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.
Thanks for fighting the good fight and sharing your experience! I reduced my use of computers and increased writing by hand, but hadn’t considered going entirely
Honestly, I don’t know that I would have considered it if my student hadn’t suggested it. But I do think device use is viral, and that includes the ones we use at the front of the room…
I didn't see this until someone in my faculty discussion group linked to it, but's it's exactly what I did last term as well. Clearly I'm not the only one who has a kind of Luddite like response to the threat of AI to education.
I think there are growing numbers of us! I think there are people open to experimenting with AI, despite some opposition to it in principle. Some of them find, once they’ve actually worked with it , that it’s pretty boring as a pedagogical tool. This probably moves them closer to the side of resistance.
Thanks so much for these reflections; I especially appreciate hearing about your experience because I've been planning to try two of your changes this semester: not allowing screens in class and altering my previous reading response assignments to focus on a single quote (in the way you described). Do you ask students to print out readings (or do you assign only books)? I've hesitated to ban screens because I assign some articles (etc.) and so if I want to do any kind of close reading in class, they'll have to print them out, and they seem to really resent that. I can't even get every student to buy hard copies of assigned books; they are reluctant to spend money on anything but calculus texts. (I teach mainly STEM students.)
fwiw I actually don't think that requests for less reading from students necessarily means that you didn't convert mass numbers of students to becoming readers. But I do think that's a very ambitious goal -- ie to convince a large number of people to make major behavioral and identity changes within just a few months. I think the parallels with religious conversion here are relevant!
I have a mixed approach. I assign some print texts (and I do ask students to buy hard copies, which some students resist). I also do post some readings on our LMS as pdf files. For in class discussions, I will sometimes bring a small number of printed copies of the readings to class (less than 10). It’s a little labor intensive, a little wasteful, and requires some advance planning. But it works fairly well!
No, I don’t think it’s actually reliably accurate. Not 100% (which the tracker itself admits). That’s why I designed the policy as I did. It’s not so much a way to “catch” them as it is a way to encourage them to embrace the messiness of a real human writing voice. The stuff that the tracker does flag is writing that *sounds like* AI. I’m just trying to help them write in a way that can’t be mistaken for AI.
Thanks for fighting the good fight and sharing your experience! I reduced my use of computers and increased writing by hand, but hadn’t considered going entirely
Screen-free!
Honestly, I don’t know that I would have considered it if my student hadn’t suggested it. But I do think device use is viral, and that includes the ones we use at the front of the room…
I didn't see this until someone in my faculty discussion group linked to it, but's it's exactly what I did last term as well. Clearly I'm not the only one who has a kind of Luddite like response to the threat of AI to education.
I think there are growing numbers of us! I think there are people open to experimenting with AI, despite some opposition to it in principle. Some of them find, once they’ve actually worked with it , that it’s pretty boring as a pedagogical tool. This probably moves them closer to the side of resistance.
Thanks so much for these reflections; I especially appreciate hearing about your experience because I've been planning to try two of your changes this semester: not allowing screens in class and altering my previous reading response assignments to focus on a single quote (in the way you described). Do you ask students to print out readings (or do you assign only books)? I've hesitated to ban screens because I assign some articles (etc.) and so if I want to do any kind of close reading in class, they'll have to print them out, and they seem to really resent that. I can't even get every student to buy hard copies of assigned books; they are reluctant to spend money on anything but calculus texts. (I teach mainly STEM students.)
fwiw I actually don't think that requests for less reading from students necessarily means that you didn't convert mass numbers of students to becoming readers. But I do think that's a very ambitious goal -- ie to convince a large number of people to make major behavioral and identity changes within just a few months. I think the parallels with religious conversion here are relevant!
I have a mixed approach. I assign some print texts (and I do ask students to buy hard copies, which some students resist). I also do post some readings on our LMS as pdf files. For in class discussions, I will sometimes bring a small number of printed copies of the readings to class (less than 10). It’s a little labor intensive, a little wasteful, and requires some advance planning. But it works fairly well!
Thanks for yhis, so interesting.
Thanks for this post! The turn it in tracker thing…is it accurate though? I’m really glad it worked for you and cautiously optimistic.
I’ve been making them write in Google docs for the revision history, but I end up feeling like a police officer.
No, I don’t think it’s actually reliably accurate. Not 100% (which the tracker itself admits). That’s why I designed the policy as I did. It’s not so much a way to “catch” them as it is a way to encourage them to embrace the messiness of a real human writing voice. The stuff that the tracker does flag is writing that *sounds like* AI. I’m just trying to help them write in a way that can’t be mistaken for AI.
Honestly, that sounds better in so many ways. I may try it next term. Thank you!