Instructor Profile: Jessica Hill

Jessica Hill’s research focuses on enhancing student experience and engagement in online learning environments. She leverages technology to support these objectives and applies knowledge gained from these experiences to other teaching modalities.

Q: Can you describe how you have used generative AI in your teaching and your goals in engaging with it?

I teach in several online and face-to-face courses, each with specific generative AI guidelines tailored to the course learning objectives and assessments and in consultation with my co-coordinators as relevant.  

The most “generative-AI-friendly” policies are in my online, asynchronous courses, MGY277, “Introduction to Medical Microbiology” and MGY250, “Introduction to Medical Genetics”. In these courses, the use of generative AI is permitted and/or encouraged for certain assessments.  

Learning outcomes for these courses include enhancing critical thinking skills to analyze real-world, science-related scenarios, such as understanding how vaccines work and the benefits and drawbacks of direct-to-consumer genetic testing services like 23andMe. Akin to this, a secondary learning outcome to foster critical thinking skills to evaluate the current capabilities and limitations of generative AI is complementary. I describe the use of generative AI in an assessment focused on dismantling vaccine hesitancy in the assessment examples.  

Q: When creating learning activities and assessments with generative AI, what strategies have you employed to foster critical thinking?

For each assessment incorporating generative AI, a reflective component was included. For instance, in an assessment where students used a prompt I designed for Microsoft Copilot to generate profiles of vaccine-hesitant individuals, they were tasked with evaluating the quality of the sources cited by Microsoft Copilot. Later in the assessment, students were asked to reflect on the potential for stereotyping populations when creating these profiles.

Q: What feedback have you received from students on the use of AI in course assessments?

The feedback I have received has been very positive and somewhat surprising. For a low-stakes assessment in “Introduction to Medical Genetics,” students were allowed to use any generative AI tool in any way they liked. Afterwards, I asked a series of questions, including whether they used generative AI for the assessment, which tool they used, how they used it, and if not, why not. Only 15% of students used generative AI to complete this assignment, possibly because it was straightforward and could be easily completed without AI. Those who did use it employed it for: 

1. Grammar and spelling correction 
2. Concision and clarity
3. Research and information 

For those who did not use it, their reasons fell into the following categories: 

1. Unnecessary: The use of generative AI was not needed for this primarily reflective assessment. 
2. Unreliable: AI tools can give incorrect responses.
3. Unfamiliar: Some students did not know how to use generative AI.
4. Uncomfortable: Some students felt using these tools compromised their educational experience. 

I found this feedback to be an excellent springboard for discussing concerns about using generative AI. I shared additional reasons not mentioned by students, such as copyright infringement, biases in responses, and privacy and confidentiality (which is less of a concern now that students have access to a protected version of Microsoft Copilot). It was also an opportunity to discuss how generative AI could be useful and how it could be used without compromising their educational experience. 

For a subsequent high-stakes assessment, students were permitted to use generative AI with restrictions (e.g., using generative AI to edit an early draft of their own work was permitted, but using it to complete peer reviews was not). Their use of generative AI was now informed by their earlier use and our subsequent asynchronous dialogue about their use. 

At the end of the course, I collected feedback from students about their use of generative AI in MGY250. 65% of students said they used generative AI in some capacity during the course. Of those who used generative AI, 68% agreed or strongly agreed with the statement, “Generative AI was an asset to completing my assignments in this course.” Students further agreed with the following statements: 

• “I learned new ways in which generative AI could be usefully and ethically used to support my learning in this course.” (69% agree/strongly agree) 
• “I learned new ways in which generative AI could be usefully and ethically used to help me complete assignments.” (66% agree/strongly agree) 
• “I found that the parameters by which I could use generative AI in the course were clearly explained.” (83% agree/strongly agree) 
• “I appreciate that generative AI was permitted in the course.” (70% agree/strongly agree)