In conversation with Navitas educators: navigating generative artificial intelligence

In this series, we hear from Navitas educators about their hopes, concerns, strategies and approaches to generative artificial intelligence in higher education. They also recommend their favourite resources for others hoping to expand their knowledge.

Tim Kitevski (SAE)
Untitled design

Animation Department Coordinator at SAE Institute, Tim Kitevski reflects on the opportunities and challenges presented by advancements in Generative AI tools and emphasises the importance of open and honest discussions with students.

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Navigating generative AI with creative media students

Navigating generative AI with creative media students

"Tools such as ChatGPT, Midjourney, and MusicLM have brought a host of opportunities and challenges for educators and students. These tools impact not only the creative practice dimension of the SAE Institute student experience but also pedagogy and academic integrity.

Currently, I am exploring how GAI-based tools can be used to enhance and speed up my productivity, practice, and output (both academic and creative). This is a common approach among faculty at SAE. However, we must also acknowledge that there are unresolved ethical and potentially legal concerns regarding this technology. Many of these systems have been built using data taken from the internet without the consent of their original authors.

As these challenges are explored and tested across the creative and legal environment, it is incumbent on us as creative and academic leaders to be aware of the significant positive possibilities of this technology while also being critical of its impact on the ecosystems from which they derive their abilities.

The most important thing we can do right now is be honest and open with our students about what these tools can and can’t do. Despite the very real threats that this technology poses, trying to prevent our students from accessing it is impossible, as the genie will not be put back in the bottle (for better or worse). As we explore these tools and their use, we should encourage our students to experiment with us and ensure our conversations are collaborative, and do not require educators to impose their ideologies onto students.

Ideally, we get to a point where we have a set of powerful tools that increase our creative practice and support and enhance the learning potential within our student body. This will only be able to come to pass, however, if we approach these technologies with an eagerness matched only by our caution and critical mindedness."

Tim’s recommendation:

Aidan Broadbent (ACAP)
Aidan

Academic Teacher at the College of Applied Practice (ACAP), Aidan Broadbent argues generative AI has made current assessment styles unviable and advocates for an approach that centres deep learning.
 

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Prioritising deep learning in an age of AI

Prioritising deep learning in an age of AI

"If we continue to teach as we always have, AI is going to make our assessment styles unviable. Many academic institutions have already begun a losing war trying to detect and prevent AI input. The rapidly evolving capabilities of tools like ChatGPT mean that reassurances such as “AI makes mistakes so if you wrote your whole assignment with them, you’ll typically only get a credit at best” or “we can tell!” are only viable for right now. For every AI detection tool that gets developed, tools and strategies to circumvent these have been developed, sometimes within days.

New models and capabilities for AI are coming out every week, and the tools we’re worried about right now are the least effective versions of those tools we’ll ever face. This disruptive technology requires us to re-examine our core beliefs about what is important in education.

Is formal academic writing a crucial skill? It must be, we have to write formally to get published. What if you could write informally, then have an AI rewrite it in a formal tone? You’ve just removed an arbitrary skill requirement that disproportionately impacts lower socio-economic status students and people who speak English as a second language.

What does a future psychologist or academic’s workflow look like? Outside of a job interview or being in session with a client, when do you need to know specific details, but not have the ability to look them up? The best future professionals won’t just be those with a good memory for those details, they’ll be the people who understand systems, and how those systems interact with one another. They will be the professionals who know what questions to ask, and how to ask them.

So how do you teach those skills? By fostering deep learning. Not memorisation, not trivia, not rules - but by shifting our focus to the why behind what we’re teaching. This is arguably harder than teaching facts, and the trend in tertiary education towards maximising class sizes is going to make things harder still- but those institutions that do will be the ones that shape the future. The face of education has already changed – you can fight it for a while, but in the end, institutions will either be left behind, or embrace it once they’re already behind the curve."