Student group work is intended to support and enhance creativity, productivity, and collaboration between students. The skills associated with successful group work are considered transferable to the workplace and are highly valued by employers across industries (Grizmek et al., 2020). Given the nuances of our new work worlds and the realities that our graduates will be likely to face complex problems that require them to navigate and negotiate solutions in teams, group work remains a worthwhile endeavour. But the merits of group work are not limited to student work.
Artificial intelligence has exploded across the world, creating tremendous opportunities, and many questions about its ethical use and deployment in different settings. In the educational sector, it has served to be a disruptor that is challenging us to approach our teaching and assessment practices differently. In Ontario, Canada one group of higher education professionals considered how to tackle some of the issues and questions that were unfolding about artificial intelligence in real-time. Members of the Academic Integrity Council of Ontario (AICO) came together to create an information sheet for faculty that began to outline some strategies and opportunities for artificial intelligence in higher education learning settings, along with practical tips for working with these applications in an ethical manner that then support and protect academic integrity across academic work.
Five AICO members in teaching, leadership, and academic integrity specialist roles came together online through three writing sessions to create a draft document that provided an overview of the issue, a definition of artificial intelligence, stakeholder considerations for the ethical use of artificial intelligence in higher education, discussion about assessment issues, opportunities for the use of artificial intelligence applications, points about the limitations of artificial intelligence, and discourse related to citation/acknowledgment considerations. The draft was then edited and revised by seven separate higher education professionals. The resulting document is titled Supporting Academic Integrity: Ethical Uses of Artificial Intelligence in Higher Education Information Sheet and is available through the AICO website Academic Integrity & Artificial Intelligence. The document has a creative commons license, is intended to be a fluid document, and will be updated regularly due to the reality that changes to artificial applications will continue to unfold.
Completing this work as a group provided us the opportunity to tap into each group member’s expertise, and allowed us opportunities to debate, critically think, and work together toward a common effort. It also created stronger networks, relationships, and bonds between the working individuals and across the AICO membership since a concrete piece of work was completed in a collegial manner. The group work and its results (the information sheet) have spurred the creation of other group activities within organizations and across organizations in Ontario. It is important to remember that the very reasons we encourage group work with students are why we should be collaborating in group work to meet and support academic integrity efforts across our educational landscapes. Successful group work can serve as launching pads for new and effective groups as the skills and positive experiences foster the transference of these benefits. The labour associated with creating such a document was less daunting through our group efforts. This work has reminded all of us about the value of working together on important tasks.
References
Grizmek, V., Kinnamon, E., & Marks, M.B. (2020). Attitudes about classroom group work: how are they impacted by students’ past experiences and major? Journal of Education for Business, 95(7), 439-450.
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