As artificial intelligence expands its reach into services, products, and education, Augustana College is hosting a panel this Tuesday, March 31st, on how higher education should respond.
The panel is part of the college’s Futurist Thinking Series, a dialogue in which innovators and big thinkers tackle the questions shaping the next decade of education, leadership, and human potential. The March session is titled "What AI Can't Teach: What Will a Student Remember in 20 Years?"
The panel will be moderated by Augustana College senior T.Y. Stone, who is piloting a program with a local community partner to teach at-risk youth in Rock Island web development, AI integration, and marketing skills.
One of the panelists is Alex Mayszak, a 2013 Augie graduate and now the Director of Digital Learning and Innovation at the East Moline School District. His role in the district involves integrating technology into classrooms. He works with the teaching staff and the tech department, stating he serves as the middleman between the two. He said there is a lot to consider in how school districts across the country should regulate the use of artificial intelligence.
“Some states have guidance. In Illinois, we're currently awaiting our guidance, and it should be coming here pretty soon,” Mayszak said in an interview with WVIK. “But as we think about that guidance, it helps us lead to what parameters we set up policy and procedures in our districts. So, putting teams of different stakeholders and making some decisions about what that looks like for purposeful use for teachers, for students at what grade levels, we start to integrate those things, and what tools we are providing to use. All of those elements are really important for us to think about, and how it's not a standalone, how it can become something that embeds into our other coursework, and that it's not this newfound thing. Although it is newer to us in schools with generative AI, it is embedded in computational thinking, computer science, and digital citizenship.”
Generative artificial intelligence “creates” content, taking from existing information, songs, pictures, and other media on the internet.
“Now, as we understand the generative side of AI and how it can produce things for us, it's really important to also understand that we're not offloading all of our thinking,” Mayszak said. “Those academic integrity concerns are huge for teachers and really important for us to think about, again, that human and technological balance, making sure that we bring something to the table, that we're the starting point and the ending point. And if we do use artificial intelligence, it's just that middle piece, maybe in a variety of ways that we might use it.”
Other panelists include 1990 Augie graduate and current John Deere Vice President of Production and Precision Ag Systems, Aaron Wetzel. The other panelist is Augustana College Associate Professor and Chair of the History department, Brian Leech. He is exploring AI and intellectual formation in his studies.
The panel discussion starts at 4:00 p.m. Tuesday, March 31st, in the Gavle Rooms within the college’s Gerber Center.
Free registration is due by the end of Friday, March 27th.
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