Kate Morgan and Lisa Byrnes are Instructional Designer at Penn State World Campus. They presented at the Quality Matters online conference. The title of the session was “Using AI to Generate Engaging Course Content.” Penny Ralston-Berg also presented in this session. Byrnes described how AI use has evolved very quickly and is no longer “futuristic.” They noted that AI can be used to write learning objectives and create rubrics. Byrnes shared examples of project assignment rubrics created with AI after providing total points, levels, criteria… Assessments and activities can be created, and Byrnes emphasized, should be confirmed for accuracy. AI can help creating interactive scenarios and debates. Byrnes also shared that AI can help students with study guides and summaries or as writing partners. Byrnes stressed that it is important to guide students to use AI responsibly: cite it, use it ethically. Byrnes suggested guidelines for using AI for every assignment are needed. AI can also help for administrative purposes, said Byrnes. Examples listed were draft course communications, analyzing student feedback, and managing schedules. Bryce shared that custom GPTs can be created to answer case-based questions, for example. Bryce used Chat GPT to create a fictitious company and scenarios. The assignment piece for each week was also drafted using AI. The scenarios can then be updated by the subject matter expert and instructional designers. The custom Chat GPT created weekly cases and scenarios that were well-received by students in the course. Morgan spoke about what can be done with AI image creation. Several examples were provided that highlight how the models have improved and images are becoming richer. Morgan spoke about the importance of ethical concerns: bias in datasets. Morgan shared examples of AI and real photographs that were very difficult to distinguish. The power of image-creation is amazing!
