Your browser does not support viewing this document. Click here to download the document. In the ever-evolving landscape of education, one area that has remained stable is the importance of providing high-quality feedback to students. However, we've long grappled with the challenge of offering timely, personalized, and meaningful feedback to all students, particularly in environments where resources are already stretched thin. The advent of artificial intelligence (AI) promises to help us meet this challenge. But how do know whether pre-service teachers—our future educators—will be receptive to creating feedback mediated by AI? This question was at the heart of an informal study I conducted with secondary education majors, exploring their attitudes toward AI-assisted feedback and its potential role in education, using a simple in-class survey.
The Power of Feedback Before diving into AI's role, let's recognize the foundational importance of feedback in education. Effective feedback is the lifeblood of student growth. Whether it’s formative, summative, or diagnostic, feedback has the power to guide learners toward deeper understanding and mastery. Feedback helps to model and support, to strengthen and grow. Feedback builds knowledge and skill, but also metacognitive abilities, fostering lifelong learning. The realities of classroom dynamics, however, often limit the ability of educators to provide this feedback as comprehensively as we might like. We know that feedback needs to be specific, timely, and relevant. But providing that level of individualized attention to each student, especially in large classes, can be a logistical and practical nightmare. To echo the call of teachers everywhere, "We can't do it all." This is where AI might enter the conversation. AI-Assisted Feedback: A New Frontier In my study, conducted with 107 secondary education majors over two semesters, I explored how AI-assisted feedback could alleviate some of the challenges of traditional feedback methods. I used generative AI (i.e., ChatGPT) to provide feedback on various and specific assignments, focusing on courses in data and assessment and classroom management. The AI provided feedback on a variety of tasks, including discussion boards, assignments, and reflections. One of the key takeaways was the positive reception from students concerning their general satisfaction with the feedback as measured on a 6-point Likert scale. The majority of participants were highly satisfied with both the quality (5.69/6) and quantity (5.59/6) of the feedback they received. More importantly, students felt that this feedback improved their learning (5.20/6) and promoted professional growth (5.25/6). These findings underscore the potential of AI to enhance student learning experiences when used thoughtfully. Transparency and Trust Transparency was a key theme in my approach. Students were made aware throughout the course that some of the feedback they received would be AI-generated. It was essential to protect their data and privacy, so I ensured that no personal or identifying information was fed into the AI system. Additionally, human oversight remained integral throughout the process, providing a "human in the loop" model for feedback. While AI provided the initial feedback, I reviewed and supplemented it to ensure its accuracy and relevance to each student’s work. Despite this transparency, one of the more surprising findings was that only 57.5% of students remembered that some feedback was generated using AI-assistance. This highlights the importance of clearly communicating when and how AI is being used, especially as we continue to integrate these tools into our teaching practices. Student Reactions: Curiosity, Impressed, and… Cheated? Interestingly, student reactions to AI-assisted feedback were varied. While a significant portion of students reported feeling curious (46.23%) or impressed (42.45%) by the feedback, a smaller percentage (13.21%) felt cheated. Upon further investigation, we discovered that these feelings of being "cheated" were often linked to misconceptions about the AI’s role. Students who felt cheated believed they had correctly identified when AI was being used, but in reality, they were less accurate at detecting AI-generated feedback than pure guesswork would suggest. These findings point to the need for greater clarity in how we present AI-assisted feedback. Students need to understand that AI is not a replacement for human evaluation but rather a tool that can enhance the feedback process. As educators, it’s our responsibility to model how these tools can be used ethically and effectively. The Future of AI in Education The integration of AI into education is no longer a futuristic concept—it’s happening now, and the early results are, in many ways, promising. As we continue to explore the balance between the human touch and the digital edge when providing learners with feedback, we must remain focused on the ultimate goal: providing meaningful, personalized feedback that supports student growth. By leveraging AI, we can make strides toward achieving this goal, but we must do so thoughtfully, with transparency and care. After all, no matter how advanced our tools become, the heart of education will always be the relationships we build with our students. Relationships that, above all, no AI can replace. The results of this informal study showed a general interest among pre-service teachers in using AI to provide feedback to their own future students (4.01/6). However, there are still some reservations, and it's crucial that we continue to seek feedback from current and future educators, as well as students at various levels, on how these tools, and their use, can be improved. In the meantime, we must continue to refine our use of AI in teacher education, always with a focus on ethically enhancing learning outcomes for our students and professional development for our educators.
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This blog presents thoughts that Cecil has concerning current projects, as well as musings that he wants to get out for future projects. For questions or comments on his posts, please go to his Contact page. Archives
October 2024
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