Professor Sissel McCarthy appeared on the CUNY TV program Café con Felo, where she discussed the usage of AI in the classroom with Chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodríguez.
She appeared alongside Dr. Luke Waltzer, who mentioned CUNY Graduate Center’s recent $1 million grant from Google and discussed the work being done in AI education. She discussed the new realities of AI, what it can do, and how to use it ethically.
As she learned businesses are requiring prospective employees to be AI literate and have an understanding of how to use it in the workplace when they graduate from college, she said, “I think all staff should be figuring out how to integrate AI into the curriculum and use it honestly and ethically.”
As an example, she used an assignment in which MEDIA 211 students are required to use ChatGPT as a writing coach. They would write up a draft and put questions into ChatGPT to get feedback and correct their mistakes. After, she posted a poll to gauge students’ interest in using AI in the future if their professors allowed it. 40% said yes and the remaining 60% said maybe, showing students are willing to embrace the new technology.
The experiment was successful and used ChatGPT in a way that enhanced their productivity without hindering their critical thinking skills. She made the case that AI is just a tool and that students must never let it replace their own critical thinking skills. “Why would someone hire you if AI can do everything you can do?” Students who had been using it to write their papers in their entirety were not using their critical thinking skills, and McCarthy argues it’s important to teach them how to use AI ethically and responsibly.
McCarthy understands she needs to perfect the assignment because AI wanted to rewrite her students’ papers and not just coach them through. She talked about AI hallucinations and how it makes up events or facts that never happened. “You have to bring your critical thinking skills when you go on any AI bot because it makes mistakes all the time.”
She pointed to a picture of an Asian American student who had her appearance altered into that of a white woman with blue eyes and light hair when AI was asked to make her headshot look more professional. She talked about the good, the bad and the ugly of AI as she likes to call it. “I’m very optimistic about AI and I feel very strongly that we need to be using it in college, in the classroom and that there’s a greater risk of not using it than there is of using it.”
Two Studio News Production students, Reagan Grant and Sebastian Fraccari, taped questions that McCarthy answered in the interview. Grant asked how professors avoid falsely accusing students of using AI. McCarthy noted that professors take accusations of academic dishonesty seriously and don’t use AI detectors because they are unreliable. Instead, professors sit down with the student and ask where their ideas came from and explain passages that appear to be written by AI. Professors also verify that the quotes cited are found in class readings since AI often hallucinates when it comes to quotes.
Sebastian Fraccari asked what effective and compassionate methods can be used to encourage academic integrity. McCarthy’s advice is to explain a student’s situation, since professors want students to succeed and in most cases will give extensions. She personally shows students what AI can and can’t do at the beginning of the semester and has them do an assignment AI can’t do, which is the 48 hour blackout in MEDIA 211, reliant on an authentic human experience.
McCarthy will be speaking in June at an ACERT (Academic Center for Excellence in Research & Teaching) event in an AI camp where professors gather to share what they learned about helping students use AI and incorporating the technology into their classes. The interview still does not have a scheduled air date on CUNY TV.
