Brent Warner 0:00
What does your syllabus say about AI? This is the higher ed tech podcast season six, Episode Four.

Tim Van Norman 0:20
Welcome to today’s HigherEdTech Podcast. I’m Tim Van Norman, the Instructional Technologist at Irvine Valley College, an adjunct professor of business at Cypress College,

Brent Warner 0:30
and I’m Brent Warner, Professor of ESL here at Irvine Valley College, we both enjoy integrating technology into the classroom, which is what this show is all about.

Tim Van Norman 0:39
Welcome. We’re glad you’re here with us.

Brent Warner 0:42
So Tim, I heard a different introduction after six, six seasons four episodes, five, five seasons four episodes, I got a slightly changed job title. What’s going on?

Tim Van Norman 0:55
So as of this week, I became a an adjunct professor of business. So I completed my MBA last year, and one of the things that I was looking forward to hopefully doing was to teach one class, not going for full time or anything like that, but I wanted to teach one class, preferably business or computers or something like that. But so now I’m teaching one class of business, Introduction to Business, at Cypress College, uh, asynchronous, online. So all of the stuff that I help people, uh, do, I’m learning what I taught wrong. I mean, yeah, well, I learned a lot, and it literally just released this weekend.

Brent Warner 1:41
Yeah, that’s great. So, I mean, this is actually a wonderful one. You’re with our friends and colleagues up at Cypress, but also, you know, like a lot of this stuff you’ve talked about for a long time, and you taught classes before, right in the past, but, but kind of this new version where you’re doing the community college courses with your masters and everything. So great. Now we’re also adding in your perspective as teacher on top of the the work that we’ve talked about before. So pretty soon I’m going to be off the show and it’s just going to be you. That’s okay, alright. So glad to hear. And we’ll, we’ll kind of bring some of that in today, but, but Tim, we’re really talking about the AI conversation continues to go and on and go and go and go. And one of the things that we’ve been seeing is so many people are looking for like, what’s the policy, right? How should I say to my students, what should I put in my class? And a lot of people are playing with these ideas of syllabus statements or just general policies that they’re trying to work through with their students. And so we thought we’d talk a little bit about these. I think I want to start early by saying this is a massive possibilities endless and like, we can’t cover it on a 25 to 30 minute show here, by any means, but, but we can kind of give some overview and some things to consider as we go into this absolutely.

Tim Van Norman 3:10
And for me, as we just mentioned, it’s very pertinent as I got somebody else’s syllabus, and one of the first things I did is when I looked at, okay, what is the AI statement? And then I had to consider, what did I want? So a lot of the stuff we’re going to talk about today is literally the stuff I had to go through over the last week, trying super fresh. Super fresh. Yeah, cool.

Brent Warner 3:34
Okay, so let’s start with the big question, Tim, why does it even matter to have an AI a syllabus statement, because some people might make the argument that we already have an academic integrity or, you know, statement. And so why do I want to have an AI statement as well?

Tim Van Norman 3:52
Well, think about I’m going to switch it just slightly and say, Do you offer your quizzes as open book? Open note, okay? And the reason I bring that up is because some people do, some people don’t. Some people do for some of them, some people don’t at all. And so if you just simply take that one which has nothing to do with AI, right, that’s but that is the same conversation we’re having about AI right now, is some people absolutely no, AI, right? Some people absolutely you can use it anytime you want. And other people are going wait, sometimes I want you to use it, sometimes I don’t want you to use it. And which one is, right? It all depends on you as the as the teacher, as you know. How do you want it in your class? What type of class do you teach? There’s so many different aspects of it that I don’t think there’s a cut and dry answer, and frankly, then it’s also confusing for the students. If everybody has a different policy, what does that mean? But do you really want the bosses telling you how to teach your class?

Brent Warner 4:59
Oh yeah, big time. So there’s already, you know, there’s students that are struggling with this already, because they’re like, Oh, you let me use it, but that teacher doesn’t let me use it, and I’m trying to remember which class is okay and which class it’s not, and those types of things. And so it’s like, you know, I mean, that’s a struggle, just for the students. When there’s inconsistency across the board, which, you know, it’s fine, it’s part of the college experience and whatever else it is, but, but it’s something to be aware of, right? And that you know you’re adding another cognitive load, regardless of what your choice is, right? Because it’s it’s yet another thing for them, Stu, for students to consider as they’re going through their courses and at least knowing that, hey, this is the thing, and we want to reinforce that. But I would also point out, Tim that no matter what you’re ending up doing, at least for the first couple of years, you should probably be clarifying that per assignment as well, and not just on the syllabus. So like, maybe you could put a tag at the bottom and say, Hey, this, you know, AI is okay on this assignment. If you, if you have multiple, you know, depending on your assignment type of setup, right? If you’re straight up never use AI, then you obviously don’t need to say it every single assignment. But if you have mixed policies, or whatever else it is, it might be useful to the students to kind of have a little you know indication on if you’re on Canvas, if the you know, some sort of page that says not a page, sorry, a little a little banner at the bottom that says AI is okay or not okay, or whatever else it is,

Tim Van Norman 6:34
Absolutely, and along those lines, do think about, and we’re not going to spend much time on it, but what is your use of AI, and should you document that for your students? Yeah, did you use AI at all? Do you use AI at all? And so just think about that as we begin this conversation. I’m not going to answer that question right now, but, but consider that, are you putting your students in a different situation than you’re allowing yourself to be in?

Brent Warner 7:00
Yeah, and I can’t remember. I’ll briefly respond to this Tim, because I had a conversation about this recently on LinkedIn. I can’t remember where I brought up on the show, but basically, I think it’s useful to tell students when you’re going to use AI on something that will directly impact their grades and their work. I think it’s less useful probably, to indicate every single time that you’ve used AI somewhere on something, because it’s built into everything. Now, you open up Google Docs and it’s like, do you want to write this with AI? You open up LinkedIn, and it’s like, Hey, why doesn’t AI write this for you instead? Like, literally, it’s just integrating. It’s getting its tendrils into every spot, right? And so, so, you know, it’s getting to the point where it’s almost impossible to say I’m not using AI, right? But I think this is kind of part of the conversation we wanted to switch to, is, what do you consider AI, right? Tim, and I know that this is one that you brought up quite a few times in different meetings,

Tim Van Norman 7:59
Absolutely. So let’s start with generative AI. Everybody would typically consider that AI, okay, but now let’s get to Grammarly. Right? Is Grammarly? Ai? Grammarly is AI, yes, but do you would you even know if your students used it now in a class like you teach ESL that might be a factor that might be something you want to consider an attack class like I teach in business, I kind of want them to up their game and learn how to use that as a tool. Because when they’re sitting there writing an email in business, I want them to use that tool as a tool, not to have it write their email, but to to help them, guide them, and maybe actually have them put ideas in and write a lot that they then work on. So for me, that’s a tool, but that’s a very different thing than learning a language.

Brent Warner 8:51
That’s right, yeah, and so that’s context dependent, right? So clearly my situation is not everyone’s situation, where it’s like, hey, you need to show me that, you know this grammar yourself, like, that’s not an average college conversation, right? Although, you know, sometimes, in some situations, it might be so. So it’s worth paying attention to and recognizing where you stand. But then Tim, this kind of goes right into the very like some of the oldest AI, which is our good old, you know, spell check, right?

Tim Van Norman 9:23
Absolutely.

Brent Warner 9:25
So for spell check, like, Are you checking? Do you ask your students to use spell check or to tell you when they’re using spell check? Is that something for you? Tim, would you ever do that?

Tim Van Norman 9:35
No, but if I was doing something that was spelling related, then yes, right, right. So it goes back to that. But for me in business, in fact, it’s the flaw. If you don’t right, you know I want, I want you using spell check every time. Guess what? I’m going to use spell check every time. And if something looks right, but spell check says it’s wrong, I’m going to go look it up and make. Sure, you know, because I want to learn that, and I want to ingrain that in in the use of that tool. Yeah,

Brent Warner 10:07
Yeah. 100% and so this is, you know, it’s just a consideration that so many of us are probably talking about, generative AI, right? The chat bots, chat, GBT, CO, pilot, Gemini, whatever else it is, and we’re probably not recognizing that there’s tons of AI and everything else. You’re Alexa at home, you’re every time you do a Google search, right? Like all these things are AI, you know, at different levels. And so just pay attention to that, because, you know, a savvy student might make some legitimate arguments. If you’re saying, Hey, you can’t do this thing. It’s like, what are you talking about? You can’t not use this thing, right? And so it’s a thing to be aware of,

Tim Van Norman 10:51
Absolutely. And so as you think of that, you understand where what you’re considering AI, I think it’s important to then figure out what your stance is, both at a general level and then at an individual assignment level, like we were talking about. So are you pro AI? Use AI as often as you want, and every single case, and I’ll put I’ll document where you shouldn’t, or are you anti AI, you could never use it in this class. Or hopefully, at least, in my opinion, hopefully you’re someplace in the middle.

Brent Warner 11:30
Yeah. I mean, I think there’s, I think that makes the most sense to kind of have, you know, some flexibility, and some saying, like, no, there are times when absolutely it’s not the appropriate thing to use, right? You need to show me what you can do, you know, just with the power of your brain, whatever you got between your ears. So I totally agree with this Tim, there’s different levels of these conversations. And so I came across this AI Assessment Scale poster, which was it said it was adapted by Vera Kubera cube beno, I think, for the North Carolina Department of public institutions. It’s been making its way online, but we found we have a link to it. It’s in Canva, but there’s several different possible versions, and basically they created this idea of, like, Hey, we’re going to have a scale, and it’s kind of a red light, green light type of scale, like no AI. They have different versions of these, and you can adapt these to your own needs, but they have all the way from zero AI, which is kind of in a red bar at the top of the scale, and then it kind of goes yellowish, and then greenish, and then full green is full AI. So let’s just walk through some of these possibilities. And with this suggestion, if you’re listening to this and you’re thinking, Hey, maybe I want to use this one. Of course, share the link, but to you can also make adjustments to your for yourself and say, No, a one to four scale is not right. I want a, you know, one to three scale, or whatever else it is. So we we’re all making our own decisions at this point and trying to figure things out

Tim Van Norman 13:11
Absolutely And along those lines, we’re also going to talk a little bit about disclosure. At what point do you disclose? Do you do your students disclose the use of AI, perfect.

Brent Warner 13:23
So I’ll start the first one, yeah, and then we’ll go through it, and then we’ll talk them through. So first level is level zero on this one. So on the link, when you, if you go and look at it, I’m looking at the very bottom scale because it’s the generative AI Acceptable Use scale. So level zero is no AI use. And they describe this. The full description says this assessment is completed entirely without AI assistance. Ai must not be used at any point during the assessment. This level ensured that the student relies solely on their own knowledge, understanding and skills, and then the disclosure requirement is no AI disclosure required. It may require an academic honesty pledge that AI was not used. A lot to think about there.

Tim Van Norman 14:15
There is but and as you, as you think about it, understand that a lot of times when you get a pledge like that, click next, you know, they’re just moving through. They didn’t even read it. They’re just okay, I have to do this in order to move on, right? And so what does that mean to you, versus what does it mean to the students? Have you had the conversation with the students to explain? I think there’s other factors that come in when you say no, AI, use in today’s world,

Brent Warner 14:44
yeah, yeah. So it’s just something you have to be careful about you. I would probably rephrase that to no chat bots or no, you know, no, no tools like, you know, generative AI, tools like chat, GPT, etc, right? Something like that. But I also just briefly on this academic honestly, honesty pledge, there is research that shows that students respond, that all people respond to that better when they have to sign their name, like physically sign. And so if you had a conversation with the class in person and then handed out a piece of paper and had them physically sign their name, I used to make a joke to my students. I said, Okay, you gotta sign it in blood. And one of my students freaked out. But it was serious, so I got, I had to be a little careful after that, but, but the joke, you know, but the truth is, like, it’s like, Okay, we are taking this seriously, right? So there are ways. But again, when it’s just a click on a page that like nobody’s looking at, for sure, be careful about that.

Tim Van Norman 15:42
Absolutely. So level one, they have aI assisted idea generate. I I’m sorry, AI assisted idea generation and structuring. The description is no AI content is allowed in the final submission. AI can be used in the assessment for brainstorming, creating structures and generating ideas for improving work. So the disclosure requirement that they have is AI disclosure statement must be included, disclosing how AI was used, links to AI chats must be submitted with final submission.

Brent Warner 16:20
Okay, I think this is where a lot of people are starting, starting now to find their comfort zone, right? It’s like, you can use it for brainstorming. You can use it to kind of get your, you know, get the blank canvas off the page, but you can’t really use it for your own work. And I’ve, I’ve heard of a lot of teachers kind of feeling like this is the zone where they’re at. I’m not sure if you’ve been experiencing that as well.

Tim Van Norman 16:46
Well, one of my my concerns on it is the disclosure requirement that they have, and that is, would I disclose that I used Google to search for documents, that I went to the library and I used the the library stacks to look for something. I would I wouldn’t do that. I wouldn’t think about it, yeah, unless I physically used something and then I cited that to me. I look at that disclosure requirement, and as long as they’re not using it for their final product, meaning they use it for idea generation or something like that. I mean, what would be the difference if they went into Google and they typed it in? Especially now, Google is AI, so i i That’s my concern on that particular one, but I understand I like the description. It’s just, I’m looking at the disclosure going, hmm,

Brent Warner 17:47
Yeah, I would say, well, one, there’s no easy way to make a disclosure right on most assignments. So Canvas needs to have a button that says, I, you know, like a click button that gives students the option to say what they’ve done. That seems like an obvious add on that a lot of teachers would appreciate, but it does not exist, and so now you have to do a whole workaround of techniques to make that work. Whether that be okay leave a comment in this when you make the submission in the comments box, but you know, everybody forgets to do that, or, you know, whatever else it is, or put it at the bottom of the documents, like no one’s going to remember to do that. So, so you just have to, kind of, you would have to figure out a way that’s part of your technique. I would say more something along the lines of, you know, it may be required, depending on the level of work that you did, but I would still say, at this point, if it’s just for idea generation, I probably wouldn’t, you know, I wouldn’t make any way for them to submit a chat, like they’re, you know, a link to their chat, or anything like that. But let’s move forward to level two. On this one, AI assisted editing. So it says, For the full description, no new content can be created using AI. Ai ai can be used to make improvements to the clarity or quality of student created work to improve the final output. Okay, so the disclosure requirement is similar, but it says AI disclosure statement must be included, disclosing how AI was used, links to the chats must be submitted with the final submission. This one may be a little better, right? Or a little more clear on the reason why you’d want the disclosure. But essentially, this is Grammarly, right? I mean, this is, it’s just saying, like, hey, grammar checks, checking the quality of your language going up and cleaning up any unclear language inside of there. And so this is a level of concern, of course, for English teachers and ESL teachers like myself, but maybe not so much to you, Tim, if someone says, Hey, I’m gonna, I wrote all this stuff and I’m gonna tidy it up with the grammar, you know, a chatgpt clean up my grammar on this or something,

Tim Van Norman 19:54
Right. But also, I think about so whenever I look at this, the AI discussion, I. Think about, what if I take AI out of it, and the student goes, and they go to a tutor, and the tutor reviews it and says, Oh, hey, clean up the grammar here and stuff like that. Would I expect them to document that they used a tutor? Yeah, that’s a good point. And so that whenever I look at it, I try to pull that out. And this is exactly why this is such a huge conversation, right? Is because while I might have a good point, you’ve got a good point, and there’s another good point that is completely different than ours.

Brent Warner 20:30
Yeah. it’s, uh, we’re in the fog here, folks trying to figure it out Absolutely.

Tim Van Norman 20:38
So step three, and there’s four. So there’s there’s another one. There zero through four, so five total steps. So step three is AI for specified task completion. AI is used to complete certain elements of the task as specified by the teacher. This level requires critical engagement with AI generated content and evaluating its output. You are responsible for providing human oversight and evaluation of all AI generated content. So the disclosure requirement is, all AI generated content must be cited using proper MLA citation. Links to AI chats must be submitted with final submission. I actually like this one, yeah, and the reason I like it is because it’s there’s times when you’re going to use it in different places. I’m definitely, as the teacher, I want to say, Please use it here. Yeah, and I want you to do it. If you can’t, you can’t, but I this is, I’m encouraging you to do that, but I want to have you critically engage in the Gen AI generated content, and you are responsible for that content. Well,

Brent Warner 21:48
I also like citing the specific locations right where you’re saying, hey, this point is where I used AI, and that’s part of the dynamics of your actual product, of whatever you’ve created or written or whatever else it is. Right to say this is where it was, because that’s going to show me the places as a teacher that’s going to show me, hey, I’m seeing the places where you’re using this cleverly and creatively. I’m going to see the other places where I’m like, you probably didn’t need to use this here, right? You could have thought your way through this, right? And it helps me to open up better conversations with my students, you know, and and helps them to build citing, you know, citation skills, which a lot of you know, it’s just a hard and kind of a strenuous process, but it’s a great part of reflecting on the quality of your own work and the things that you want to say and why you want to say them. And so when you do an actual citation, you really slow down to think about what you’re doing in that moment, which is really powerful.

Tim Van Norman 22:46
Well. And going back to what I said on the last point, if you were going through a an article and you pulled this point out of that article, this is exactly what you should do, yeah. So this is analogous. This really does fit that environment, that that threshold that I was using of if I pulled AI out of the conversation and I had you do the same thing, what would I expect? I would expect this. Okay, so

Brent Warner 23:16
last step four, it’s full AI use with human oversight. Oh, these are the angels are singing. This is the AI Gods reaching out through your computer and doing whatever they do. I don’t know, but here we go. You may use AI throughout your assessment to support your own work in any way you deem necessary. Ai should be a co pilot to enhance human creativity. You are responsible for providing human oversight and evaluation of all AI generated content and the disclosure requirement. You must cite the use of AI using proper MLA or APA citation links to the chats must be submitted with the final submission, so maybe creative endeavors. I don’t know. I’m not 100% sure. I’m I’m not sure which situations exactly I’d be totally behind this with, except exploring AI, but, but I, you know, I’m not sure yet where I feel with this one.

Tim Van Norman 24:20
This one to me, I kind of three and four to me are very, very similar. Three is about certain elements, and four is more about use it wherever you want, but you are responsible for the output.

Brent Warner 24:38
Yeah, I guess the problem for me with that is, like, I don’t want to spend a lot of I mean, one, okay, so it is saying you have to cite it. So that’s fine. But I also, as a teacher, I don’t really want to be grading AI stuff like that doesn’t sound like a an appropriate use of my time, necessarily. And so this is where. I get a little bit like, Okay, now we’re pushing beyond the the place where I feel comfortable, or the place where I feel like it’s appropriate for, you know, me. If it’s going to be something that’s ungraded and just like, hey, this is a formative thing, and we’re trying to build concepts and whatever those things are, then maybe that’s fine. But if it’s turning into, like, full written work, and, you know, whatever, and then it’s like, okay, they, for example, what if the student just wrote it through several times and revise, revise, revise, make it better, make it better, make it better, and then they just turn in a fully AI documented thing? Yes, there is the part of, like, chasing down the MLA or the APA formatting, but I’m not 100% sure that I’m totally behind this. I think that this is going to be a harder one for a lot of people to get behind. And where the level three on this version is a little bit more like, hey, use it in spots. Show me where those spots are. Build in your thinking and Weaver ideas together. I think we will all, at some point, probably be at four. Ish, here are some parts of four, but, but it’s a little hard for me right now.

Tim Van Norman 26:13
Exactly the conversation is figuring out where where you fit, and there are times when zero is completely appropriate, yeah, yeah, for sure. So just keep in mind that when you’re making that decision, there’s more to it than than just a one time decision, yeah?

Brent Warner 26:31
So we’ll share a link to this because, you know, but again, please make adjustments to match your needs. That’s part of the conversation. So Tim, as we’re wrapping up here, you have recently made your own AI statement for your own class, so let’s see how it fits in.

Tim Van Norman 26:46
And this statement came before I saw this list, and understand that when, whenever you’re making a statement like this, my big suggestion, go and search the internet for other suggestions, find websites that have lots of different things and, frankly, unfortunately, probably steal from them and rework it to be your words, but the same type of concept. So what I wound up saying is, I called it artificial intelligence expectations. Each class will have a different perspective on the use of artificial intelligence AI tools as such, please, do not consider this syllabus as indicative of any Cypress College policies related to AI. You can choose to use AI tools to help brainstorm assignments or projects or to revise existing work you have written when you submit your assignments, it is expected you would clearly attribute text that was originally generated by an AI tool, EEG. AI generated text appears in different colored font, quoted directly in text or use in text, parenthetical citation and in text, parenthetical citation, I see I should have run this through AI anyway. If AI is used to brainstorm and not create text that is handled that is handed in, there is no need to identify that source, just like you likely would not identify that you looked in a dictionary or use spell checker on a word, if you are unclear on this expectation, please contact one of us and we will help you understand clearly.

Brent Warner 28:26
Okay, so I think you’re kind of landing in the two slash three zone, I would say, like it kind of bounces back and forth between those two. Mm, hmm, yeah. So, you know, again, that’s customization that matches what your needs are, and you know, and what you’re trying to do for your class. And so I think that’s, you know, these are the things that we need to be playing with. Is like, hey, no one’s going to give exactly what I need for my class out there, right? But I can take something that’s close enough, and I can kind of play doh, mold it to the fit for my class. And I think that’s what we’re trying to encourage people to think about, is what can you work with that exists? What do you need to change to match your needs, and what’s appropriate or doable in your own classroom?

Tim Van Norman 29:11
And remember that within assignments, I may be saying something different.

Brent Warner 29:15
That’s right, that’s right. So lots to play with here. You know, we’ll have all of this stuff in the show notes for you, but I think Tim, we’re good to go, at least for this is the first round of this conversation for now,

Tim Van Norman 29:29
Absolutely. Thank you for listening today. For more information about this show, please visit our website, at the higher edtech podcast.com

Brent Warner 29:40
As always, we do want your feedback, so please go to the higher edtech podcast.com and let us know your thoughts for everyone

Tim Van Norman 29:47
at IVC that’s listening. If you need help with technology questions, please contact IVC technical support. You have questions about technology in your classroom, please stop by a 322 or contact me, Tim Van Norman at tvannorman@ivc.edu or tvannorman@cypresscollege.edu,

Brent Warner 30:03
Hey, all right! other ways to contact you, too. So if you want to reach out to me about the show, you can find me on LinkedIn, at @BrentGWarner.

Tim Van Norman 30:12
I’m Tim VanNorman,

Brent Warner 30:14
and I’m Brent Warner, and we hope this episode has helped you on the road from possibility to actuality. Take care everybody.