Generative AI events

Generative AI’s emergence has engendered various concerns in higher education. Among these is the impact of these tools on the writing assignments traditionally used in our courses. After all, students could ask ChatGPT or another service for output to use in an essay or discussion forum post.However, these concerns may reflect problematic and dated approaches to writing, for best practices in teaching composition may guide our response to generative AI. This presentation will provide a framework of strategies to use in adapting writing assignments to meet this moment. Participants will come to not abandon but rather reinvigorate writing assignments.

What can you do for free with generative artificial intelligence (AI) to foster innovative teaching and student engagement? We’ll provide short demos of free versions of tools based on OpenAI’s latest language model (ChatGPT-4o and Microsoft Copilot using Bing and the Edge browser sidebar) and a search engine that uses AI to provide answers to questions in a conversational format (Perplexity.ai).

Generative AI (like ChatGPT, Bing, and Claude) is changing teaching and learning. In this session, we will try to cover some of the most common areas of concern and answer your questions. Topics covered in this session include:

• University policy regarding AI
• What to include in your syllabus and assignment instructions
• Update on AI text detection
• Suggested tools
• Teaching tips

Plagiarism and cheating with AI is a continuing concern. In this session we:

• Consider different ways AI can be used for plagiarism and cheating
• Talk about the AI text detectors and their deficiencies
• Discuss non-technological ways of looking for AI-generated content
• Strategies for approaching AI cheating with students
• Discuss the current UM policies regarding unauthorized use of artificially generated content.