The SUNY system is launching an AI fellowship for professors to establish a classroom standard for state universities across New York, including two educators from Western New York institutions.
SUNY has selected 20 faculty and staff for the inaugural AI for the Public Good Fellowship, including English professor Johnny Stein from Jamestown Community College and University at Buffalo professor Sam Abramovich, who teaches in the Learning and Instructions Department, and Information Sciences.
There’s already a major effect on the testing and assessment process, since AI is particularly effective with short answer and essay prompts, Abramovich said.
“Do we have to rethink and re-conceptualize them in a future where generative AI can just build all that for us?" he said. "Or do we need to think about how we still develop these, kind of known and important skill sets? So that people can be effective when using generative AI.”
But building a standard also means deciphering how to teach students to use AI responsibly, since it could play a part in their personal and professional lives after college, Abramovich said.
Already, students are using the technology at a high rate. A global survey by the Digital Education Council found 86% of students regularly use AI in their studies, and there are concerns universities are lagging in framework for its usage.
One priority should be projecting where AI will go in the future, not just where it is now, said Stein, who wrote his 2005 dissertation on artificial intelligence, and the convergence of man and machine.
“The problem with rubrics is that AI evolves. Rubrics do not, rubrics are static," he said. "When AI is infused, then that may mean rethinking the classroom space and how education is even delivered.”
A challenge facing AI use in the classroom is that Chat GPT and other programs pull from the entire internet, not just sourced scholarly articles, Stein said. That’s why he anticipates more educators starting to use research tools like NotebookLM to build their own AI programs, where they can dictate which data sets and articles to use.
"These GPTs, they're getting their data from the internet. So if a student tries to, for example, do research with it, it'll pick from Twitter and YouTube, and Reddit, and maybe give you a scholarly resource," he said. "But more often than not, it hallucinates, it'll give you dead links fake authors and articles that don't exist. As AI infuses itself into our daily lives, it's almost dangerous not to give students the skills to navigate that Wild West."
It’s helpful that the SUNY fellowship includes professors and staff from a variety of studies, since it increases the diversity of perspectives, Abramovich said.
"It's, frankly, the only way we're going To be able to understand the real impact of this kind of transformative technology," he said. "If we want to help people better leverage this type of technology — know when to use and when not to use it, to develop real kind of comfort and productivity and joy around it — then we need to incorporate all these different ideas and perspectives."
