College professor here. The way I see it, AI is inevitable and it’s here to stay. Fighting against AI would be like trying to fight against pocket calculators in the 70s. It’s coming whether we like it or not, in class and in the real world; so we need to focus on adjusting the curriculums to work with it, rather than against it.
Right now, a lot of course curriculums are predominantly regurgitation based learning: I’ll tell you X, you tell me X but in 3 months. But AI trivializes that way of thinking. If I want to, I can get ChatGPT to generate an entire essay on the impact of ink drying speeds to the colour of grass. Whatever I want, it takes it 10s to write. However, LLMs still struggle with critical thinking, nuances, and originality; which I think is the more important aspect of education.
Sorry for the late reply, I had to sit and think on this one for a little bit.
I think there are would be a few things going on when it comes to designing a course to teach critical thinking, nuances, and originality; and they each have their own requirements.
For critical thinking: The main goal is to provide students with a toolbelt for solving various problems. Then instilling the habit of always asking “does this match the expected outcome? What was I expecting?”. So usually courses will be setup so students learn about a tool, practice using the tool, then have a culminating assignment on using all the tools. Ideally, the problems students face at the end require multiple tools to solve.
Nuance mainly naturally comes with exposure to the material from a professional - The way a mechanical engineer may describe building a desk will probably differ greatly compared to a fantasy author. You can also explain definitions and industry standards; but thats really dry. So I try to teach nuances via definitions by mixing in the weird nuances as much as possible with jokes.
Then for originality; I’ve realized I dont actually look for an original idea; but something creative. In a classroom setting, you’re usually learning new things about a subject so a student’s knowledge of that space is usually very limited. Thus, an idea that they’ve never heard about may be original to them, but common for an industry expert.
For teaching
originalitycreativity, I usually provide time to be creative & think, and provide open ended questions as prompts to explore ideas. My courses that require originality usually have it as a part of the culminating assignment at the end where they can apply their knowledge. I’ll also add in time where students can come to me with preliminary ideas and I can provide feedback on whether or not it passes the creative threshold. Not all ideas are original, but I sometimes give a bit of slack if its creative enough.The amount of course overhauling to get around AI really depends on the material being taught. For example, in programming - you teach critical thinking by always testing your code, even with parameters that don’t make sense. For example: Try to add
123 + "skibbidy", and see what the program does.