Dayna Doskocil

Using AI as a study tool for students to help them gain more insight when either I am busy and can't answer their questions or they don't like asking me questions.

It is definitely a time saver when I am trying to plan lessons or to create new scenarios for students.  I do see a lot of students use it as a quick way to get answers without putting thought behind it.

I have used ChatGPT to help with lesson creation, lab ideas, simple math practice problems, or creating fictional scenarios for students to read through and solve.  Most of these need to edited to make them useable by students.

I think it's a great tool for helping with understanding, for lowering reading levels of advanced texts, and for providing more personal education experiences.  However, some teachers and students use it as a quick fix for doing their work.  I have seen many times people write or copy what AI gives them without reading it, looking into it further, or double checking the accuracy.  I also worry people use it to get quick answers without having to go through the process of critical thinking.

An instructor's role is to facilitate communication among students in discussion boards.  This can be done by encouraging discussion as well as provided clear guidelines such as rubrics to students.

Understanding student backgrounds can be just as important as setting communication guidelines.  Students will have different levels of experience with technology.  They will also have different expectations when it comes to communication and what is professional.

Policies in communication are important and should be laid out in advanced to avoid confusion.

Choosing the correct technology is important when communicating with students.  Each type has its pros and cons.  These need to be weighed for each situation to ensure that we communicate effectively.

Student feedback is just one form of feedback to help improve a course.  You should also look at quantitative data as well as qualitative data from multiple sources 

Rubrics can be powerful tools to help both instructors and students know the expectation of the assignment.  They can also help students self-evaluate and peer-evaluate their assignments.  Rubrics can be used as a feedback tool as well.