The College Fix

University leaders say they want to teach students to use the technology creatively and responsibly

Classes on using artificial intelligence will be mandatory at Ohio State University this fall as higher education institutions continue to grapple with the emerging technology and the challenges it presents in the classroom.

Every undergraduate major at Ohio State will include classes that incorporate “AI Fluency,” NBC 4 WCMH reports. The public university’s leaders have developed a strategy that they believe will equip students to use the technology both creatively and responsibly.

“Through AI Fluency, Ohio State students will be ‘bilingual’ — fluent in both their major field of study and the application of AI in that area,” Provost Ravi Bellamkonda told the news outlet.

The report continues:

The university will now require students to take an AI skills seminar, and it will incorporate workshops into existing framework like the First Year Seminar program. The seminars are optional one-credit courses tailored to first-year students in specialized subjects like Fantasy Worldbuilding in Television, Know Your Recreational Drugs and soon, AI.

“Artificial intelligence is transforming the way we live, work, teach and learn. In the not-so-distant future, every job, in every industry, is going to be impacted in some way by AI,” Ohio State President Ted Carter said.

Ohio State said this does not mean students will be able to use generative AI to pass off assignments as their own. OSU is tasking at least six university offices with facilitating the generative AI education programs. These offices will issue guidance to faculty on how to maintain academic integrity while using AI as a tool.

For instance, OSU said education majors could be asked to use AI to create a lesson plan, which they then will evaluate and revise. The sample assignment would require students to submit their lesson plan along with their initial AI prompt and a reflection on what they changed and how effective the generative AI was.

The university plans to offer AI training and support to faculty as well.

“It would be a disaster for our students to have no idea how to effectively use one of the most powerful tools that humanity has ever created,” philosophy Professor Steven Brown told NBC 4. “AI is such a powerful tool for self-education, that we must rapidly adapt our pedagogy or be left in the dust.”

Scholars have mixed opinions about the increasingly prolific technology. While some have embraced it, others have expressed concerns that too much reliance on AI could hurt students’ ability to think critically, as The College Fix previously reported.

“The brain is like a muscle. Using AI enables it to atrophy from disuse,” Dr. Timothy Cordes, an addiction and technology expert, told The Fix earlier this year.

Cheating with AI also has raised alarms. “Everyone is cheating their way through college,” a May article in New York Magazine began.

For this and other reasons, some professors have gone back to no-technology classrooms, requiring assignments and tests in pen and paper, professors told The Fix earlier this spring.

MORE: As AI replaces learning, concerns grow: ‘You just don’t really have to think’

IMAGE CAPTION AND CREDIT: The logo of Ohio State University is displayed; Ace Shot 1/Shutterstock

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