How AI Changed My Semester

Photo by Yoann Siloine on Unsplash

I don’t think I’m unique among college professors in the humanities when I say that, since the November 2022 release of ChatGPT, it feels like someone has been running roughshod over my teaching career with an All Terrain Vehicle. It wasn’t until this fall, however, that the changes really started sinking in. The land really has changed shape, and it’s not going to return to the way that it once was. There are already literature professors designing AI courses (was this just a publicity stunt?) And there seems to be no end to the administrative encouragement to grab the generative AI bull by the horns.

I reflected on AI and how it’s already changed me, earlier this term. I mentioned that, because of AI, I was making some changes to how I teach my classes. Now that the term is over, I wanted to take stock. What follows is a list of things I did differently, in direct response to the overwhelming and often unwelcome presence of generative AI in every college classroom. Disclaimer: these are not suggestions about what I think every college professor should be doing in their classroom, so please don’t read any of this as a personal affront:

1. I went low tech: I made a point to avoid using any screens in my classroom, as a teaching tool. Over the past several years (even before COVID), I’d gotten into the habit of periodically playing YouTube videos in class, pulling up websites, sharing informative images and slides, etc. But this term I stopped myself from doing any of that. I wanted the classroom to feel distinct from the world outside. I wanted it to feel, quite literally, old school. I wanted it to feel like a special, non-digital, sacred space for thinking and talking. I’d had a student suggest to me, last spring, that if I didn’t want students to look at their screens in class, maybe I should get rid of all screens. So I tried it. I was amazed by how well this worked, honestly. I often get grumbles from a few students, when I let them know that their laptops won’t be necessary for class. But my students this term were either totally sick of their devices, or totally on board with this low tech vibe. Laptop, tablet, and phone use was at an all-time low in my classroom.

2. I focused myopically on the basics, especially reading: One of my primary aims for the term was to try and convince the students who don’t already believe this that reading is worth their time. I’ve always had various schemes to try and incentivize reading. I’ve tried reading quizzes, reading questions, etc… But this term, I asked them to take reading notes. The assignment had three components: they had to transcribe a direct quote from the reading material, they had to note the page number they pulled the quote from, and they had to write 2-3 sentences about what they thought was interesting or noteworthy about the quote. Not only was this a low-stakes way to accumulate points in the class, but it gave us specific quotes to talk about and discuss together, in class. I also told students to save these as raw material for their essays. Because of the low tech environment, I asked for hard copies (either handwritten or printed). It was sometimes an annoying amount of papers for me to keep track of, and hand back. But I think it was worth it.

3. I created more projects: I’ve been hearing lots of professors encourage others to do more project-based learning, as an alternative to essay writing. So, I decided to try it. A couple of the projects worked really well, I thought. One of the projects, for my death & the afterlife course, was a conference. For an entire week, during the mid-term, I had students create short talks on the problem of being mortal. They were asked to both incorporate course reading material and personal experience, and to prepare a five minute talk. This ended up being a really interesting way of getting to know one another, and to explore the ideas. The other project, for that course, was a final group project: I asked them to create a pluralistic burial ritual, informed by our course material, for a rock. I divided them up into groups, based on their interests: an art & aesthetics crew, an acoustics crew, a eulogy crew, a readings & blessings crew, a logistics crew, and a production crew. Each crew had different responsibilities, but together they had to communicate with one another to pull the whole thing off. We buried our rocks on the final day of class and, I have to say, I was pretty impressed by what they were able to put together. I do think that these projects helped to build community, in the class, in a way that doesn’t happen in classes where I tend to default to essays for all major assignments.

4. We did less writing: Part of the reason for this was that I’ve developed a kind of trauma response to grading essays. The prospect of sitting down to grade essays, with an unknown number having been written trickily by a bot specifically to deceive me, makes me sick to my stomach. And it makes me feel like I’m grading in a mood of suspicion. It makes me question (and often devalue) myself, my interests and passions, my career, my life choices, the future. It’s just become really existentially bad for me. I knew that I couldn’t face this feeling over and over again all semester. But I also knew that I couldn’t cut out essays entirely. There really is no better way for me to see how students are thinking then to look at what they’ve written, when they write with intention. So I did have students write a final essay. But that was it. This was a really big change for me, and a big gamble honestly.

5. I had a ridiculous AI policy: At the beginning of the term I spoke quite a bit with students about AI, and why I didn’t want them using it in our class. I told them that it creates writing that sounds like it’s dead inside. And what I wanted to read was real, living, thought recorded in written form. I also told them that I would be running all essays through the hypersensitive TurnItIn tracker, on Moodle. Any essay that was flagged as potentially written with AI—whether it actually was, or not—would be returned to the student. They would be asked to revise and resubmit, or forfeit the grade. This was, I said, ultimately a service for them because a student should leave college knowing how to write for themselves in a way that doesn’t sound dead inside. What if they have to write a love letter some day? None of the essays, this term, were flagged which was a first for me since November 2022.

It doesn’t sound like a lot, but these really do represent major shifts for me. And I suppose that on one level, it’s probably good for me to try new things. Change is good, as they say. I did receive a lot of positive feedback on these changes in the student evaluations (especially on the projects and the reading notes). But I also had more calls than ever, in the evaluations, for more videos and less reading. So, I didn’t manage to convert mass numbers of students into reading lovers, clearly. It’s like swimming against the tide. And I will admit that this felt deflating.

I will also say that, now that the semester has ended, I am really deeply struck by the fact that I didn’t really get to know my students very well this term. I didn’t feel like I really knew them until the very end, when I read their essays. It’s made me realize how much the essay is not just an assessment tool, but a vehicle for the transfer of thinking that has always helped me see a little deeper into their world of ideas. It’s also been a way for them to get a window into my mind, through the written feedback I return to them. I have to be honest, I am not chomping at the bit to assign lots of essays. I’m still feeling that existential nausea. And I’m not totally convinced that this is what I need to do. But I do know that I have to learn how to connect with them, in new ways, if I don’t. Writing is a little bit magic, and without it I lose a little of that magic.