What do students want to learn about generative AI? Part 3

Digital Dominoes. Hello and welcome to this episode. I'm Angeline Corvaglia. This is the third and final episode of our series with Ilkem Kayican Dipcin, an instructor specializing in English for academic purposes, academic writing, and academic skills at Sabanci University in Istanbul. We've been discussing various aspects of educating college students about generative AI and its impact on society and their everyday lives.

Finally, we discussed which aspects of AI's impact on society and their personal lives interest them the most. If you missed those episodes, be sure to check them out. I think there's a lot of interesting stuff to hear about Ilkem's experiences. In this final episode of the series, we're going to discuss some of the additional comments that Ilkem’s students made and shared about AI and their experiences and concerns. I think it's really interesting. A lot of insights about how some people are thinking about this.

We had mentioned earlier about the different quotes at the end of the survey. So I just want to go through a few of them and just talk through the one we had mentioned regarding the issue of cheating. And the quote was, “it's very disheartening to see other students use AI for something you worked very hard for.

And they are right. Because I'm not sure if it is totally different with copying a book and writing it on a paper or something. I mean, cheating has always been there. And the thing is. I always tell my students in the classroom as well. This NVIDIA founder said that IBM chief scientists and Open AI chief scientists always say that.

So because this is a language model and this language model is designed to get closer and closer to the human brain and human language. So that's why maybe what you said previously makes a lot of sense. We will be more human for this reason. In the classroom I say you might utilize AI in your daily life and sometimes you might ask it to write something for you. But please don't let it do something for you because it will be disruption in your own skill to develop.

So I think that is something that needs to be really thought well. Yeah, yeah, and then take action accordingly, I think so too, and I just had a thought that I've had a few times recently. Is I think those of us who are paying attention to what educators who are focused on AI, you always hear the phrase the future of education. And I think everyone has their ideas about the future of education, I think one thing…

It's not just words. It is a fact that if you take certain shortcuts, you will likely be left out later. And it may be a part of the future of education is, you know, just saying more, you have to do this book report. I'm obviously like traumatized by book reports. You have to do it helps you understand who you are. Yeah.

I think so too. And I think we often say that the youth of today are growing up a lot faster than they were before, like their bodies are growing up faster. And one thing that maybe we need to integrate more is what you just said, teach them how they learn. And once you understand how you learn, you understand how AI learns, for example, and you're like, ah, so you have a whole different perspective about why you're putting what energy into, into your education.

And I want to see, I'm, I'm looking forward to having the results. It will take like a few months. I think asking their ideas, and conversing with them, negotiating with them about their perspective is so effective in, in, I think, uh, contributing to this development positively. I think so too. And I know that you, you always try to do that.

chatbots conversation - that is also a skill that you need to develop. If you just let others do the work for you, yeah, that's another failure, I guess. So it's really important to, yeah, have them on board while you even you are trying to develop some policies. They should be there. Yeah. They should and, and I just, I'm going to repeat that because it's so important.

You know, because I'm a parent, so, and I know that many parents, especially if you are a parent to a teenager, they have a very long screen time. And sometimes they get too much involved in gaming, and parents try to have this, manage this time and balance this time.

And one of the pedagogically important suggestions that, try to spend time with them and maybe play together. That's one of the very important advice. In order to, I mean, you can maybe share that time together. You can see the game, you can see what kind of game it is. How or what kind of effects does it make on your kid?

I couldn't agree more. And thank you for saying that it's so important to add that to the AI as well. I was just teaching a group of parents about basics of AI, a group of mothers. And the question came up at the end, like, what can I do to help even my young child? How young is too young to start talking about AI?

We need to have this balance. Exactly. I think we could talk about this for hours. Yeah. Um, and I just, we probably will have some follow-ups to discuss some other topics in more depth. Yeah. Thank you so much for doing the survey, for taking the time. I just love this. It's a pleasure. And I believe that a lot of people are going to get so much value from, from this discussion, from your perspective and the way that you're approaching this.

So thank you so much for being here. I, I hope they do it. I hope they did. Thank you so much for having me for, you know, uh, starting this collaboration, Angeline. It's, it's, it was a pleasure really to share all this with you. Thanks a lot for having me. Thank you too. Then see you next time. Bye.

Until next time, stay curious and keep learning. Digital Dominoes.