Thinking Outside the Bot: Unlocking AI's Potential as an Assistant for University Students
Artificial intelligence (AI) tools like ChatGPT have exploded in popularity in the last year. While there are concerns about how AI could be misused, these new technologies also offer creative opportunities for university students to take their work to the next level.
Jason Beach, Ph.D., chair of the AI Taskforce at Tennessee Tech University, shared some innovative ways students can use AI as an assistant without crossing over into plagiarism territory.
Generate Ideas and Get Unstuck
One major benefit of AI is quickly generating ideas to get started or get unstuck. Have a paper to write and struggling with how to begin? Ask AI to brainstorm ideas on a specific topic to get you started.
“The big value there is the speed at which this can be done,” said Beach. “You are able to generate more content and are able to process and evaluate the content at a much faster rate than what we've been able to do prior.”
Synthesize Information and Make Connections
AI tools are great for rapidly analyzing large amounts of data and identifying patterns. Beach notes that, "AI provides an avenue of creativity, of deeper thought and analyzing information provides opportunity for synthesis. Students are able to take information and incorporate it in a variety of aspects and then be able to generate new ideas and concepts based off of that.”
University students conducting research could use AI to find connections in published studies and discover potential new directions or frameworks. This can help you see things you may have missed reading the material yourself.
Create Visuals
If you need to create graphics, charts or other visuals for a class project, the information is often the most important part, while the visuals are secondary. Now, there are AI resources that can take the information from your presentation and automatically create an attractive way to present it.
"Now we can have AI build you a presentation that might take someone six to eight months to learn how to do in Illustrator," Beach said.
Beach does caution that this technology’s accuracy is not 100 percent, so it is important to review any AI-generated visuals with a critical eye. However, it can give you a great place to start.
Simplify Complex Concepts
Having trouble understanding a complicated theory or assignment? AI is able to reword them for you in “layman’s terms” or even at a specific grade level.
“For example, if I'm wanting to talk about a specific complex problem in mathematics, I can use it to bring that down and to give me discussion points that would be better suited at a certain grade level,” Beach explained.
As AI is still a new technology, many students and even professors are nervous about its uses. However, the key is finding ways to use AI that tap into your uniquely human strengths such as critical thinking and creativity. AI shouldn't do the work for you, but should act as an assistant to inspire your own original analysis.
And its suggestions should always be double-checked for accuracy.
“My hope is that people won't just blindly rely on AI as a sole source of information in general, and I'm hoping that people will be more skeptical,” Beach said. “I hope it causes students to be more skeptical about the world around them and about the things that they're learning.”
What creative ways have you used AI for classes and beyond?
