AI and Higher Ed
Tyler Cowen on research papers; Kathryn Palmer on AI in a learning management system
Do we even need the AER any more to certify which are the best papers? Just ask the AIs, including about influence not just quality.
Why not write a program, or have an AI write it for you, that will take your favorite papers and improve them, and change their evaluations over time, as new results come in? Of course people will do this, at least to the extent they care. These papers will keep on morphing.
He has other speculations about the future of the research paper. In a sense, he is arguing for the separation of “research” and “paper.” The former generates knowledge. The latter operates within a publication system that is antiquated and heavily gamed. We need a new set of practices that promotes research and does away with the research paper.
I know that legacy academics will gasp at this suggestion. But I think it is right. And is training students to write papers still the way to go? I’m thinking revolutionary thoughts.
Canvas—which first announced its plans to integrate AI features, including agents, into the LMS last summer—also saw potential for how instructors could use agentic AI in the classroom, according to Zach Pendleton, chief architect at Instructure.
“As we think about how AI can be applied to problems in education, there’s an opportunity to do what we’re doing now in a little better way: point-and-click AI or add a button that shrinks a five-step process down to a one-step process. Those are useful because they provide a safe place for teachers to use AI and begin to understand … the promise of AI,” Pendleton told Inside Higher Ed.
Pointer from Tyler Cowen. I know nothing about Canvas, which is described as a “learning management system.” But I suspect it is a dead application walking. I picture it being too much tied to the pre-ChatGPT legacy world to move decisively into the future.
My own thinking is that students should use AI teaching tools to obtain mastery of concepts. Mastery rather than grading. Under a mastery system, everybody gets an A only because everybody needs an A in order pass.
I envision the AI quizzing students and asking follow-up questions to determine mastery. You need a system to deter students from using AI to answer. Special examination rooms with human monitors? Or does the student interact continuously with the AI, with random inspections by humans and a severe penalty for getting caught cheating?
Professors should do less lecturing and grading. Instead, they should serve as mentors and discussion facilitators. I was aiming to do this myself at UATX.
Canvas is likely dead in the long run but it does have a moat of sorts - we use it at my university and part of what it does is certify that readings you post have the proper "accessibility" score to satisfy federal regulators. I upload a reading, it then rates it and I can take steps (mostly giving the full citation to Canvas) that produce a higher score. Department chairs here monitor your accessibiity scores and let you know if they drop. Canvas also manages submission of student assignments, handles grade sheets and links into our grade submission system (yet another legacy system), populates syllabi from the syllabus management system (called, non-ironically, "Simple Syllabus" which automatically populates syllabi with university, department, etc policies, handles the review process by the committee making sure we aren't illicitly teaching "gender ideology", etc., certifies accessibility of syllabi for regulators (a theme is emerging!), etc. An AI can surely build an app to do the substantive tasks - but central IT and general counsel are unlikely to let a 1000 flowers bloom in terms of compliance functions. As usual, the chokehold on innovation is going to be bureaucracy and regulations.
I'd highly recommend the recent Lex Fridman podcast episode with Peter Steinberger on creating Open Claw - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFjfBk8HI5o - very interesting discussion of the future of agentic AI.
Insisting on mastery in that fashion will likely thin out the student body almost instantly.