\n<\/p>\n
LLM-enabled assignments will allow faculty to evaluate student interactions with a custom chat bot, Instructure says.<\/p>\n
Photo illustration by Justin Morrison\/Inside Higher Ed | Dougall_Photography and gazanfer\/iStock\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Last week, Instructure, which owns the widely used learning management system Canvas, announced a partnership with OpenAI to integrate into the platform native AI tools and agents, including those that help with grading, scheduling, generating rubrics and summarizing discussion posts. <\/p>\n
The two companies, which have not disclosed the value of the deal, are also working together to embed large language models into Canvas through a feature called IgniteAI. It will work with an institution\u2019s existing enterprise subscription to LLMs such as Anthropic\u2019s Claude or OpenAI\u2019s ChatGPT, allowing instructors to create custom LLM-enabled assignments. They\u2019ll be able to tell the model how to interact with students\u2014and even evaluate those interactions\u2014and what it should look for to assess student learning. According to Instructure, any student information submitted through Canvas will remain private and won\u2019t be shared with OpenAI. <\/p>\n
Steve Daly, CEO of Instructure, touted Canvas\u2019s AI push as \u201ca significant step forward for the education community as we continuously amplify the learning experience and improve student outcomes.\u201d But many faculty aren\u2019t convinced that integrating AI into every facet of teaching and learning is the answer to improving the function and value of higher education. <\/p>\n
\u201cOur first job is to help faculty understand how students are using AI and how it\u2019s changing the nature of thinking and work. The tools will be secondary,\u201d said Jos\u00e9 Antonio Bowen, senior fellow at the American Association\u00a0of\u00a0Colleges and Universities and co-author of the book Teaching With AI: A Practical Guide to a New Era of Human Learning<\/em>. \u201cThe LMS might make it easier, but giving people a couple of extra buttons isn\u2019t going to substitute for training faculty to build AI into their assignments in the right way\u2014where students use AI but are still learning.\u201d<\/p>\n The AI-ification of Canvas is just one of the latest examples of the technology\u2019s infiltration of higher education amid predictions that the technology will reshape and shrink the job market for new college graduates. <\/p>\n Earlier this year, the California State University system announced a partnership with a slate of tech companies\u2014including Microsoft, OpenAI and Google\u2014to give all students and faculty access to AI-powered tools, in part to equip students with the AI skills employers say they want. In April, Anthropic unveiled Claude for Education, which it designed specifically for college students. One day later, OpenAI gave college students free access to ChatGPT Plus through finals. Soon after, Ohio State University launched an initiative aimed at making every graduate AI \u201cfluent\u201d by 2029. And this week, OpenAI released Study Mode, a version of ChatGPT designed for college students that acts as a tutor rather than an answer generator. <\/p>\n Few faculty were surprised by the Canvas-OpenAI partnership announcement, though many are reserving judgment until they see how the first year of using it works in practice. <\/p>\n \u201cIt was only a matter of time before something like this happened with one of the major learning management systems,\u201d said Derek Bruff, associate director of the Center for Teaching Excellence at the University of Virginia. \u201cSome of the use cases they\u2019ve talked about make sense to me and others make less sense.\u201d <\/p>\n Having Canvas provide a summary of students\u2019 discussion posts could be a helpful time saver, especially for a larger class, though it doesn\u2019t seem like \u201ca game-changer,\u201d he said. But he\u2019s less sure that using the chat bot to evaluate student interactions, as Instructure suggests, could provide faculty with useful learning metrics. <\/p>\n \u201cIf students know that their interactions with the chat bot are going to be evaluated by the chat bot and then perhaps scored and graded by the instructor, now you\u2019re in a testing environment and student behavior is going to change,\u201d Bruff said. \u201cYou\u2019re not going to get the same kind of insight into student questions or perspective, because they\u2019re going to self-censor.\u201d<\/p>\n Faculty, including the thousands who work for the more than 40\u00a0percent of higher ed institutions across North America that use Canvas, will have the option to use some or all of these new tools, which Instructure says it won\u2019t charge extra for. <\/p>\n Those who choose to use it run the risk of \u201cdigital reification,\u201d or \u201clocking faculty and students into particular tools and systems that may not be the best fit for their educational goals,\u201d Kathryn Conrad, an English professor at the University of Kansas who researches culture and technology, said in an email. \u201cWhat works best for student learning is challenge, care and attention from human teachers. Drivers from outside of education are pushing yet another technological solution. We need investment in people.\u201d<\/p>\n But as higher education budgets keep shrinking, faculty workloads are growing\u2014and so is the temptation to use AI to help alleviate it. <\/p>\n \u201cI worry about the people who are living out of their car, teaching at three institutions, trying to make ends meet. Why wouldn\u2019t they take advantage of a system like Canvas to help with their grading?\u201d said Lew Ludwig, a math professor and former director of the Center for Learning and Teaching at Denison University. \u201cAll of a sudden AI is going to be grading the work if we\u2019re not careful.\u201d<\/p>\n But that realization could push students to rely more and more on generative AI to complete their coursework without fully grasping the material\u2014and give cash-strapped administrators another justification to increase faculty workloads. Such scenarios run the risk of further devaluing a higher education system that\u2019s already facing scrutiny from lawmakers and consumers. <\/p>\n \u201cStudents are starting to graduate into a new economy, where just having a piece of paper hanging on their wall isn\u2019t going to mean as much anymore, especially if they leaned heavily on AI to achieve that piece of paper,\u201d Ludwig said. \u201cWe have to make sure our assignments are impactful and meaningful and that our students understand why in some instances we may not want them to use AI.\u201d<\/p>\n Despite Instructure\u2019s claims that this new version of Canvas will enhance the learning process in the age of AI, a recent survey by the American Association of University Professors shows that most faculty don\u2019t believe AI tools are making their jobs easier; 69\u00a0percent said it hurts student success. <\/p>\n Britt Paris, co-author of the report and associate professor of library and information science at Rutgers University, said she doesn\u2019t expect that to change with the introduction of an AI-powered LMS. <\/p>\n \u201cIn the history of educational technology there has never been an instance of large-scale\u00a0\u2026 data-intensive corporate learning infrastructure that has met the needs of learners,\u201d she said. \u201cThis is because people are nuanced in how they learn. The goal with these technologies is to make money, not [to] support people\u2019s unique learning, teaching and working styles.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" LLM-enabled assignments will allow faculty to evaluate student interactions with a custom chat bot, Instructure says. Photo illustration by Justin Morrison\/Inside Higher Ed | Dougall_Photography and gazanfer\/iStock\/Getty Images Last week, Instructure, which owns the widely used learning management system Canvas, announced a partnership with OpenAI to integrate into the platform native AI tools and agents,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13689,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[7373,1957,3350,495,1193,1415],"class_list":{"0":"post-13688","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-aiification","9":"tag-eds","10":"tag-faculty","11":"tag-higher","12":"tag-latest","13":"tag-targets"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13688\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Faculty Unsurprised, Skeptical<\/h2>\n