We must act in accordance with acknowledged good conduct both for its own sake and to act as models of ethical behaviour for our learners
  • Consideration for use of GenAI should be focused on its most relevant use within the discipline
  • The information GenAI provides is incomplete. When GenAI provides a response to a prompt, is isn’t providing the correct answer, it is providing the best answer it can with the information it has available. It is important we do not come to view GenAI as a source of truth, but as a limited resource whose output needs constant review for completeness and accuracy.

AI systems have the ability to make decisions much more quickly than people can. It is imperative that GenAI is not placed in a situation where its decisions may impinge on human rights and freedoms.  Instructors need to understand this so they may make their students aware and not contribute to this practice.

  • Promote Ethical Use: Discuss ethical use of GenAI from within the contest of the discipline and from the perspective of social integrity  
  • Develop Clear Expectations: Develop clear and transparent educational practices for the classroom. Communicate what the appropriate practice is and why the practice is appropriate. provide opportunities for questions. provide clear guidance for mid-semester changes or emerging scenarios to be adopted into practice  
  • Ensure Equitable Access: Encourage the exploration of other GenAI for ungraded activities. Use equitable access tools for graded assignments or critical learning  
  • Encourage Critical Engagement: Help you learners identify where GenAI is useful or not useful from within the discipline. Situate your instruction for general society and discipline specific contexts 
  • Support Skill Development: Building competency within the discipline takes time, so too does developing competence with GenAI tools; address and develop both  
  • Integrate GenAI thoughtfully: Be sure to address GenAI value and use within the discipline and its value and use within society 
  • Rework course content: Update course material to be relevant in the world with GenAI 
  • Rework Course Assessments: Update assessments to be relevant in a GenAI world. Consider specific criteria and performance indicator language in rubrics to privilege human-generated content and to account for content generated by AI 
Additional Resources