AI Use in Your Classes at WSU-V

AI is everywhere, and involved in every job in some way.

Predicting this seemingly inevitable future, multiple academic programs at WSU Vancouver are working to include more AI in their course curricula, even as AI’s potential to destroy critical thinking remains a hotly debated topic across the nation.

This is still a transition and learning process for teachers and faculty as much as it is for students. While not intended to be uniformly implemented in all courses, WSU has provided some guidance for faculty in adapting their teaching methods and establishing policies around AI use by students. The six broad strategies offered include “Clear expectations,” “Holistic Learning,” “Embracing Challenges,” “Process-Driven Assessments,” “Synthesis of Knowledge,” and “Teaching through AI.”

The VanCougar spoke with faculty from four different programs at WSU Vancouver: Digital Technology and Culture (DTC), Business and Administration, English, and Biological Sciences about their approaches to AI in a learning environment.

DTC Program

In this new age of AI in education, DTC professor Will Luers said that every professor is finding their own way to utilize AI tools as a benefit to the classroom.

“I think as a department, we believe our students will be using AI in the workplace, and therefore we have to give them some of that skill set to be competitive,” Luers said. “Each professor is finding their own way in which the AI tools would be a benefit. Because I think as a department, we believe our students will be using AI in the workplace, and therefore we have to give them some of that skill set to be competitive.”

Luers explained that while different professors and courses are doing different things in regard to AI, it is still a consistent discussion point between faculty in the program.

“I think I’ve shared with the faculty my approach. I shared a statement in my syllabi, to make sure that the human is first in any kind of process” Luers said. “So the human, being the student, is to guide creatively and conceptually a project, through the whole process.”

Luers explained that even when using AI, students will still need to understand language and analysis when using an AI agent, including for image generation purposes. 

“It’s okay to generate images. I would prevent students from just using the first one” Luers said. “They would go through a process of really working out images in a very careful way.”

Luers noted that AI is more efficient for corporations and also can mitigate many tedious tasks, as well as .

“I think that [AI] almost democratizes coding,” Luers said. “It opens up for certain students who may not be the top coders…That’s the other thing, on-the-job training happens very quickly with AI.”

Overall, Luers said AI is likely to change a lot in the education sector, and that using AI as a tool is going to be a competitive skill set in the job market.

English Program

The English department has had to adapt to AI’s continuing and growing influence in education, said English professor Wendy Olson.

Olson remembers the department addressing AI early on following ChatGPT’s skyrocketing popularity in early 2023. Now, they “revisit it in cycles” as they discuss course curricula.

“Writing is a technology. And so in the history of writing in academia, there has always been this sort of acknowledgement of the role that technology has played in different capacities,” Olson said.

As a similar example of past precedent, Olson mentioned the “review” option in Microsoft Word, and how the English department discussed back then what that meant for giving writing instructions when that feature was introduced.

The writing placement assessment at WSU Vancouver has also seen some recent alterations to adapt to the presence of AI. These alterations include students writing an essay which is a response to an article, as well as including additional questions to help inform the assessment.

That said, Olson explained that the English program is accepting that AI is going to be involved in some capacity regardless.

“We can’t just remove it from the equation.”

One of the approaches that the English department is taking is the “Critical AI Literacy” approach.

“It’s going to focus on the potential benefits, the potential drawbacks, as well as the potential possibilities with it,” Olson said.

Olson also observed that she has already seen job postings in the field of writing studies, which include experience with AI as part of the sought-after skills in new hires.

While Olson said she is concerned that students may lose the chance to learn if they rely on AI too much, she also said that teaching students how to write with strategies that include technology is what they do in the English department.

Business and Administration Program:

“We are educating future business leaders, and if you are going into business today, you are going to use AI, no question about it,” Jenni Sandstrom, Business & Administration Program Director said. “Employers are looking for students to know more about AI.”

Sandstrom explained that the Business & Administration program discusses AI ad nauseum, including in helping them create coursework and prepare students for knowing how to use these tools in their future careers.

She has had an assignment for her classes where she uses AI to create a fake data set for a fake company, and leaves one mistake in for students to find.

Sandstrom clarified that it’s important  to be “crystal clear” in assignments on when and where in assignments that AI use is allowed and where it’s not.

In the Business and Administration program, faculty have a choice as to whether they want to include AI in their coursework or not. There is a template that is sent to faculty in the program every summer that offers guidance on multiple subjects and how to address them, including AI.

Sandstrom added that clarity is important in a class’s AI policy, and said that as AI detection tools evolve, so too does AI.

“We’ve asked everyone to reflect on that [AI]. But if you have no AI policy, really think about that and why you would do it that way,” Sandstrom said. “It may be better at this point to find ways to incorporate AI into the classroom, so that your students are getting the benefit of a technology that employers are really looking for in new hires.”

Biological Sciences Program:

Given AI’s increasing usage in the medical field, biology professor Georgie Cox believes it is going to be important for her students to know how to use AI effectively.

“Many of my students want to go on to become doctors, nurses, physician assistants, dentists to occupational and physical therapists,” Cox said.

Cox said that AI comes up often in faculty meetings, including talking about where they want to use it and what limits to put on it. She also added that WSUV is providing more AI resources to assist professors with adapting their teaching methods when need be. She added that AI can be very “superficial” in its content, and that it is important for students to think critically about class concepts when coming up with questions for AI to answer.

Cox has observed that AI is helpful for students with different learning styles and noted that she’s seen some students use it to create quizzes to help them study, while emphasized though it’s just a tool, and encourages students to think critically about the class concepts so they can ask AI the right questions.

“It’s important that we teach students how to use AI efficiently and appropriately…In terms of the medical field, AI is going to be crucial for personalized medicine, so that it can analyze complex data and identify patterns and medications that are linked to disease,” Cox said.

She explained that AI allows a lot of analytical potential that assists with drug design and understanding disease mechanism cell learning.

“For biological chemistry, what AI has done for vaccines is antigen identification, so it can analyze a pathogen kind of genetic sequence,” Cox said. “I don’t think AI is going anywhere, and it would be a disservice to our students to not teach them how to use it efficiently and effectively. I’d imagine that there will be more AI use in the next five to 10 years in coursework in general.”