Recently I’ve been thinking about how to design courses that would embed Generative AI in a meaningful and positive way to prepare students for wicked futures. GenAI is enmeshed with multiple wicked problems that include:

• the climate emergency, due to high energy use to power the systems;
• social justice in terms of who has access to which GenAI models and to educational opportunities to learn to use them well;
• inclusion for marginalised groups such as students’ whose English language skills are less developed in an HE landscape that often privileges English. These students are more likely to be unfairly penalised for academic ‘misconduct’;
• replication of stereotypes and discrimination in how the GenAI models function.

So, lets imagine a course for first-year undergraduate students in a research-intensive Scottish University. The course has no prerequisites and is open to students from all subject areas. There are 200 students participating in the course from a range of more and less privileged backgrounds. Some of the students are first generation in their family into higher education, others have limited experience of academic English. University finances mean that staff time to design, teach and assess the course is less than ideal and the small-group teaching will be in groups of 30 students. The course is called “Introduction to Global Challenges”. How would I design this course?

1. I’d make it an online course with quite a bit of asynchronous learning to ease timetabling and room booking challenges for a cross-University course;
2. I’d have introductory activities that drew on students’ lived experiences with course tutors primed to offer encouraging and supportive comments to help the students know they all have valuable contributions to make. For example, asking students to post an image that represents a global challenge that’s meaningful for them. I’d have an introductory video to go with that where I talked about some of the reasons I’d imagine students might feel nervous to contribute and why it’s safe for them to join in;
3. I’d have an exercise during the first whole cohort class where students would start working on ground rules for creating a safe learning environment to discuss contentious topics. I’d continue that exercise asynchronously online and into the first small group teaching session;
4. In the first whole cohort class I’d introduce the idea of ‘wicked problems’ and would give several examples including GenAI and I’d explore the interaction between different wicked problems. I’d outline some of the failings and critiques of GenAI as well as some positive uses. I’d use an anonymous response quiz system to engage students during this class and to understand their perspectives;
5. I’d talk about the assessments for the course in an early whole cohort class and follow this up asynchronously and in the small group classes. I’d reassure students from the start that I understand the kinds of concerns they might have about using GenAI and that I and their tutors would be there to guide them through positive uses of these technologies that are allowed under University policy;
6. I’d have short accessible videos, blogs and news articles as preparatory work for the small group teaching and I’d have required quizzes that test understanding of these resources before the relevant small group classes. There would be automatic feedback on every quiz answer;
7. I’d have low stakes interdisciplinary group activities for students from the first small group class and would build the level of challenge gradually. I wouldn’t assess group work directly at this level but would require reflection on the group activities in one of the individual assessments;
8. I’d make sure that there was early formative feedback to help address students’ concerns about using GenAI in positive ways and I’d focus on how the feedback on each assessment would be clearly relevant to the next assessment;
9. I’d have a clear assessment rubric that described what performance at different grades would look like and I’d have students and tutors work together with the rubric in small group classes;
10. The assessment might look something like this …Part 1 a 500-word text that identified a global challenge that is relevant for that student, explains why it is meaningful for them and how it meets the criteria for a wicked problem. I’d ask the students to use the University’s GenAI system to generate some ideas about the main influences on that wicked problem and I’d ask them to reference that learning correctly. Part 2 a 500-word reflection on small group activities where students have discussed each of their wicked problems from the perspectives of all of their their own lived experiences and subject backgrounds. I’d be clear that reflections on what went wrong or was difficult in the group work would be very welcome. Part 3 a 500-word briefing for a specific policy maker about possible ways forward in relation to one aspect of their chosen global challenge. Then a 500-word reflection on that briefing. I’d ask the students to use GenAI to create an initial set of suggestions for their policy maker, which they would include as an Appendix. A critique of that GenAI content would be included in their reflective text.

What do you think? How can I improve my course design …?

Image created by Vel McCune using openart.ai