University of Washington students are expected to practice high standards of academic and professional honesty and integrity. It is important to know and understand the expectations of the University and your instructors regarding academic standards. This is especially relevant to the use of technology and online resources available today. The following guidance is from the University of Washington Center for Teaching and Learning.
Generative AI tools (referred to here simply as “AI”) offer both opportunities and challenges for students’ learning and engagement. Although most students will be expected to use AI in the workplace, studies show that reliance on AI tools limits students’ critical thinking development and social interactions. This page offers considerations for helping students approach AI in ways that are intentional, discerning, and that support their learning.
Key points about AI to share with students
Many students already use AI, but aren’t necessarily using it in ways that best serve their learning and long-term interests. Because UW graduates will live and work in a world impacted by AI, it is important to provide them with opportunities to better understand the issues associated with AI, how to use AI ethically, and AI’s relationship to their learning. Learn more key points to share with students about AI
You do not have to be an AI expert to help students develop a critical and thoughtful stance toward AI. Knowing a couple of key points about the nature of AI is enough: AI tools draw upon huge datasets to quickly perform tasks, and do so in ways that resemble human problem-solving and decision-making.
These capabilities can be incredibly useful to expert researchers, but they can also impede students’ development of foundational skills and knowledge. Therefore it is crucial that instructors have candid conversations about AI with students. The following strategies can help instructors communicate with students about AI and increase students’ motivation to develop their own skills and ideas.
- Set expectations about student use of AI. Establish policies for student use of AI in your course and assignments and communicate this with students through the syllabus and assignment instructions.
- Remind students that AI only seems competent. Because AI responses are so quick and varied, it is easy to mistake them for human thought. But AI output is based on probability, not accuracy or reason. Moreover, as computer scientist Timnit Gebru has made clear, AI models often reproduce the values and biases encoded in the datasets used to train the models. Students may approach AI tools looking for answers, but what they find may be unreliable or false.
- Explain what research suggests about AI’s impact on learning. A number of studies now indicate “that using AI can short-circuit the cognitive effort required for sustainable, deep learning…with potentially long-term consequences.” Using AI too soon or too often may prevent students from developing the cognitive processes and skills necessary for critical thinking (Lodge and Loble).
- Acknowledge that struggle is part of learning. Talk with students about how intellectual struggle is a necessary part of learning. Learning happens only when we move into the unknown, which can be uncomfortable. Explain to students that when they use AI as a shortcut to complete an assignment — a habit known as ‘cognitive offloading’ — they miss the opportunity to become more effective thinkers, writers, researchers, and creators.
- Communicate the importance of all college learning. Many students may be more willing to use shortcuts in courses they deem irrelevant to their career aspirations. Talk with students about how they will likely change careers at least once in their lifetimes and that the relevance of your course may only become apparent years from now. The skills they learn in your course may transfer to other careers—even careers that do not yet exist!
- Discuss the social, ethical, and practical issues surrounding AI. The processes that support generative AI tools raise issues related to privacy, disinformation, environmental impact, bias, exploitation, and academic integrity, among other things. Discussing with students the ethical and social concerns related to AI can help them see the social context of AI and can position them to make thoughtful decisions about their own use of AI tools.