Using AI for learning and teaching
Using AI tools to provide seeding information for your learning and teaching activities can be a time saving way of starting. It takes away that blank page, and gives you a starting point to develop your teaching materials. You can also use AI as a way of evaluating and getting feedback for the material that you have created to ensure that it reads as you want it to and that it is clear to others.
This chapter will give you some activities for you to try and some suggestions of tools that you might like to use. There are many more out there and you can find them just by searching or see our chapter on AI Tools for teaching and learning.
Refining student assessment feedback
Using GenAI for refining student feedback can enhance the quality, clarity, and consistency of feedback while ensuring it aligns with academic standards and institutional policies. It’s advised that GenAI should only be used to refine feedback that has already been initially drafted, not to create or grade feedback. It is also important that staff maintain responsibility for final feedback quality and ensure compliance with our institutional policies.
Steps
- Draft initial feedback.
- Submit feedback and rubric to GenAI for suggestions (use any of the LLMs – such as Copilot, Claude of ChatGPT). See suggested prompt below. Have marking rubric availabe in a word document ready to upload.
- Review and incorporate GenAI suggestions and verify and ensure quality.
- Document the process and acknowledge GenAI use.
- Reflect and improve based on feedback.
This idea aims to enhance the feedback process while preserving the essential human judgment and expertise in educational assessments.
Example prompt
Please review the following feedback I have written for a student’s assignment, along with the attached marking rubric. Identify areas where the feedback can be improved, focusing on clarity, tone, conciseness, and alignment with the rubric criteria. Provide specific suggestions for refinement without altering the overall intent and personal touch of the feedback. Ensure the suggestions maintain a supportive and constructive tone. Here is the feedback and rubric:
“””
Well done, Sam – this is an excellent end to the subject. You structured and researched your report very well and referenced your material in the correct style. You drew on some excellent material to create your discussion and raised some very good points. The level of detail and thought in each section was a pleasure to read. Overall this is an excellent end to the subject.
“””
<upload marking rubric document>
For further ideas see The University of Sydney’s Improving feedback for students: AI for Educators.
Reference
Bassett, M. (2024). GenAI-assisted feedback refinement protocol [Learning and Teaching Leadership Team Discussion Paper]. Charles Sturt University.
Educational Content Generation
You can use Generative AI tools to help you with your content generation and take away that blank page or that writer’s block that you might experience from time to time.
Some of the ways that you can do this is by using different tools to try the following activities. Remember to explore our chapter on evaluation, and check out the chapter on GenAI tools. You can use the LLMs such as ChaptGPT, Copilot and Claude but there are also specific AI tools such as Eduaide and MagicSchool – both are free to use and have a large range of capabilities.
Educational Content Generation Examples
Request your favourite Generative AI tool to create:
- A summary
- An explanation
- An overview
of your specific academic topic that you are currently writing.
Ask yourself the following questions:
- What worked well?
- How accurate is it?
- Is this content that you could use and refine?
Essay Creation Support
You can use Generative AI to help you in generating outlines or ideas for essays. You can then evaluate the information that is returned for its ability to assist in constructing coherent and well structured arguments. Again, always use your expertise to evaluate the information being returned. There is no replacement for your experience and knowledge in these areas.
Essay Creation Support
Ask two different Generative AI tools to generate:
- An outline for an essay topic that you use in your teaching
- Ideas for specific essay topics on your academic subject.
Compare the outputs of both tools. Was one more accurate than another? Do any reference that were generated exist, or are they hallucinations? Reflect on the usefulness of this as a tool for you.
Writing Lectures
Getting started on writing that lecture can be difficult. You can use AI to help you generate ideas for your lecture, or use it to refine the writing you have done. You can also use tools like Eduaide and similar to help you refine the objectives, activities or the structure of the lecture. You can also use AI tools to give you feedback on the lecture you have written. Use the tools to make sure that the lecture is clear and inclusive of all learning styles and learners.
Lecture Exercises
Use your favourite AI tool to write a lecture or tutorial plan on a topic you will teach in the upcoming session.
- Is the information accurate? Remember you are the subject matter expert and you know your field best
- Do you need to refine your prompt to get a better result?
- Are any citations real or are they halucinations?
Making Slide Presentations
You can use AI tools to help you with slides that you may use as aids in your teaching. Copyright is important here – make sure you know where any images are coming from and ensure the license or rights on the image are being observed. You can use a LLM to draft PowerPoint conent of look at a specific AI tool such as Gamma, that creates an entire presentation deck based on your prompt.
Slide Presentation Exercises
Go to your chosen AI tool and ask it to make a slide presentation on your specific topic.
- Is it accurate?
- Has Copyright been observed?
- Are there any hallucinations?
Using AI for Reflection
You can use AI tools to help you reflect on your teaching materials. You can ask it to imagine it is a particular type of student with specific learning requirements. Or you can ask it to give you feedback from different perspectives – student, colleague, or supervisor.
Reflection Exercises
Choose a lecture or assessment task
- Copy the marking rubric for your assessment task, ask your favourite AI tool to give you feedback on the clarity of the rubric as a:
- student
- colleague
- supervisor
- Do the same with your lecture notes.
- Look at the feedback, is it constructive, does it give you ideas for improvement? Make the suggested changes if appropriate and then ask for further feedback.
