In the two years since the release of ChatGPT, generative AI has upended higher education. From chat bots that converse with students to apps that can write student papers or purport to detect academic integrity violations, generative AI has rapidly become a go-to tool for college students, faculty and staff members.
Students have quickly embraced generative AI’s power.
- A recent survey conducted by the Digital Education Council found that 86 percent of college students worldwide are using AI on their assignments, with nearly one in four turning to this technology daily to help them with their studies.
- Another survey found that 70 percent of college graduates, many of whom have encountered widespread AI usage in the workplace, believe that colleges and universities should integrate basic generative AI training into their courses.
Institutions, meanwhile, worry about falling behind with everything from integrating AI into courses to helping faculty and students become AI literate. The latest Educause AI Landscape Study found two main forces are driving colleges and universities to conduct strategic planning related to AI: more students using AI, and the growing risk around inappropriate AI use. But another recent survey of campus chief technology officers, from Inside Higher Ed, found that fewer than a third believe their institution is prepared to handle AI’s rise, while fewer than 10 percent of institutional tech leaders believe higher education as a whole is ready to handle AI’s challenges.
College faculty and online learning leaders find themselves in the middle of this maelstrom. Educators are trying to learn about AI’s capabilities. Yet perhaps the largest hurdle they must clear is a lack of confidence. At the institutions where we work, it’s easy to tell whether faculty members are thrilled with AI—or whether they’re overwhelmed with all the new tools and don’t know where to begin.
Faculty excited about AI’s possibilities are using the technology to provide student feedback, help students improve their writing and prepare their students to use AI in their careers after college. It’s a lot like the early days of the internet, when there were few rules and everyone was figuring it out as they went along.
But for faculty who are nervous about AI, their anxiety doesn’t usually stem from their own firsthand experiences with the technology. It’s often because of prior exposure through news articles or even science fiction. If someone views AI through the lens of 2001: A Space Odyssey or the Terminator franchise, they might not be enthusiastic about introducing a classroom technology that seems reckless, unethical and uncontrollable.
At its core, then, the confidence gap is really just a knowledge gap. And closing this knowledge gap is the critical first step toward helping educators understand how to use AI thoughtfully and effectively. For higher education leaders looking to build AI confidence in their peers (or themselves), these three steps might help:
- Understand the source of the confidence gap.
Many faculty members won’t acknowledge that they don’t understand AI, much less admit they’re unaware of the technology or unsure how to apply it for their own discipline. Helping them requires asking the right questions.
Those questions include: Do they have challenges to overcome due to prior exposure to AI or other technology? Do they have the foundation to understand how AI works and how to be successful with this technology? Have they seen how generative AI is changing their discipline? And have they considered that improving their own knowledge and awareness can enhance their teaching and better prepare their students for careers?
We both ask these questions in workshop settings at our respective institutions, with the goal of creating a safe space for faculty to explore the right use of AI—and laying a foundation for them to jump in and start practicing.
- Start small and stay focused.
When it comes to helping faculty explore how to use generative AI on campus, there’s no need to throw them into the deep end. Instead, start with processes that are rote but necessary—or time-consuming—so faculty can explore how to use AI in ways that are impactful but optional. The idea is to help faculty understand AI’s capabilities and limitations. For example, while generative AI can be very helpful in starting a task, the faculty will always need to refine and finalize it thereafter.
One way to start: Think of the pain points professors encounter as they design curricula and prepare instructional materials, then consider how AI might lighten that load and give them opportunities to practice in a safe and controlled setting. Consider asking them to explore AI’s straightforward functions, such as refreshing an old email, writing recommendation letters, creating lesson outlines or drafting a grading rubric. What we often find is that those tasks don’t just provide an easy way to practice using AI—they can also produce results that are actually helpful for faculty to use in their classes and correspondence with students.
- Decide how you want to deploy AI in your class—and practice first.
Not all AI is created equal, and building confidence in AI often means figuring out which tools are more effective than others. ChatGPT can be helpful for some of the simple tasks mentioned above, but AI tools, when used appropriately, can also help with particular institutional pain points, like boosting engagement in online courses and helping students build their skills and confidence as writers.
At both of our institutions, for instance, we help faculty collaborate with each other through Packback, which uses an “instructional AI” approach to provide real-time feedback on writing and discussion posts, providing guidance on composition, clarity and assignment guidelines. By practicing the tool among their peers first, instructors learn firsthand what students experience and witness increased online engagement and interaction. This helps faculty to see the many ways the instructional AI can benefit them, beyond ease of grading. As a result, they become more comfortable trying it out in their classes to help students become more confident writers.
AI and its potential uses are expanding so quickly that it’s easy to feel overwhelmed. But from knowledge comes confidence. If online learning leaders can help professors fill in their knowledge gaps, faculty can gain the confidence they need so they can use AI to help their students succeed in the classroom and their careers.
