Jane is a Senior Lecturer in English for Academic Purposes. She works with students from a range of disciplines in her Pre-sessional Course Leader and In-sessional Academic English Co-ordinator roles.

Jane has carefully considered her use of Generative AI (GenAI) tools, weighing the time she invests in a task against the time it will take students to complete it, and the impact it will have on their learning; she has used GenAI to produce scenarios to prompt discussion that are personalised according to the courses students are taking. For assessments, Jane has introduced a cover sheet that supports students in being transparent about their use of GenAI.

How has Jane used GenAI?

Jane uses GenAI tools for tasks that she feels will save her time, and don’t require her specialist knowledge and experience. For example, she might use GenAI tools to produce short exemplar texts that are personalised to the students she is working with, and relevant to the courses they are taking.

She has also used GenAI tools with students while working on vocabulary building – comparing Microsoft Copilot word definitions to Google Translate and the definitions in online dictionaries demonstrates a possible way GenAI tools could be used by students, but also emphasizes the importance of cross-checking. She also discusses with students the strengths and weaknesses of the different tools.

AI in Assessment

For her pre-sessional course, Jane has created a ‘position statement’ which outlines to students where AI can and cannot be used within the course assessments as recommended in Learning, Teaching and Assessment with Generative Artificial Intelligence: A Good Practice Guide for staff. This is supported by an attribution template for students to use so that they can be transparent about their own AI use.

She mentioned specifically modifying the position statement based on feedback from her External Examiners to clarify that the approach to GenAI use articulated was unique to the pre-sessional context, to make clearer to students that it will not be the same for every assessment they undertake.

Why did Jane choose to use AI?

When considering whether to use GenAI tools, Jane wants to make sure that she prioritises her own time in the areas of learning and teaching that will have the most impact on students and that require her unique expertise. She therefore uses GenAI to do less pivotal tasks, like scenarios to form the basis of a discussion activity; in this case the output of the GenAI tool does not require the investment of time in deep critical engagement to ensure that the output is appropriate, but can instead be quickly assessed for suitability.  

She also uses GenAI tools to produce exemplars, for example emails, which she feels her students would be likely to use GenAI tools themselves for. This enables her to have a supportive and critical conversation about where the GenAI outputs might be less appropriate than text the student produced themselves. For example, Jane mentioned speaking with a student who felt that an email produced by GenAI didn’t feel representative of the student’s individual personality and strengths, and might set false expectations with employers about her current level of English.

What were the impacts of using GenAI for these activities?

Jane has tailored the activities she uses with students to prompt critical conversations about the use of GenAI, and has been able to observe the students articulating the advantages and disadvantages of using GenAI in different circumstances. She has also created opportunities to discuss what learning opportunities might be missed if they use GenAI, and what the impacts of that might be.

Jane talked about how she is wary of using GenAI too often, as she holds herself to the same principles as her students – that GenAI use can have a negative impact on abilities to learn, to prioritise information and to make decisions for yourself, especially if asking it to (for example) summarise articles. She doesn’t use GenAI extensively herself and thinks carefully about how and when she uses it.

How has Jane talked to her students about GenAI?

In addition to the conversations described in Jane’s practice above, one thing she mentioned was that some students talk about GenAI in class as if it is something illicit – they seem surprised that she openly discusses it. She feels that it is helpful to articulate her own thinking about it and encourage them to share their thoughts, to be transparent about her use of GenAI tools and model that transparency to students.