Case study: Designing and delivering a Generative AI literacy strand on a language and study skills module

The International Pathway College
Phil Martin

Phil Martin outlines how he designed and delivered an AI literacy strand on a language and study skills module, aiming to support students to make effective and critical decisions on when and how to use Generative AI within their studies.

He describes the ways in which the strand aimed to go beyond a focus on technical instruction and specific tools, towards an appreciation of the ethical and practical issues involved in the uses of AI in Higher Education.

The strand was initially run as a non-credit bearing pilot but this allowed for the development of an assessment model combining handwritten work allowing for no direct uses of AI tools, with creative digital outputs built using a range of AI tools to encourage students to explore varied uses of AI. He felt that this combination worked well as an opportunity for students to develop a critical and reflective lens on AI.

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Designing and delivering a Generative AI literacy strand on a language and study skills module (Panopto viewer) (6 mins 46 secs, UoY log-in required)

Transcript

Okay. So. Hi, my name is Phil Martin. I'm the program leader for, uh, uh, pre masters here at the Extension Pathway College. So, um, the AI literacy strand of language and study skills is something that we've developed just to kind of expand the existing language, um, study skills provision that we, we put in already. So this is the sort of thing where our students study, um, academic English to try and raise their proficiency in terms of speaking, reading, writing, listening. And we just thought, AI is presenting so many kind of interesting, um, discussion points at the moment that we would use this as a basis for a bit of an additional strand here. Um, the so learning outcome was for students to understand the potential uses and limitations of generative AI in education and the associated ethical issues. That's the kind of general direction of of this strand. It's in addition to the sort of language proficiency learning outcomes that we have. And um, so it's really not a tool based, um, strand isn't something that's looking at how to use ChatGPT, how to use notebookLM. Uh, we're looking more at the kind of ethical issues. Uh, there is some, some there's lots of practical work in there, which I'll get to in a second. But I think with what we mean by literacy is I really wanted something to be durable and transferable. I wanted something is not just because if we if we focus on how to use notebook LM, well, that's going to be change in three months time. So really we want something. We want it to be a form of thinking where students kind of grapple with issues and think about, um, do they really want to be reaching for AI as their first port of call? So that's kind of the direction we're trying to steer them.

So what we include is things like the responses from higher education, um, what do they want to see? Do they want to see, um, the universities embrace AI or maybe be a bit of an oasis away from AI? We look at some studies that have, um, uh, evaluated the effects of ChatGPT on learning. Um, we've looked, uh, how to use it as a study aid, potentially. Um, some authors that have talked about AI slop and, and this coin, this term has been coined was to come from, um. Employers expectations. We've work... Been working with um Clare McMahon Harvey within the university to give us some... share some of her research data on what employers are expecting. And, uh, most recently things like, um, does authorship matter? So we've been looking at, um, anyone who's been following the copyright issues around music. Um. Does. Is it as valid to listen to AI music and appreciate art? Does there need to be a human on the other end of it? Does this affect how we appreciate and consume things? And um, the and then there's associated copyright issues with that as well. So these are the kinds of things that we look at with students. And we're really hopefully these are things that are durable enough that they take forward into their other studies.

Now we'll look at, um, the assessment that we use for this is kind of ongoing. Um, it's um, half of it is non-digital. So we'll get them to handwrite an essay. And a lot of this is done in class. So an essay will be based on some of the material that we've covered, uh, such that we might ask, for example, um, would an AI free university be a success? And then students kind of write a 500 or so word response to with their stance on that, based on the material that we've covered. And what they then do is take that and make it into a digital project, which is, um, we head over to the Creativity Lab, and Sam there helps us, um, put all this into Canva and I'll show you a little example in a minute, but it's, uh, students kind of turn this in. We look at multimedia principles as well on the, on the, on this strand, and we look at how images and text and audio work together. And they create all the components of this using AI. So AI generated storyboards, images, um, the audio track and the music that they want and everything. All the animations are AI generated, and then what they do is reflect on the process, and they think about whether AI has actually helped this product. So has the presence of AI in this process improved the final product? Does it help them learn? What have they got out of? Have they changed their stance on its efficacy and its place in higher education? Um. And, um, I'll just show you a quick. So student response is, I mean, we ran it last year as a non-credit bearing pilot, and it was great.

If anyone's really interested, I can share the exit survey anonymized results there. But just to say it was really positively received and they really enjoyed it, especially making the product. Um. Oh, I'm not sure if I can. I might not get it. "So imagine a world where every piece of content tells a hidden truth. Intrigued?". Am I getting any sound through on that? Okay, cool. Thanks. "Memes, AI generated art." So this is this is one of the projects that one of the students created last year. So this was just a formative thing. And this is all the animations, all the audio that you can hear. They're the jazzy little background sound effects. That was what they decided to put in to illustrate the point of whether I, um, product should be watermarked. That was their little debate that they looked at. Um, but yeah, that was is kind of worked well, um, for the, for the future we're looking to and it's just going to be refined as we go. I mean, it will be um,

I've put I've set the scheme of work to open. So if anybody would like to look at the scheme of work to look at the project brief, um, how we've set this up, it's, um, the reason I've just made it open, because I assume a lot of the departments are doing this kind of thing all by themselves, and we've got versions of this elsewhere in the university, so it would be good to get some sharing going on. Um, so this should link on the slides. One big caveat, though, is that, um, this is all kind of a cauldron at the moment. Um, it's, uh, the scheme of work is a kind of a sketch pad. It's all, um, incomplete. So you see, little gaps is my working document. So you please, if you want to make a copy or you find anything helpful in there, then then go nuts. But, um, there's some things. For example, one of the class materials. Um. I'm putting it at the moment, does not yet have alt text in the slides. So, um, I'm slightly wary of sharing things without, um, full accessibility compliance at the moment, but these are very much there for you to be adapted and put, you know, use in your own context if you'd find useful. But please drop me a line if you'd like me to share any of that. Or if, um, I think you should be able to get to it from the slides, which, um, Rob will share. So yeah, any questions on that I'll be happy to take.