Guide to Using AI at College

A guide to using AI effectively in college learning; and how NOT to use it. This guide is intended for courses instructed by Dr. Sally Parker-Ryan, according to her policies.

Using Generative AI in your College Assignments

It is important for us to realize that generative AI, especially that which uses large language models to produce text, is with us to stay. Rather than ban it’s use, it’s my view that we had better learn how to use it effectively. But to use it effectively, we must learn to use it to help us to do the work we need to do; not to do the work for us.

 

Why not just let the robots do all the writing from now on? The answer to that is that if we do that, then humans will lose one of the most valuable skills we have, and skills that AI cannot (yet) reproduce: our human intelligence and creativity. In this coming age of AI, in order to succeed, we are going to have to be able to do things that the AIs cannot do.

 

Now, learning how to write, learning how to express your thoughts, to formulate your views, to do the hard thinking work that it takes to understand material – this all takes place when you do assessments like writing essays. Learning how to write IS learning how to think. If you do not engage in these practices, if you let the AI do them for you – you learn nothing, you fail to learn how to think creatively and critically, and you fail to improve how you express yourself.

 

It's like sending a robot to the gym for you: sure, you get to sit on the sofa instead, but you also do not get fit or healthy or buff! You can see that this would not make any sense!

 

Now, you may want to use AI just to pass, or even to get better grades than you would if you did the work yourself. This is a mistake because a) it means you are missing out on opportunities to actually improve skills and to learn, and b) when you get into the workplace, your employers will be questioning those great grades if you cannot perform the work they need you to do. All careers require the ability to think clearly, to be creative and to be able to express your self articulately. If you can’t do any of those, your job will not last long!

 

These are the reasons your instructors are still asking you to do writing assignments. We really do want you to learn. We are not doing it just to create busy work, or have you learn skills you will never need. Quite the opposite. So, take my advice and do not use AI to do your work. Use it to help you. Do not simply copy large amounts or whole essays from e.g., ChatGPT, and paste it in to submit as your own work. Here are some guidelines as to how you might use it to help you:

  • To help you research your topic. Like you would use any other online source such as encyclopedias or articles or web sites.
  • To help improve the quality of your writing. Feed your own written work into a prompt and ask the AI to edit and correct it. This is particularly useful for those whose first language is not English. This can work like Grammerly or even just like the spelling and grammar checkers on your word processor.
  • Ask it to provide some examples of what others have written or thought about a topic.
  • Have an argument with it: Ask the AI to debate your statement with you!
  • Ask it to summarize a difficult or long piece of writing – for example, some article or required reading you have. This doesn’t replace reading things yourself, but it can help you to understand the hard pieces better.

 

BEWARE:

  • AI ‘hallucinates’ – this means that it does not always give the correct, or true information! If it doesn’t know something, it will make things up. This is one of the ways we instructors can tell if someone has simply used an AI to do their work: it might be completely incorrect or false, even if written very nicely!
  • AI writes in a VERY bland, boring and impersonal way. You will be asked to write from your experience, your understanding, and your own opinions and views on the matter. None of these are things that AI can do!

 

These are just a few ideas. Again, the aim is to use AI to assist you in completing assignments. ‘Assistance’ means you can us AI to help you research a topic, to help you improve the quality of your writing (e.g., grammar, vocabulary, punctuation, spelling, structure, and flow).

 

However, all ideas, analyses, creative content, examples, and reasoning must be your own. Otherwise, you risk being penalized for plagiarism (see HCC Academic Honesty policies, https://www.hccs.edu/about-hcc/procedures/student-rights-policies--procedures/student-procedures/).

 

Please note: You must cite your use of AI, just as you would cite any other resource i.e. a book or a website. Here is the way to do it:

 

You must provide clear attribution of your sources: 1) explanation of how you used the AI and 2) clear citation using a format such as this example: [Chat-GPT-3. (YYYY, Month DD of query). Text of your query. Generated using OpenAI. https://chat.openai.com/].