For online faculty, I think it’s more important than ever to be conspicuously human in the classroom, finding ways to lean into the distinctive capacity for emotional engagement and meaningful interactions that each of us brings to the table. But I’ve become increasingly fascinated with ways that we might harness AI and LLMs to support student success. Yes, we know that some students are using ChatGPT to write their papers for them. But rather than concentrate on finding ways to stop this kind of misuse, maybe our best path forward is to embrace the use of AI in the classroom. A recent Pew Research Center study showed increasing use of generative AI (GenAI) like ChatGPT. And McKinsey research has demonstrated the potential for GenAI to lead to productivity gains in the workplace as much as 45 percent in some sectors. It’s clear that explicit training in GenAI just might be the next important institutional outcome.
