The Future of Teaching Is Now a Lot Closer, but Our Humanness Still Wins Out

Credit: iStock.com/BlackJack3D
Credit: iStock.com/BlackJack3D
I’ll be honest. When the rapid evolution of AI caused teachers to panic, I did not worry too much. I could see that students could cheat more easily if they wanted, but I have always pushed myself to motivate students and engage them, provide a rationale and incentive to learn, and then use robust course design to minimize the need or desire to cheat. Then generative AI started getting better and more accurate at explaining concepts. Most recently, OpenAI’s GPT-4o (for “omni”) took it to a whole other level. Now, I am still not worried, only because I know I have the summer to figure out how to up my game a whole lot. That is really what it comes down to. AI is good, but we human teachers will still (for the foreseeable future) be better.

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One Response

  1. Indeed! Currently developing a couple of projects here to help post-secondary instructors help students to cultivate their use of GenAI more critically, ethically, and transparently to augment their academic work now, and prepare them to enter the globalized digital professional world after graduation.

    Kind Regards,

    Stokes Schwartz
    Center for Integrative Studies in the Arts and Humanities,
    College of Arts and Letters,
    Michigan State University

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