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AI in the Classroom

Episode transcript for Communication Corner, a McGraw-Hill podcast.


Higher Education Blog

Full Episode Transcript

Jennifer Foster :

Welcome to the Communication Corner, a McGraw-Hill podcast for the communication discipline. I'm Jennifer Foster, moderating today's session on From Policy to Practice AI In the Communication Classroom. I'll have each of the guests introduce themselves and then we'll dive into a discussion. Timothy, will you start us off?

Timothy Gatton:

Yes. My name is Timothy Gatton. I am the Associate Director for Research and Instruction and Law Library Professor at Oklahoma City University School of Law.

Jennifer Foster :

Thank you. And Megan, how about yourself?

Megan:

Hi, yes, I am Dr. Megan Cox, an assistant professor at the University of Central Oklahoma Department of Mass Communication. My background is in health communication and promotion, and then this is my seventh year of teaching in the college atmosphere.

Jennifer Foster :

Great. Aya.

Aya Shata:

Hi, I'm Dr. Aya Shata. I'm an assistant professor at the School of Journalism and Media study at University of Nevada in Las Vegas, and I'm currently doing research on narrative persuasion, interactive media and AI.

Jennifer Foster :

Thank you all for joining us today. I'm Jennifer Foster, the core curriculum coordinator for the Department of Mass Communication at the University of Central Oklahoma. And I like to joke that I have been teaching communication classes since we used to get all of our resource materials on VHS tapes.

So today's topic on dealing with AI, I think is fascinating because while so much of what we do in communication has been true since Aristotle, the technology and the way that we can incorporate changes into our classroom is incredibly important. So Megan, would you mind starting us off by sharing, what are some of your recent experiences with AI?

Megan:

I think that it is interesting because it's new to everyone, but the younger population is picking up on it very fast. And I have found it being used in my classrooms both when I give permission and when I don't already. So lately a lot of that's just been saying, "Hi, my AI detector flagged this. You want to expound on that for me a little bit?" I teach a lot of writing classes, so I have this quandary of how much am I going to implement it. I do know that the working world is using it a lot, so I have to find that balance for my students.

Jennifer Foster :

I think that balance is really important. Timothy, what about yourself? What are you using or experiences with AI recently for yourself?

Timothy Gatton:

As you know, I teach a class called Law Practice Technology, so we have two units dedicated to artificial intelligence. It's just been just changing so rapidly. Every time I teach it, I always wait until probably two days before my presentation to update everything because it's constantly changing. There's always an update. It seems like if I work on it too far in advance, everything's out of date, but I use it in law practice technology and then we'll be using it a lot more in legal research and writing here at the law school as well.

I think it's come in handy with helping students with grammar in particular so that the professor can focus more on the content rather than the horrifying grammatical mistakes, the punctuation errors, the things that distract from the actual content of what the person's trying to say. So we're trying to use it more in that format.

Jennifer Foster :

Perfect. Aya, what about you? Are you seeing that your university has created any AI policies and that they are trying to instruct either students or instructors on the best practices with AI?

Aya Shata:

Yes, we're all still trying to understand how AI may work, especially in an educational context. That's why, in my school, they actually established an AI committee from different departments where we come together and try to explore what is the best way to use AI. But it's still a work in progress because as my colleagues here said, "It's always changing." Even if you try to set a policy on how to use it or what would be the best practice, after a month or maybe even a week, it can be applied. And that's the challenge when it comes to the use of AI.

Jennifer Foster :

Yes, I think that the way that it's changing is definitely going to have an impact on how we create policy and the way that we implement that into our classroom. Could you share with us maybe some of the policies that your university is doing that is working or maybe some that you found has not worked?

Aya Shata:

I feel actually even in my department, a discussion of a more detailed that are more specific when to use AI, when not to use, we kind of leave it up to the instructor and the classroom and the kind of topic that is being discussed. So for example, in my class I teach strategic communication campaigns. So I try to use AI with my students to help them, for example, to come up with some survey questions or even try to use it for some coming up with certain ideas or try to when they're writing the scripts for their ads to maybe find a better title. So I try to include it as much, but not as it changed the outcome of the class.

For example, if I use it to design an ad or a brochure or a flyer, but the purpose of the class is not design class. The purpose is to come up with a strategy and create the message. So again, it depends on what is the purpose of the class, but if I was in a design class, I would still want them work to learn how to design things on their own and not use AI. So that's why it varies significantly depending on the class itself and the outcomes of the class.

Jennifer Foster :

I think that you make such an excellent point that the student outcome or the learning objective of the class really may dictate how we approach or what we allow students to use AI for because depending on that assessment tool that we're really looking for might determine if it would be appropriate. Megan, how has your university handled AI and do you think that that's working for you all?

Megan:

We are still not quite there on a full policy. I actually checked with Dr. Laura Dooman, she's kind of been our AI warrior here on campus, and we don't have an official policy, but we do have a page that talks about for both students and professors about the use of AI and what they want to do is the same thing that you guys have been mentioning is not limit it's use per professor, but just talk about the things that we don't want to use it for. We don't want it to complete an assignment when that assignment is what we're trying to learn in that class.

And we want to make sure that when we are doing research, that we're not gathering our resources from AI where we can't double check that these are actual evidence that exists. So we are still finding our way with a policy. A lot of it's left up to the individual instructor. In my field, STRATCOM, I've been talking to employers and they're using it a lot for social media planning and writing speeches, and I want to make sure that my students are prepared to use it, but at the same time that they know when to use it and when AI doesn't spit out the right thing.

I know some professors are almost completely banning it in their class, and I think it's really becoming comfortable with it is something we're all going to have to do anyways.

Jennifer Foster :

I agree with that, that our comfort level is just we're going to have to meet them where they are as opposed to doing a lot of fighting against it. Timothy, you obviously come from a legal background. Maybe you could share with us when it comes to writing policies either for students or instructors, is there anything that we should be taking into consideration?

Timothy Gatton:

I had say right now at OCU, I don't think the university has any kind of official policy. I've only seen it actually addressed in the student conduct code where it just says no AI during an exam and you can't pass off AI as a product of your own mind. I don't know. Again, each faculty member is free to adopt their own policy on use or non-use of AI. I know that Dean Peoples at the law library does go into the seminar classes, for example, to go over using AI responsibly.

I think it's just a matter of paying attention to what the courts are saying, what the ABA guidelines are saying about the use of AI. And it looks like it's obviously here to stay whether people like it or not, it's a thing.

Jennifer Foster :

Absolutely. So Megan, what are some ways that you think that AI could play a role in enhancing students' work? I think a lot of times when we talk about AI or large language models such as ChatGPT, there's just a real distrust of that. But are there some ways that you think that this could be a tool that's used to enhance student learning and their work?

Megan:

I do. I think that as Timothy mentioned with writing, it can be very helpful for them to take something that they've written and put it into a program and say, "Not only how would you make the grammar better, but also how would you make the writing sound better?" And if they do that, and I kind of looked at some assignments where we do this now where they write it, what I call from scratch, and then they put it into ChatGPT and then they analyze why ChatGPT made the changes that it made to their writing.

And that way they learn a lot about writing that I don't... I mean, I give them good feedback, but this is really intense feedback and I think that can be a very helpful tool for them in addition to, like I mentioned before, social media communication, just learning how to plan that out. Sometimes they're just able to learn that a little bit better when they can see it being done professionally and then they learn from that, become better at it.

Jennifer Foster :

Great. Aya, what about you? Do you think that AI can enhance student work or do you think that it's going to take away from the quality of work?

Aya Shata:

It can be both, actually. So it depends on how to use it. So for example, I try to use it in my class to actually improve their analytical and critical skills. So for example, if I'm trying to build a survey for my campaign class, we try to actually use AI to generate questions, but not all the questions are good. So actually what we do is that we review each question and we try to discuss why this is good, why this is bad.

So I'm kind of trying to let them know that the output of ChatGPT is not always the best. It's about what can you select and what can you think is right and appropriate depending on your strategy, your understanding of your consumers and your audience, what is the big idea that you have. Connecting all of this together, but still trying to use it but not over-rely on it for the work.

Jennifer Foster :

I think that you both bring up great points that things such as ChatGPT can be used as an editing software or as an evaluation, not as the brain behind creating the work. Because sometimes it is difficult just to get past that blank screen if you're trying to come up with interview questions or to formulate an email to send to someone, to request to set something up. That blank screen can be a real hindrance. So potentially that can help students get started.

Aya Shata:

And can I add it does not understand emotional intelligence when understanding of the culture, understanding of our consumers. We need to understand that also the output in AI is not very original because what it does is that it replicates the previous ideas that has been made before, but it is humans who can actually generate new ideas that has not been done before. So if we understand how AI works and how it actually, especially, we're speaking about gen AI, not just AI. AI have been there for quite a while, but gen AI, the way it generates is that it feeds on the information that's already there.

So a lot of the work or the output is not very original, and it's up to us to judge because for example, when I worked with consumers, I have people from different backgrounds and culture and something that AI think is good, it might actually be inappropriate in a certain culture. So that's why it's important to consider that AI does not understand that level of emotional intelligence when you're connecting or building relationship with your consumers or with your audience.

Jennifer Foster :

Yes, and I think that that is such an important point, especially because we use the term AI really to be very all encompassing and much of what we're talking about are large language models that are pulling predictive text from other sources, such as, I think ChatGPT's major source is Reddit, where it's pulling that language and trying to predict what to say next, not doing that thinking for it.

And so the idea that it doesn't have the emotions and it doesn't have the ability to evaluate cultural sensitivity because it's just doing what it's already been fed into it not doing the thinking itself. So Timothy, could you share with us any ways that you've heard or that you yourself plan on using AI in your classroom and integrating that into your classwork?

Timothy Gatton:

I know that in legal research and writing, one of the professors is going to have students, let's see, have Lexis AI generate a draft, and then the students are going to have to check that draft and then revise it. One of the benefits of using Lexis AI is the fact that it's hopefully not hallucinating cases because it's taking everything from the Lexis platform. It'll be interesting to see how all that plays out. I have been trying to use Lexis AI. I still see some issues with the responses I'm getting when I type things in. For example, I have a big interest in Mexico, which I think anyone who's ever met me knows I will talk about Mexico nonstop.

But there's an issue in Mexico now with legalization of marijuana where, long story but apparently Mexico's Supreme Court said it's legal. Mexican Congress said it's not. So I asked Lexis AI, it's like, "Could you give me a breakdown of exactly what's happening right now in Mexico with the status of cannabis legalization?" And it kept saying, "Here are the New Mexico statutes." And it's like, "No, I want the country of Mexico, not the state of New Mexico." And it's like, "Oh, okay, the New Mexico statute state..." There are some issues with it, but I think I like it to double check some hypos that I think of using.

So I've used it for that because it's like, "Well, I think this would be a good hypo. Let me see what Lexis AI comes up with if they come up with something similar." So I find it helpful for that. And again, like we said, just checking that grammar so we can focus on the actual substance. I can talk until I'm blue in the face about we need to use active voice. I'm a stickler for using subjunctive mood. Don't even get me started on that. I think just doing things like that that can help the students see exactly where the mistake is. That's why I love having Grammarly installed on my computer.

Because it stops me from sending out grammatically incorrect emails. So thumbs up for that.

Jennifer Foster :

So Megan, I know that you and I had spoken recently about some ways that you were using AI as an instructor when it came to creating rubrics. Could you share with us your experience with that?

Megan:

Yes. I went to a session not too long ago. It was actually put on by the college, and the instructor was talking about how you could clarify an assignment or refine an assignment using ChatGPT and then build a rubric. And I thought, "Oh, I'm going to try this." But I write my assignments pretty well at this point. So I put a couple in there and you write use your verbs really well. I use clarify this assignment for college level course, put the assignment in there with its headings and all that, and it's spit out the assignment very much basically what I wanted, but it organized it a little bit better.

It did a couple of things with bullet points that I hadn't thought about. The only thing is it takes all your links out, so you do have to go back and do that. So I thought, "Well, that's really interesting." And then the next step of that class was to create a rubric and basically you say, "Create a rubric for the assignment above in four levels." And it will put a table there and it will give you excellent, needs improvement, all of those things and then give you categories. And I think this is kind of talking about laying large language models in particular. It's not about not doing the work, it's about helping you do the work better.

And if I can provide a very in-depth rubric now that I wasn't providing before because I put my assignment into ChatGPT and it gave me some ideas about how to better grade it, then I think that's a win for everybody. Even students, I'm not going to ask ChatGPT to grade their work, but if it can help me become a better grader, then it's worth it.

Jennifer Foster :

Great. So as we think about our integration of AI, one thing that we definitely need to consider is our thoughts on AI and is it plagiarism or do we need to cite this information? Aya, what are your thoughts on AI and plagiarism? Maybe some ethical considerations that we should take into account as we share with our students?

Aya Shata:

I always ask them, ask ChatGPT if you're using it about the source, where did you get the sources of that? And then check a couple of them. Some of them don't even exist. Some of them are not even that good. So it's very simple that even when we try to use Google Research and get our sources, ChatGPT sometimes does not even find the sources. It just copies and pastes as we talked about before. It feeds on previous data, but it's not necessarily collecting all that information from one source. It's multiple sources, so it can't even list that idea.

That's why I try to tell my students to use it, but to not rely on it unless you're a hundred percent confident of the source when it comes to using ChatGPT. And another way to fight this is that I always ask them to do research on their own, to verify that information. If they think it's correct, can they actually use it and rely on it? But if they found information that's completely the opposite from the outcome of the ChatGPT, then this is another reason why you should not adopt it. So some people might ask, "So is it really helping me save time or it's making me do more research than I used to have?" Which is something that we have to consider when using AI.

Jennifer Foster :

Absolutely. Timothy, have you heard any ways that people are being required to cite if they use AI? Is that something that we need to consider?

Timothy Gatton:

Well, I know in certain courts you do have to go ahead and say, "Yes, AI was used to generate at least a portion of this." I know I've got for the western district of Oklahoma, it actually says any party who utilizes any generative AI tool in the preparation of documents to be filed with the court must disclose in the document that AI was used and the specific AI tool that was used. So at least some of the courts are very big on that. I know some states actually have some legislation about the use of generative AI.

Oklahoma, to my knowledge, the last time I checked, did not have anything officially on the books. There were a bunch of proposed bills that I pulled up and every single one of them failed. So I'm not sure where things are going with that. I tend to doom scroll, so I haven't really been checking on that because I'm trying to keep my sanity and everything.

Jennifer Foster :

But it sounds like some organizations, some courtrooms, different things out in the workplace are going to require that to be cited. So Megan, do you think that we should require our students to cite it? And if so, what does that look like?

Megan:

I think it's really important for students to let us know when they have used AI in any capacity right now. I don't know if that'll change in the future, but I think they need to say, "I used AI for this." And if they are going to do the research, I would still come back to, it's like when you list your citations at the end of any research article, I need to be able to go out and find each of those. And I would ask my students always, you need to check to make sure that anything that comes up actually exists. And I would like links to that. I do think plagiarism is going to get interesting.

Again, we don't really have AI checkers or they're having a hard time keeping up with all the changes. So I do think that emphasizing ethics to your students can be helpful and saying, "This is your work. You're putting your name on it." It's not going to speak to everyone. But I do think that's something you can emphasize in the classroom.

Jennifer Foster :

So Megan, when you use one of those AI checkers, I know, for example Turnitin has one that's producing a predictive, how much they think was used in AI to produce that assignment. Are you failing the student? Are you having them come back and redo it or cite it? Is that different than a different type of plagiarism for you?

Megan:

Well, so far with Turnitin, you used to be able to find really quickly, and I had this done on a speech. It was 99% copied from the internet, and I could find it on the internet and that was that. But basically with AI, if it says that it's more than 60, 70% sure that it's AI, I will just go to the student and say, "Hey, my AI checker flagged this. Can you tell me a little bit about this assignment?"

Probably of the seven to eight times that I've done this, only one has vehemently denied that they used AI. The rest are like, "I'm really sorry. I'll redo the assignment." I think that's a better way to handle it right now. That may change in the future, but right now that's the way I'm handling it.

Jennifer Foster :

Great. So Timothy, I'm going to come to you now. We've talked about a lot of the benefits potentially of using as an instructor or for students. Are there any other benefits that you want to discuss or potential drawbacks that you're seeing?

Timothy Gatton:

I think the big drawback is the fact that I hate to see students use that as a crutch instead of using their own critical thinking. So I don't know. I think that is a definite drawback, but they have to learn how to use this responsibly because otherwise they're just going to be left behind. Other attorneys are going to be using it, other law firms are going to be using it, other companies are going to be using it.

And I don't want them to be like, "Well, I'm just not going to learn it because I'm afraid of getting in trouble." It's like we need to kind of guide them on using it responsibly so that hopefully they'll know what's being expected in the workplace as far as what's acceptable, what's not in terms of using AI.

Jennifer Foster :

Yes. And you talked about Lexis AI, which is a very specific kind of closed AI where it's pulling its information from. And so one of the things that we need to be open and discuss with students is to pick your AI or your large language model appropriately and don't just go necessarily to the free one that pops up first when you Google it, but to find ones that are going to be more tailored to your career or that are sourcing information more accurately. Aya, what do you think? Any other benefits or potential drawbacks that we should discuss?

Aya Shata:

So I agree that my main concern is it's going to make them a little bit lazy by over relying on AI. But again, my concern is basically on the skills and the experience that they develop, and this is what I try to tell and communicate with my students is that you need to build an experience. So for example, I'm writing a press release and they use AI to write the press release. But if I ask them, can you differentiate what's a good press release from a bad press release? You can only do this by having an experience, by writing your own press release. So I try to tell them that AI does not help you build experience.

You need to build that experience first and then use AI as an assistant, as an editing tool, as something to help. But if you don't have the basic knowledge and the skills that's needed to do the job, how can you differentiate what's a good idea, what's a good written sample, how to better use actually AI. So I try to relate that to their own future and their own career. There's been many news that's talking about AI is going to replace our jobs. And even some of the younger students, they're concerned about that, because it can do the work that they're actually doing or even better than me.

But I tell them that, do not be worried about AI replacing you, but worry about someone else who uses AI better than you. But again, it's a matter of skills, experience and how to use AI.

Jennifer Foster :

What a wonderful sentiment there. That it really becomes that tool. And so empowering our students to use that is going to help them be successful in their careers. I think that in education, when I was teaching high school, when Wikipedia came out, everyone was so aghast that Wikipedia was there and students were going to cite Wikipedia. "Oh, don't cite this." And now I think that we use it as a tool to go down and look at the endnotes and footnotes and to find those primary sources. And so if we can help students in the process to be more effective, it will benefit them in the long run. So maybe-

Aya Shata:

[inaudible 00:27:02] was Photoshop. Remember Photoshop, everyone was worried that everything is going to be Photoshopped for now, but now it's a main source for design that we still use. So I totally agree that AI is just a tool.

Jennifer Foster :

Yes and that our initial fears are not going to get rid of it, but we are going to have to find ways to use it.

Aya Shata:

Exactly.

Jennifer Foster :

Megan, could you share with us specifically in your communication classes, what are some communication skills that you think AI could be used for?

Megan:

Well, if we're talking about the large language models and asking them questions and getting information back from it, I have used it to help students understand what they're going to be looking for, what employers are looking for in an interview. So a lot of times for our specific field, it can help them find out which questions might be most used in an interview. I think that it can help us organize our writing a little bit better, and I think that it can help us brainstorm in so many ways.

Give me some ideas for a blog that I could use for a healthcare facility, and then kind of giving us that start, like you talked about before with that blank page. I think that it can help communication students learn how to brainstorm better really, and come up with ideas and then take that idea and then grow it into something else. As far as writing ideas, organization, I think that these are all communication, especially written communication skills that can be really enhanced by using something like ChatGPT.

Jennifer Foster :

So you mentioned all these written skills. Do you see any of the verbal or nonverbal being enhanced by AI, or is that just a different skill set that you don't see being impacted by it?

Megan:

I think that it can be, and this just may not be my knowledge of other programs out there. I think we will get to a point where we could insert a video into a program and it could give us feedback on, if I'm going to be doing an interview on Zoom, what can I do to make my background better and my voice sound better? And all of those things. I think it's going to be giving us a lot of feedback in the future.

I'm sure there are some opportunities for that already, but as far as having that face-to-face communication, I do think that we still need to really emphasize in our classrooms that we learn that best in human-human interaction, or at least that's still where I sit on it.

Jennifer Foster :

Aya, how about you? How are you seeing AI impacting our communication skills that we're wanting students to graduate with in order to enter into the work field?

Aya Shata:

I feel like it should not replace their own work. They still should develop their own skills. It is there, as we said before, as a tool to help them use those skills in a better and a more efficient or a more productive way. But if they want to learn how to write and develop writing skills, they need to be writing. But sometimes if you're stuck with a certain title or you're looking for a better word, then you can use AI to help you move on and move forward.

But they still need to do the work because AI should not do the work for them because if it's doing the work for them, then it probably will replace them. So they need to continue to develop their own skills, whether it's writing skills. But I feel as Megan said, brainstorming is a good point. It helps you to have several ideas, and then it kind of develops that critical skill because you're trying to filter all these ideas out there and figure out which one would be the best option for you, depending on the context.

Jennifer Foster :

Great. And so there are going to be lots of ways that students can incorporate this and that we could incorporate it as instructors in order to teach these skills. Timothy, what do you think about teaching students the skills to use AI for future employment? You're teaching at a law school, you're dealing with students who have already graduated undergrad. What do you think would be some benefits of them having some experience with this in undergrad before they get to a second degree?

Timothy Gatton:

I think it would help them, again, just with structure. I don't know, just seeing tone and structure. Those are some things that I think would help with their exam writing. I mean, just occurred to me, I could see AI being really helpful for the 1L oral arguments where it's like, "Oh, I need to come across as maybe a little more assertive." So maybe one of the AI models could be like, "Okay, here's a way to shift your focus so you do sound a little more assertive without being too nasty, aggressive." I think students do need to have that comfort level with generative AI.

It would be helpful if they had it before law school, but a lot of things would be helpful before people start law school. And we can basically get them up to that point I think, even if they don't have that experience prior to law school, because we will be covering it quite a bit. I don't know if that actually answered the question or not. I feel like I'm doing a little word vomit right now.

Jennifer Foster :

No, I think it's good. I think it's good information because if our focus is in an undergrad classroom, knowing expectations when they leave that I think is valuable in ways that they can use it. And when you said about an oral argument, I think that that's a great example of how we could use AI to help in a communication skill because they could put a speech or an outline into it and ask, is this informative or is this persuasive?

Because sometimes students do struggle in a persuasive speech that they're actually just being too informative. And the flip side, in an informative speech, that they're taking a stance and not being just informative or unbiased, so helping them evaluate and go through that process. That's a great example of the way that we could implement that. Megan, how do you see training students for future employment being benefited by the use of AI?

Megan:

I do think that they need to know how to use it, and I believe that employers are looking for students who do know how to use it. So I think that on the one side, they need to know what programs they need to know for their field that use artificial intelligence. But I also think, as I mentioned before, you can use AI to help them structure resume better. You can use AI to help them make a cover letter more, I guess, tailored to a job description.

You can show them how they can use that information that they have that's maybe a little disorganized, maybe not as well written as it could be, and in a large language model can help them organize it in a way and make it look in a way that will help them stand out. Especially now with the way applying for jobs is so difficult to get through those machines that are looking at those applications. And I think that they can feel better prepared, but again, at the end of the day, they can't replace that with just good old-fashioned research on the company and making those connections, word of mouth, networking, all of that still has to be in place in the classroom for them to succeed, especially in the field of strategic communications.

Jennifer Foster :

Aya, what are your thoughts on making sure that we prepare students for future employment and the way that that might impact our use of AI in the classroom?

Aya Shata:

So my story would be a little different because a year ago, my interest in AI started by talking to some practitioners in the field who I bring as guest speakers. My very first research was to explore how practitioners are using GenAI. And this was a year ago. And I was surprised that there was an adoption rate of more than, let's say 90%. And that was super high. Consider that it was still newly introduced and not very popular. And that's what made me, "Okay, if they are using AI now as practitioners and our ultimate purpose as educators and instructors is to prepare them to the job market, then this is the expectation in the job and the marketplace that they have to use AI."

So I started to ask them about how practitioners in my field in the, say public relation and advertising and communication professional, how they are using it. And this is what I try to mimic in my class so that once they're ready for graduation, I feel like, "Okay, now they have the skills that they need to proceed in working in those agencies." So I feel being in touch with practitioners in the field and how they're using it and what they're learning from it, and I try to bring that experience in my class, has been very, very helpful.

Jennifer Foster :

That's an astonishing number to me, but probably incredibly true that that many practitioners, people in the workplace have quickly adopted. And that makes sense because we've all kind of quickly adopted it into our personal lives so that it's being adopted that fast.

Aya Shata:

Yes. So I always say, do you know Facebook, when it reached 100 million adopters, it took how many years? It took an average of at least two years. With GenAI, especially ChatGPT to reach 100 million users, it took only two months. So the adoption rate is super high for AI even faster than my research. By the time I started my research and now ending, it's like, "Okay, now things are changed." I feel like even the data is getting old very quickly. So yes, indeed. It's different even in social media and that adoption rate goes so viral.

Jennifer Foster :

And it's in so many different areas of our lives. We've talked about Grammarly, we've talked about legal research, we've talked about ChatGPT for resumes. I mean, it's so pervasive in different areas of our lives that we really will be doing a disservice to our students if we don't use it and use it correctly and help them through this process.

Aya Shata:

Exactly.

Jennifer Foster :

So since we are under the conclusion that we've come to that it's important to use it, what types of trainings or resources or support do you think that instructors need? Where should we go next? What are our next steps? Aya, I'll start with you.

Aya Shata:

I feel I got one good advice, that we need to attend lots of webinars and hear from other people's experiences. So I try to explore and use AI in my class, or even in my life in general. But I feel like every time I hear from someone else how they use it, it opens a new window, new horizons for me, how it's actually being used, especially that there's so many programs nowadays using AI, and it's very hard to explore all of them. So one good advice is that you try to attend as many sessions and webinars or read something new, get to be more with updates that's happening, especially in your field or in your area.

Jennifer Foster :

Great. Timothy, what about you? What do you think are our next steps?

Timothy Gatton:

Actually, Aya took exactly what I was going to say.

Aya Shata:

Sorry.

Timothy Gatton:

She said it so much better than I would have. I completely agree with just getting that extra, I don't know, training from experts, going to conferences when you can. And I think a big thing is also making sure that your administration is on board, that everyone's on the same page in terms of AI and in terms of what the mission is. I think if you have the administration's support, that's great. If the administration is like, "Yeah, we don't really want you to do anything with generative AI." I think that's going to be problematic.

But again, you pretty much have to do what the institution says to do. But again, I think it does a disservice if we don't prepare our students for that. Example, my brother is a complete Luddite, refuses to have a computer, refused to learn how to use a computer. So in the nineties, he was an assistant manager at a rental corporation, and they went all digital with computers and he refused to learn, so he lost his job. And it's like you can't just put your head in the sand and say, "Well, I'm just not going to deal with AI." It's like, it's here whether you like it or not.

Jennifer Foster :

Thank you. Absolutely. Megan, what are your next steps or suggestions?

Megan:

I do think that training either on campus or through webinars is fantastic and something to take into consideration, but I think it does come down to kind of what we're talking about is communication, discussion. We had an AI panel on grading last March that I put together with a couple of people, and there was just faculty coming together and talking about it. You had people who'd never used it to people who were very adept at using it, and we all learned a lot from each other.

You learn a lot by teaching other people, how you've used it, and you learn from the people who just are really good at it. And I think those discussions. I also had a book group last year that I did. As Aya said, every time you talk to somebody and they talk about how they use it, your eyes are opened. So just continuing to know that this will never stop being an area we have to learn. We are going to constantly, every couple of months, just have to figure out what's going on and implement that into our class as best we can.

Jennifer Foster :

Well, thank you Aya, Timothy, and Megan for being on today's panel as we discussed how to move from policy to practice AI in the communication classroom. We look forward to seeing you next time on our episode of the Communication Quarter.


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