Creating AI Guidelines That Empower Student Learning
Satya Nadella, former CEO of Microsoft, once said that “AI is going to be the key to understanding and solving many of the world’s most complex problems.”. Several years ago, before the pandemic, Artificial Intelligence and Generative AI were unfamiliar. Fast forward to today, these have become buzzwords that permeate everyday conversations. As this technology evolves, it also alters societies and economies.
A study released by IBM in 2024 indicates that 42% of enterprise-scale organizations have been actively utilizing AI to enhance their business operations. AI tasks vary; automation, threat detection, and talent acquisition are just a few examples. While AI has allowed employees to automate, therefore allowing them to focus on deep work, the same questions remain: do we have enough skills and tools to co-create with AI?
AI in the Classrooms
It's a typical Wednesday afternoon, we, alongside our teaching team, meet briefly to discuss our students’ progress and plan out interventions. One teacher raises a flag about a student submitting an output that is AI-generated. We discuss measures, and this opens the floodgates for many other questions: “When do we limit the use of AI? Should we ban it? What should we do moving forward?” What do we do? We evolve with it.
As a response, the team created a new workshop anchored on responsible AI use. Students were asked to share their commitments to responsible and ethical AI use, but we know that this is still not enough; we need to have measures that are proactive rather than reactive.
Fast forward to July 2, we attended a conference organized by Moodle. During one of our sessions, we were asked how many among us had AI policies and guidelines in place. In a sea of 20+ educators, administrators, and teachers, only 2 raised their hands. This prompted reflection and questions: how can we come up with AI guidelines that promote and support student learning?
Understanding Our Learners
The first thing we had to do was to contextualize and see this from the perspective of our adult learners. Why did they join the bootcamp? What were the crucial skills they needed to learn? When, why, and how would they use AI? One important development from our conversations about AI use was the agreement that AI is a tool that our students can use to leverage their skills as developers.
Reviewing Our Practices
The next step was conducting an AI audit, which pushed us to assess how our students can use AI to help them in their outputs for their Career Booster Series, projects, and assignments. Whether it was through reviewing resumes or providing step-by-step algorithm visualizations, it was evident how AI can help in content optimization, interactive learning, and personalization.
Learning from Others
While we compiled the results of the AI audit, we were also reviewing different policies and guidelines from different universities and organizations, locally and internationally. We highlighted important aspects of these guidelines and adapted them to our context. Upon reviewing policies from the University of the Philippines, Walden University, the University of Iowa, Harvard, and the National University of Singapore, we were able to come up with the following guidelines that will help our students maximize the beneficial use of AI without compromising their critical thinking. The following guidelines are as follows:
Verify what you have learned.
Transparency on AI collaboration
Human Oversight
Watch Out for Bias and Limitations
Learning with AI and Peers
Curiosity
These guidelines were presented to the teaching team for questions, feedback, and suggestions. Through the team’s collaborative effort, we were also able to come up with examples and scenarios where AI is misused and where it is encouraged. The document has undergone several iterations to include a guide for teachers. As the AI technology progresses, so must our guidelines; therefore, our next round of review is scheduled for November of this year.
Moving Forward
As we fully immerse ourselves in the 4th Industrial Revolution, we hope to form and prepare our developers to be critical thinkers, ones who goes beyond prompt engineering, and know how to problem solve and think creatively. We hope these guidelines serve as a guide for our students to use AI mindfully and with prudence.
Going back to Satya Nadella’s quote, indeed, we can use AI as a tool to address complex problems, but it is our humanity, our solidarity, and empathy that will push us to pursue solutions that have far-reaching effects.
Sources:
Data Suggests Growth in Enterprise Adoption of AI is Due to Widespread Deployment by Early Adopters. (2024, January 10). IBM Newsroom. https://newsroom.ibm.com/2024-01-10-Data-Suggests-Growth-in-Enterprise-Adoption-of-AI-is-Due-to-Widespread-Deployment-by-Early-Adopters
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