New assignment launched

If you haven't heard of the Conversation, I suggest you go and have a look. It's basically an online popular science journal, but it is not written by science journalists; it is written by the scientist themselves. They do have editorial support, but the text is essentially theirs, which means there cannot be any misunderstandings in the content. Quite many of my colleagues have published in it.

In two of the modules I was on, we would ask the students to write an article in the style of the Conversation. It tests both understanding of the material, and the ability to communicate it to a lay audience. But then ChatGPT happened. And things had to change. 

For one of my modules, we now ask AI ourselves to write the articles. And then we ask the students what's wrong with them. This year is the first year we roll out that version of the assignment. I hope it will go well! And I think it does two things; the main thing still is that the students are expected to really delve into a relevant topic. This time they don't write about it, but just make sure they are knowledgeable enough to be able to evaluate the writing of somebody else. Or something else.

I suppose something that we didn't set out, but which it does, is that it also shows them the capabilities and limitations of AI. I'm sure that's the transferable skill! When they go into the workplace, I would suspect their employers want them to be able to use it to their advantage. But also to be aware of its limitations. They could even compare various AIs; I use Monica, which is some sort of version of ChatGPT that is integrated into your browser, while Jaco uses Bard.

I was a bit behind with everything, thanks to my hospital shenanigans recently. So I was also a bit behind with this assignment. In a way, I was saved by circumstances; the articles we produced were based on the guest lectures we have in this module. And two of the guest lecturers wanted to do their lecture quite late in November. We couldn't really go live with this assessment until they had presented. That saved me! But it was still a rush to get it already.

It will be a while before it is handed in, and then it also needs to be marked. It will be 2024 before it becomes clear if this worked out as intended. I really hope so! I will report back in the new year…

Windfarms (and how to know what they are standing on) featured in the guest lectures