Generative AI for Assisting vs Displacing Learning

[Dr. Adam Dubé] Think of Generative AI as a tool. Now, we use a tool – it’s just helping students complete a task. Like a student say, for example, is told to read a book and then produce a video about that book. It’s a common assignment. Now, you can use a Generative AI video editor in that class, but should you do so? Well, the question you should ask yourself, “Well, how well does it perform the task? How well does it edit the video?” And more importantly, do you care if the student learns how to edit video? Because one of the things about Generative AI tools is a lot of times is that they do the steps for the students, they’re doing the work on your behalf, so you’re not really going to learn how to perform that task. It’s just going to be done for you. Now, that’s one question you can ask here. Another is when you’re using these things, or what we cal “mind tools,” where the purpose of using these things is to help engage students with the thinking of a discipline, like teaching them how to write. And the idea is that using these tools should help them think – like, thinking like a writer. Unfortunately, we have to be wary of tools that think on students’ behalves.