A collaboration between Radboud students and Radboud Young Academy
Introduction
A vibrant academic community makes the university an especially inspiring place to work. However, with many formalized education activities and a focus on research output instead of teaching in academic trajectories, it is not always easy to see how we actually are a community that includes students. The Radboud Young Academy aims to co-create this academic community. One of the new ways in which we build on this, is the workgroup ‘Interdisciplinary Education’. The first project that we took on, was to host a day for students and Radboud Young Academy members to work together on a shared topic of importance. The pilot edition took place on February 20th and was themed GenAI in Higher Education.
The pilot: genAI in higher education
Generative Artificial Intelligence (genAI) is present in more and more aspects of (higher) education. Most applications are now able to create a text or generate lessons, allowing for use in both the learning process as well as teaching. However, with the rapid growth of the use of genAI also comes misconduct. Texts generated by AI tools are handed in as own work, something we see in both education and research. Of course, this is problematic for an academic environment.
Radboud University therefore recently published nine rules to help navigate the use of genAI. There are also regulations to prevent fraud, and course guidelines have been updated. While these efforts may provide a framework for action, they do not guide in proper or ethical use of genAI. Moreover, news articles and opinion pieces sometimes frame students’ reasons for using genAI as laziness or lack of motivation, while students are not often involved in discussions on the topic. In this project we aim to change this, and put students and members of Radboud Young Academy in a space to work together to create a perspective on genAI at the university.
The goal of the day was twofold:
- Pilot how the Radboud Young Academy can contribute to a vibrant Radboud Community, through an interdisciplinary education activity
Bring together students and teachers to discuss AI in education and work on a possible solution to the problem of increasing using of genAI in academic education.
Description of the day
We designed the day in the spirit of a hackathon: putting bright minds together in a room for a day to work on a problem and reach a solution by the end. The design thinking cycle structured this day, allowing for a human-centered creative process that would lead to a tangible result. Design thinking has five phases. 1) Empathize to get to know the user of the result. Who are you designing for? We wanted to get to know both students and teachers better, so short interviews about use and perception of genAI were held with people around campus. 2) Define is the phase in which the perception of the user is collected and the problems are reviewed. The team decides on what they want to develop in terms of their mission. 3) Ideate is then a phase in which the team brainstorms about products/activities in line with the mission. These ideas are then mapped in terms of feasibility and impact. A choice is made for 4) Prototype, the phase in which one idea is worked out in more detail. The day ended with 5) Tests in which the prototype was presented to experts on AI, education and interdisciplinarity.
Results of the day
Empathize:
- Both students and teachers on the one hand use AI and on the other hand want more information on proper use and ethics
- Students often mention issues with climate impact of genAI and abuse of content created by artists that make them doubt whether to use genAI. They have ethical concerns and mention that AI damages human expression.
- Students use genAI because they have the impression that genAI attains better achievements then they would themselves (!), and because students feel they are asked to do academic work without much guidance; e.g. how to look for literature, how to write a text, how to code, etc.
- Most often genAI is used for spelling, grammar, generating ideas or questions (research and self-assessment)
- Students experience time pressure and genAI can be used to do assignments faster, often genAI is used for assignments that they perceive have less value for their future work
- Teachers can take a hard stance against genAI, without discussing it; other teachers do discuss the proper use of genAI which is helpful for students.
- Teachers are under pressure to adapt their education to work around genAI, meaning creating new assignments and activities.
- Academics use genAI for interview prompts, coding, literature search, structuring texts, language checks and language learning.
- Academics see variation in students, some see laziness others see the work pressure and insecurity (use it or lose it). They experience this themselves too
- GenAI is perceived as a danger to learning, critical thinking, forming your own opinions and using creativity. Training is required to promote responsible use.
Define:
Students concluded that what is needed is to explicitly focus on the learning process instead of learning outcomes, and make sure that there is enough time to learn for both students and teachers. We need to foster humanity in teaching and learning. Creativity and a focus on process are viewed as ways to achieve this. The vision was defined as:
For a better society, we need a generation of university students that is well-equipped for dealing with dynamic and complex issues, so students and teachers need to be aware of ethical use of genAI in the learning process and we need an updated learning process that is inviting, fun, and allows for mistakes and curiosity.
Ideate:
The ideate phase is a brainstorm phase, which led to a large number of ideas. Eventually it was decided that some of these ideas could be easily implemented in education, and that the difficulty might be to choose the activities based on which competencies a teacher thinks are important in a given moment. Therefore, the group decided to create a chart of education activities that relate to creative competencies.
Prototype:
The students created a prototype showing education activities that can be done in a lecture, group discussion or activity with the main focus to foster creativity in education and reduce the need for students to use genAI. They created a flowchart for teachers to choose different activities, depending on the type of assignments (e.g. individual or group assignments). Creativity and curiosity can be fostered through teaching emotional skills, questioning and critical thinking, independence, playfulness, building connections and self-confidence. The students suggest to also leave one or two classes in a course “un-designed” so that students have a say in what and how they learn.
Conclusion
Students and teachers seem to experience similar struggles with genAI in education: the workload is high and while genAI is part of the solution to this, it also creates more stress. Finding the joy in learning, reconnecting with each other and learning with each other are things that both students and teachers wish for. They emphasize that creativity can be a powerful way to foster academic skills such as critical thinking. Collaboration between students and teachers will also help this cause.
We experienced this ourselves during this pilot. Working together for a full day was very rewarding and helped us feel that we are all part of the academic community.
Participating members and students:
Pia van de Schaft; Anne Marie Denisa Nistor; Julia Bednarczyk; Jeanette Mostert; Laura Speed; Tamara van Woezik
Radboud Young Academy workgroup interdisciplinary education consists of: Jeanette Mostert, Laura Speed, Gustav Meibauer, Dominika Radziun, Melanie Schiller, Felix Hol, Tamara van Woezik