Exploring the Growing Role of AI in Higher Education
As artificial intelligence continues to evolve, its integration into educational settings is becoming increasingly prominent. While college students are leveraging AI chatbots to enhance their academic performance, recent data from an AI company reveals that professors are also engaging with this technology.
AI chatbots, such as Google’s Gemini, are being utilized by educators like Sue Kasun from Georgia State University to enrich curriculum development. Kasun uses the AI to generate creative assignment ideas, such as having students create images or write poems, particularly for courses focusing on integrating culture and identity into language education.
“There were, like, suggestions of offering different choices, like having students generate an image, having students write a poem,” Kasun explains.
The trend of using AI in academia extends beyond individual educators. Drew Bent, who directs education research at Anthropic, notes that educational applications rank high among the top uses of their AI chatbot, Claude. According to Bent, “Developing curricula and study materials was the top use case, but we also saw them using it for academic research.”
Analysis conducted by Anthropic, though not exhaustive, examined 74,000 conversations over 11 days, identifying significant use of AI for tasks such as drafting emails and budget creation. However, AI’s role in lesson planning often involves a collaborative back-and-forth between educators and the AI.
Bent highlights, “The educators and the AI assistant are going back and forth and collaborating on it together.” Despite its usefulness, the data revealed that about 7% of conversations focused on grading student work, a practice that Marc Watkins from the University of Mississippi finds concerning.
Watkins, who researches AI’s impact on higher education, warns, “If you’re just using this to automate some portion of your life, whether that’s writing emails to students, letters of recommendation, grading or providing feedback, I’m really against that for a lot of reasons.”
Watkins and Kasun both express concerns about the potential for AI to undermine the educator-student relationship and the intrinsic value of education. Kasun emphasizes the need for guidance in effectively incorporating AI into teaching, stating, “We are here, sort of alone in the forest, fending for ourselves.”
Bent advocates for partnerships between tech companies and educational institutions to ensure AI is integrated thoughtfully, but he cautions, “Us as a tech company telling educators what to do or what not to do is not the right way.”
The ongoing dialogue around AI in education highlights a crucial juncture, with decisions made today shaping the future of learning experiences for students worldwide.
