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Helping Students Develop Critical Thinking Skills When Using Generative AI (Part 1)

From the University of Kent’s Digitally Enhanced Education series, a two-parter on the theme of how generative AI is affecting student’s critical thinking skills, with the second part coming next week. We’ve been living with generative AI for a while now, and I am finding diminishing returns from the various webinars and training I have been attending. Nevertheless, there’s always new things to learn and nuggets of wisdom to be found in these events. The Kent webinar series has such a wide reach now that the general chat, as much as the presentations, is a fantastic resource. Phil has done a magnificent job with this initiative, and is a real credit in the TEL community.

Dr Mary Jacob, from Aberystwyth University, presented an overview of their new AI guidance for staff and students, highlighting for students that they shouldn’t rely on AI; for staff to understand what it can and can’t do, and the legal and ethical implications of the technology; and for everyone to be critical of the output – is it true? Complete? Unbiased?

Professor Earle Abrahamson, from the University of Hertfordshire, presented on the importance of using good and relevant prompts to build critical analysis skills. The first screenshot above is from Earle’s presentation, showing different perceptions on generative AI from students and staff. There were some good comments in the chat during Earle’s presentation, on how everything we’ve discussed today comes back from information literacy.

Dr Sian Lindsay, from the University of Reading, talked about the risks of AI on critical thinking, namely that students may be exposed to a narrower range of ideas due to the biases inherent in all existing generative AI systems and the limited ranges of data they have access to, and are trained upon. The second screenshot is from Sian’s presentation, highlighting some of the research in this area.

I can’t remember who shared this, if it came from one of the presentations or the chat, but someone shared a great article on Inside Higher Ed on the option to opt out of using generative AI at all. Yes! Very good, I enjoyed this very much. I don’t agree with all of it. But most of it! My own take in short: there is no ethical use of generative artificial intelligence, and we should only use it when it serves a genuine need or use.

As always, recordings of all presentations are available on the @digitallyenhancededucation554 YouTube channel.

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