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The Transform your Teaching podcast is a service of the Center for Teaching and Learning at Cedarville University in Cedarville, Ohio. Join Dr. Rob McDole and Dr. Jared Pyles as they seek to inspire higher education faculty to adopt innovative teaching and learning practices.
Even with the concerns about what it, can do and replace, it's also now pushing us forward so that we can expect more of our students.
Narrator:This is the Transform Your Teaching Podcast. The Transform Your Teaching Podcast is a service of the Center for Teaching and Learning at Cedarville University in Cedarville, Ohio.
Ryan:Hello, and welcome to this episode of Transform Your Teaching. In today's episode, Dr. Rob McDole and Dr. Jared Pyles conclude our series on AI resilient course design by speaking with Dr. Tom Mach, the vice president for academics at Cedarville University.
Ryan:Thanks for joining us.
Jared:Well, Rob, we are continuing our AI resilient series, and usually when we close these series up, we do a lessons learned type episode, but we're not doing that this time. We thought we would have our good friend and our VP of academics here on campus, Dr. Tom Mach, join us once again, and we're going to discuss AI resiliency in education with him. So Dr. Mach, welcome aboard once more.
Tom Mach:Yeah. Thank you I so proudly wear my Transform Your Teaching t shirt regularly, and it's a great privilege to be here with you.
Jared:Now you're not wearing it today. I'm not wearing it today.
Rob:No. He's got the power tie
Jared:on today. We should get a Transform Your Teaching tie to give to
Rob:him. That'd
Tom Mach:be great.
Jared:We should work on that.
Rob:Yeah. So one of the things we wanted to have you come in and and and talk about is we've been talking about AI resilience. You've been talking about it. I know it's a a great importance to you from the seat that you sit in here at Cedarville. From your perspective, speak to the students' development in terms of purpose and how that how that comes about with, this focus on AI resilience.
Rob:Where do you see that?
Tom Mach:Yeah. I really appreciate the work that you and Dr. Pyles has done on AI resilience. You really introduced that term to me. And, to me, it hit hit the concern that I think most faculty have coming into this conversation. So we've talked a lot about this this year here at Cedarville.
Tom Mach:We recognize that starting from the biblical foundation, human beings are created in the image of God. Mhmm. And we wanna make sure that the technology that we use does not diminish their humanity, diminish what it means to be created in the image of God. So when we think about the use of technology, want to make sure that we're emphasizing the importance of relationships between students and between students and faculty, maintaining that community focus, making sure that we're maintaining our recognition of the importance of hard work and be good stewards, and then making sure that we recognize and maintain the rigor and the challenge associated with coursework. AI can do a lot of things for students, but we know that students are formed through hard work and through struggle sometimes.
Tom Mach:And so making sure that our our assignments are AI resilient in my mind, means that we're maintaining that that community aspect of learning. We're maintaining that heightened importance of work, and we're maintaining those formative challenging experiences in their courses and in their course assignments.
Rob:It sounds like what he's saying is very similar to what what, Dr. Rogers had to say to us in the sense of it's... The student is actually our product. Absolutely. And and that is really helping to focus this.
Tom Mach:I appreciate what Dr. Rogers had to say. And I think one of the things that I've learned throughout this whole process is that as faculty members, we're going to need to move from just evaluating the product that students hand in, they submit whatever the assessment is to focusing on making sure that they're developing the skills or the knowledge base, content expertise, that whatever the mastery is along the way. So it's not just the outcome, it's not just the product. Mhmm.
Tom Mach:It's important as that is, but the process. Right. So how do we get at that then? And that's what AI resilience is all all about, I think.
Jared:I mean, we've we've talked about process of a product throughout, but it's... It goes back to... And this is the concept that's existed before AI made its appearance. We talk about formative and summative assessment and assessing that, the process along the way before they get to the summative assignment or the big paper or the final exam or the midterm exam. So, you know, that this, I mean, aligns with that entirely.
Jared:It adds more of an emphasis on that. Best practices existed there for a while.
Rob:Yeah. I think one of the challenges it seems that I've heard you express is you're just a deep concern to make sure that, one, faculty understand their own processes and and identify those. Where do you think for our faculty this really needs to to begin? You've got new faculty that come in every year. You know, AI resilience is a a big part of this, as you've said.
Rob:And, you know, I... You probably will have some new faculty even next semester. I don't know. But let's say you do. When it comes to this, where will you encourage them to start?
Tom Mach:Yeah. I mean, we're we're blessed here. You know this. We're blessed here with fabulous faculty members that are dedicated to their craft and committed to their students. So I don't feel like we need to do a lot of work in trying to get them engaged with producing quality courses and quality experiences for students.
Tom Mach:You know, let's let's be honest. AI is a disruption. Right? And so faculty members have to come to groups with what does that then mean for the the types of assignments, assessments, techniques I'm using in class, and how do they need to change then as a result of that. Every faculty member is concerned about AI being used in ways that we don't want students using it.
Jared:Mhmm.
Tom Mach:And there is, as we all know, limited opportunity to evaluate what students have used in completing some of these assignments. So recognizing those realities then, how how do we, craft new assignments, new assessments that allow for that recognition that AI could be used or even incorporate AI use in those assessments, but still give faculty members access to the process, what students have developed through the course of that assessment, and are they meeting the outcomes and that we have established for for this course or for that particular assignment. I I think it's all about evaluating, reevaluating, and I'm having to do this in my own course. How do we achieve the outcomes? How do I achieve the outcomes or pursue the outcomes in my students in in a world that now has AI?
Tom Mach:And that creates a whole new raft of opportunities for the types of assessments that I can do, but also creates some interesting challenges.
Jared:If you're willing to share, you just mentioned that you had to go through that process yourself. Walk us through the before, during, after of that process for you. Like maybe talk about, were you hesitant to start? Did you want to resist or what, at what point was it like, you know what, I have to do this. And then what was that first step?
Tom Mach:Yeah, I don't know what the first step was. I think it was probably just a realization that, you know, the tools that we normally use for evaluating student submissions, you know, the turn it ins, the plagiarism detectors, whatever you wanna you wanna mention there, have have limited capability. It was just a raft of of articles. AI detection does not... Is not reliable, so forth.
Tom Mach:So then it becomes... Alright. So I'll think about one assignment in my US history course. I do what I call journal. They have students who tend journals over the course of a semester.
Tom Mach:What they're doing is interacting with primary source documents. Those documents tend to argue both side... Different sides of a particular significant issue, and I want them to read those those excerpts of of primary source documents, evaluate the arguments, arrive at a conclusion based on those arguments, and then analyze it from a biblical perspective. They could throw those documents into AI and have them... Have AI write the entire assignment.
Tom Mach:Obviously, that wouldn't achieve the outcomes that we're seeking with the students. So in rethinking that assignment, I wanted to tap into the capability that AI provides for students. And so what I've asked them to do now is read both sides of the argument, ask AI to provide a third perspective. I say to them, you may use AI to help you analyze the arguments, but I don't want you to use AI to write the journal entry, the response, and I don't want them to use AI to bring in the biblical analysis, the biblical evaluation of it. So what I think AI has enabled us to do now is to broaden the conversation for students.
Tom Mach:It's not just two individuals that they may or may not know engaging on a issue, but now a third perspective has come in. And I've been amazed. I've only used it one time now. Last spring, I didn't teach this fall, so last spring. But I was amazed at the increased understanding that students had of the issue in their journal entries.
Tom Mach:And so I'm, you know, I'm experimenting. It's not perfect. That's my first first shot at it. I'll keep tweaking it, but I was really pleased with what I was seeing, and, you know, we'll keep we'll keep working at it.
Jared:Thank you for sharing that. I appreciate that. You also echoed process of her product there at the end where you're not... I think a lot of people believe that, you know, they've got to be perfect at the usage of it from jump, from the And good it's just not the case. You have to be willing to wade into it, you know, and mess around with it, mess up, fix it.
Jared:Just like we do with our students. We want them to, try and try and keep going and get feedback and refine and then present a product at the end. It's the same thing here.
Tom Mach:Yeah. I think I need, you know, as I think about our revised approach to it, tweaking it. Mhmm. I'm thinking about I need greater insight into the processes that they've used. One of the things that I've incorporated is I require them to identify a source for that third position.
Tom Mach:It's not just been, you know, something that AI gave them. There's actual document. There's some other primary source document from whence this idea comes, this argument comes. So they're engaging with an additional source, which is great. But I think there are other ways to to kind of get a better picture of how they went about processing this information and arriving conclusions that they did.
Rob:Have you heard from faculty, any ways that they're finding success with with AI resilience and getting to the process over the product?
Tom Mach:Yes. I don't have great examples, but I've heard some... I can't get into the details as I might want to, but one that comes to mind would be in composition. I know that, some of our composition faculty are engaging their students with AI in the process, and what they'll do then is ask them to provide the steps they took. What was the prompt that you used?
Tom Mach:What was the result of that? Then what did you do with that information? So they're working on breaking down the process of writing the essay, whatever the assignment was, and then having the students provide those steps, how they used AI. It gives some accountability to students, but it also, you know, along the way, we're developing AI skills, which is one of our objectives now at Cedarville University. We want our students to graduate with a minimum of AI literacy, moving towards AI competency, but also then, making sure that that that difficult writing process that every student has to go through.
Tom Mach:How do I learn how to write?
Jared:Only students. Once you become an adult, that's no longer the issue. We all struggle
Rob:with There's a magical transformation. If
Tom Mach:only, it gets easier. Right? It does get easier, but it's just... Think what we do is we just develop the the ability to recognize our shortcomings even more acutely, and so it takes us even longer. But not just the writing, not just putting together something that flows well, but something that articulates an argument clearly and demonstrates the analysis, the critical thinking that went into it.
Tom Mach:It's too easy to throw something in the AI and say, analyze this. It it can do some remarkable things. There's no question. But we don't wanna short circuit that critical... The the development of those critical thinking skills.
Jared:Especially early on when you want them to, like you said, develop them. Afterward, once they've mastered the analysis of it, like I can see if you've got an early objective in your course where you want them to, you know, assuming they have knowledge coming in about it, this would be like a 3,000, 4,000 level course where you want them to be able to analyze, but then use the tool to help them with their analysis later. You want them to master the analysis first and then you can walk back and go, okay, now you can use the tool to help you analyze or to, you can, so that you can then check what the bot does for analysis. Right? Because you got to have that knowledge base, like you said, have that firm foundation of that before you can start using it for that same purpose.
Tom Mach:And that's one of the things that's really given me peace as a faculty member is recognizing that using AI at the end of the day, whatever is produced by it, the students have to analyze it. Yep. You know, this... You you all know this better than I do, but in reading some of the the works that I did this summer, one of the key things I walked away from is we, the human being, still needs to be the expert because you've gotta check what's being produced, gotta determine whether it fits the the the the the problem, the the challenge, the innovation that you're pursuing, and then apply it properly. So it's...
Tom Mach:It can only do so much. Mhmm. And the human involved in the process is still essential. Absolutely essential.
Jared:Oh, human in the loop
Tom Mach:as we've been the loop.
Jared:Human in the loop.
Rob:More so than now than ever. Yeah. And I... It's interesting when I talk to some folks around campus or out in public, you know, there's that immediate fear of, well, it's gonna take my job or somehow it's going to strip me of me... My humanity or it's going to influence me to do bad things.
Rob:I'm like, well, no. Unless you just leave your judgment behind and you, you know, you just give it over, then, yeah, sure. Right. But you don't you don't and should not do that. Right?
Rob:And so... And you're not going to lose your job. If anything, we're finding even where you can automate processes, you still need to have someone there to validate and make sure, you know... Yes. It can execute, but it can't judge.
Rob:It can execute anything, but it can't make a judgment Mhmm. A moral judgment because it's not a moral being. So,
Tom Mach:you know Absolutely. And how how much more is that true in the teaching process?
Rob:Oh, yeah.
Tom Mach:Like, I know there's concerns. I was in a meeting the other day where somebody mentioned how long will it be before courses are being taught by AI. I don't think there's any question that courses will be produced that are entirely AI run. Mhmm. But the type of educational commitments that an institution like Cedarville makes can't be accomplished apart from the faculty to student interaction.
Tom Mach:And AI can do a lot of things to enhance that, but it can't replace it.
Rob:No. And we would we would wholeheartedly agree. I think one of the things that I found just in my usage in my classes is that it's actually allowed me to figure out ways to, make those interactions between myself and the student, more effective and more transformational for them because that's the thing that I've noticed is that students do want to change. They do want to be different than what they once were, and they don't want that to happen apart from relationships with other people.
Tom Mach:Yeah. Pretty good. Can I date myself for a moment?
Rob:Sure. Please do.
Jared:You're a history professor.
Tom Mach:Yeah. Right. When I was in graduate school, I had to take a course on research methods, and I was thinking about this the other day. The things that I was asked to do in that course all revolved around hardback books and published documents and so forth, how to find primary source materials and so forth. And, you know, fast forward thirty years, my son's in graduate school, and he's talking about his access to all these things.
Tom Mach:I spent hours and hours in front of a microphone reader losing eyesight and all. You know? He's talking about, oh, this is all digitized now, dad, and I can access these things. And I'm a little bit jealous, but I'm also excited about the prospect of the things that he can actually access that I could never have gotten access to. Mhmm.
Tom Mach:When I fast forward, you know, five years later and what can AI provide to somebody working on a on a historical research project. Yeah. It's pretty remarkable, but it's not just a resource finder. It's a it's a tool that will allow an individual to find sources, yes, but then organize that material, give you ideas about how to analyze it, bring in... It's gonna expand the ability of a single researcher to manage information in ways that that just couldn't have been done, you know, even a generation ago.
Tom Mach:So even with the concerns about what it can do and replace, it's also now pushing us forward so that we can expect more of our students. And I think in those higher ex... Expectations, then we can still maintain the... Alright. Are you learning to write and communicate well?
Tom Mach:Are you learning to think analytically? Are you learning to assess arguments and make your own?
Jared:It's gonna be the end of the coauthor and scholarly research articles because one person can handle all of it from here on out. Pretty remarkable. Yeah.
Rob:Yeah. This whole idea of transparency, that's still coming coming and evolving
Tom Mach:Mhmm.
Rob:Out of the conversations because, you know, it's just that question of how much transparency.
Tom Mach:Right.
Rob:Like... And that could get down to even the types of communication where you have your bot send someone, say, like a file. Like, I've I've done that. Right? Mhmm.
Rob:Like, one of you've asked me for a file and I didn't sit down and type a team's message. I just spoke to my bot and said, hey, go grab this file, send it to Jared through Teams. And it does that. Right? It's not really that important, and I don't know if you need me to say, Jared, I used the bot.
Rob:Not that important. Send... No. The file's not that important, and you don't care.
Tom Mach:I know. Because you
Rob:just want the file. Right?
Jared:You're
Tom Mach:right. But it's raising some really difficult questions, and you can't, you can't go a day or two if you're scanning the the titles from the Chronicle of Higher Education with a story about so and so is on the hot seat because they used AI in this process and this article and this research. And so the guild's gonna really have to come together and make a decision about AI use and how that is acknowledged because it's it's a reality. We're not... We can't escape it, and it actually is going to allow us to push research forward in ways that we couldn't before.
Tom Mach:So let's acknowledge that and then figure out how we do it in an ethical fashion.
Jared:This is an exciting and terrifying time to be
Tom Mach:in Absolutely. Higher Well,
Jared:I do want to ask, so you mentioned, with the time element where you mentioned like just coming off of that idea of research, the amount of time that your son has saved in doing research. That's something we have talked about, ourselves on the podcast and here at CTLP. The, and I, we always joke that my least favorite thing that I always heard in these professional development sessions when I was teaching in high school is when the person said, we're going to give you the gift of time and we're going to leave early, when it was like three minutes early, you know, who cares? But there is now a plus time that our faculty and our students are gaining if they use these tools. And that's kind of a sensitive subject.
Jared:And I want to know where you land on that idea of recovering time and what could possibly be done with it.
Tom Mach:Yeah. I I think that's, one of the exciting aspects of AI. No question about it. I've read a very interesting article this morning where the argument was AI is not gonna replace, faculty members. It should replace administrators.
Tom Mach:That hit a little close to home, but the point's well taken because of the capability of AI to analyze large amounts of information and, you know, put it into usable formats and so forth. Obviously, I understand what the author is saying. And, frankly, I'm a huge proponent of the importance of the faculty members engagement with students. I'm absolutely uninterested in replacing that with AI. I I think AI is a reality in this world, and we have to prepare our students for their vocation with the ability to use AI Mhmm.
Tom Mach:In whatever that that vocation is, whatever god has called them to do. So that's really what what what drives me. But I am excited about the idea of what time faculty members can recover because let's face it, we're not reducing the amount of demand on our faculty members. And
Ryan:so it
Tom Mach:will continue to grow, and so how can we mitigate some of that through the use of technologies like AI? I think faculty members are maybe a little bit behind the curve when it comes to finding ways to recover time as in mass, you know, on average compared to administrators now because it's not as self evident how it can be applied to the work that they do. So I think it's important for faculty members to start with the sorts of things that are more administrative, more logistical, and see how they can, help themselves in their day to day lives. How can I organize, my schedule using AI? How can I, handle some of the the tedious or rote things that I do, over and over again?
Tom Mach:Can AI help with those things? And then that begins to free up time that can be invested in other areas. I... At Cedarville, obviously, you guys know this. When we talk about transforming lives, we're talking about excellent education and intentional discipleship.
Tom Mach:So the more time that faculty members have to spend with students mentoring and discipling them, the more effective we are in in achieving our our outcomes. And so, that that has to drive it. But as... You know, for for faculty members who are recognizing that AI is disrupting the type of assessments that I've used, some of them need to make the decision to use more more analog assessments, and that's okay too. Mhmm.
Tom Mach:But those analog assessments take more time. So then finding ways to reduce time commitments in other areas of their responsibilities so that they can continue to use assessments that are effective for the objectives that they have becomes all the more important.
Jared:That's something I considered. Going more analog is going to take more time. So that's where maybe the time benefit comes in. So what would you say, Dr. Mach, as we close here, what would you say to faculty who are maybe agree with the direction or maybe they disagree with the direction.
Jared:What would, what is the first step you would encourage them to take towards AI resilience and using AI in education?
Tom Mach:Yeah. Would say I certainly understand that. And I have some of the same reservations about AI and have all along the way. But I have found that there are ways to use it like we use any other technology to improve the the work that we do to reduce the time we need to commit to things that we all recognize. There are aspects of our jobs that are just...
Tom Mach:That that don't require our close engagement in the way that we sometimes have to to dedicate to it. So in those areas where we can use AI to reduce the amount of time we need to spend on something, I I have to evaluate budgets. It's amazing to me the amount of time that AI has saved in in providing information from from pages and pages of budget information. It's a simple thing, but that allows me more time to dedicate to other things that are more either engaging of other people. I hesitate to say more important, but it's really important.
Tom Mach:Wanna wanna get that out there. But things that that can be can be more more fruitful in terms of dedicating lots of time to it. I would encourage faculty members in their hesitation to recognize the guiding principles that we've encouraged them to think through when it comes to using AI. We're not asking them to replace learning with AI. We're asking them to enhance it and think through how can they prepare students well for a world with AI and, obviously address the disruption that it causes, with some of the assessments that we've been using.
Tom Mach:We want faculty members to focus focus on preserving the formation process in our students' lives. And so because of AI short circuiting some of that by allowing students to kind of leap over some of the traditional challenges that students have faced. We've got to be creative in finding new ways to assess them that maintain the rigor and the challenge, that produces perseverance in our students and forms them. And frankly, you can sit down with AI and ask them, how do I redo this assignment in a world with AI? And it will it will produce ideas that are workable.
Tom Mach:Yeah. We also want faculty members to redouble their efforts in intentionally creating opportunities for community and engaging with students. And, as we find more and more demands on our jobs, it becomes easier and easier for those opportunities to be... To slip by. And so I think just redoubling our efforts to put that as a...
Tom Mach:For... In the forefront of our mind in all that we do. And then model wise use of AI. And part of that is critiquing AI and encouraging students to critique AI and identifying when it should be used and when it should not be used and holding them accountable when they use it in ways that we've asked them not to. And it's tough.
Tom Mach:It's difficult. That's always been a part of the faculty member's, role, and so that's that's really not new. But, I think those guiding principles can really help overcome some of that early resistance. If we acknowledge the problems with AI, and then allow those principles to guide what we're doing, we can, we can overcome some of those challenges.
Jared:Well, I certainly appreciate every time you come in. It's always, insightful and it's encouraging, to hear from you.
Rob:Thank you for coming. This has been excellent. We value and and I think our listeners, which are some of our faculty members, value the opinions that you hold and the leadership that you give. And I know that we're thankful for it, Blessed by it, and it's a joy to serve you and a joy to serve those who listen, and and I'm I'm sure this was helpful for them to hear. And this has been a really good series.
Jared:I agree.
Rob:AI resilience, it's not going away. No. And there's gonna be more, I'm sure, as this continues to unfold. But we'll still continue to seek God's wisdom for what we're doing here so that we can service our students with excellent education and intentional discipleship.
Tom Mach:Appreciate so much the work you've done in this area. I think you've really led the way for us here on this campus. I will say that when I first heard that term and you first started introducing it to us, my immediate reaction was this is great because the biggest problem we have is identifying accurately when students use AI. My thinking has evolved since then. It's also great and even more important for us because what it does when we think about AI resilience in our assignments and in our courses, it pushes us beyond just the logistical problems with AI to, alright, how can we prepare our students well for a world where there is AI?
Tom Mach:Along the way, they're gonna develop those skills they need for whatever career they're going out into, and we're we're gaining the benefit that AI provides to to us in this world.
Ryan:Thanks for listening to this episode of Transform Your Teaching. If you have any questions or comments about our conversation with Dr. Mach or about our series on AI Resilient Course Design, feel free to reach out to us at CTLPodcastcedarville dot edu, or you can connect with us on LinkedIn. Finally, don't forget to check out our blog at cedarville.edu/focusblog. Thanks for listening.