AI Use in Assignments and Assessments

Role play is a very viable exercise when it comes to genAI. Role plays can be prompted to be based on course content, or specific areas of focus. Each student can have a unique interaction each time they practice a role play. Prompts can be written to deliver feedback on certain criteria, which the student can then reflect upon and learn from. It is important when prompting for a role play, that a persona (“Act as a”) is assigned to the genAI tool along with the person who is doing the exercise (“you are having a conversation/conducting an interview/etc. with…”). It is also useful to provide a context for the interaction (“You are practicing a role play with a college student studying…”). The more specificity given in the prompt, the better the results will be. 

Sample Prompt: 

“Act in a role play activity with a college nursing student. You will act as a patient coming into the hospital suffering from _______. The nursing student will act as the nurse in the hospital. Engage in ten back and forth interactions with the student nurse. After you have completed all the interactions, give an analysis of how the student nurse performed based on the following: 1. Was the student compassionate? 2. Did the student act professionally? 3. Did the student demonstrate emotional intelligence. 4. Did the student give proper guidance? etc.” 

GenAI tools can be used to have students engage in a scenario based on course content. Similar to a role play, students are presented with a scenario that is unique and then asked to respond.  

Sample Prompt: 

“Offer a scenario for a graduate student in education practicing leadership skills. The student will represent an administrator at an educational institution. Create a scenario that involves some sort of conflict that the administrator needs to respond to. Rule: Do not give suggestions to the student of what to do next. Rule: Once you create the scenario, ask questions to the student to elicit responses of what should be done next. Once the student has explained how to resolve the conflict, or reached a dead end with no resolution, offer a summary analyzing how the student did with regard to resolving the conflict and acting professionally. Finally, offer three questions for reflection that are specific to the scenario and the student's responses.”

 

Generative AI can be a useful tool to help students develop and improve their writing skills. These tools can be used for brainstorming, editing, and analysis, with immediate feedback given to the student. They have particular value in the process of developing content. When writing assignments can be broken down into multiple components, genAI tools can be used to support certain individual components of a larger process.  

Here are some sample prompts that may give you insight into how genAI tools can be used to support learning in the area of writing: 

“Analyze my outline for a college-level paper on _______. Give me advice on both structure and content. After giving the advice, offer a sample edited version of the outline.”  

“Give me suggestions for five topics to focus on when writing about _______.” 

“Act as a college professor teaching _______.  Analyze my rough draft and give me feedback on what can be improved, both for content and structure.”  

“Analyze the connections between my claims and evidence. Provide me with feedback on how these connections can be improved.”  

GenAI can be prompted to practice specific skills with a student. This can help a student learn a skill or prepare for an upcoming assessment.  

For example: 

“Act as a tutor. Your student is a college freshman taking college algebra. Use the Socratic method to help the student practice and understand linear equations. Only give one problem at a time. The goal is to have the student answer the math problem correctly, but also to help the student understand the process and why their method is correct or incorrect. Rule: Break each problem down to one step at a time. Ask the student what to do in each step. When they answer with the correct method, have them complete the step before asking about the next step. Rule: Do not give away the correct answer until the student figures it out on their own Rule: Ask questions to the student to help understand their thinking and how they are coming upon their answers. Rule: Use words of encouragement as you guide students.” 

Or 

“I am a university student studying marketing. I will give you an outline of a marketing strategy for product _______. Can you critique this strategy and give me feedback on it?” When you are ready, ask me to post my outline.” 

GenAI tools can be used to help students develop critical thinking in various ways. Some of these ways include critically analyzing the genAI results themselves or critically analyzing prompts to learn how to ask effective questions to get appropriate results.  

Here are some sample assignment instructions for critical thinking exercises: 

“Ask genAI to create a summary of _______. Use at least three other scholarly sources to verify and analyze the summary. Reflect on what you found when you compared the genAI results to other scholarly sources.” 

“Ask genAI to create a TV show script about: _______. Analyze the script for evidence of bias. Rephrase your prompt in two different ways to try and get different results. Analyze and reflect upon the results.” 

“Put a prompt into a genAI tool asking for _______.  Analyze the results. Ask the tool to analyze your prompt for _______. Rephrase your prompt in two different ways and compare the results.” 

In many disciplines and subject areas, genAI tools can be utilized to further explore concepts that students are learning in course. From creative approaches to understanding content, to artistic or visual approaches, to focused dialogue on a topic, genAI can help students approach material in different ways which further their understanding of it. When the genAI results are accompanied by reflections on the results and how the tool contributed to understanding the concepts, students engage in critical analysis both of the content and how they learned it. 

Here are some examples: 

“Use genAI to better understand how point of view contributes to how we relate to a story. Ask a genAI tool to retell _______ in a different point of view. Read and analyze the results. What did you learn about the importance of point of view in storytelling?” 

“Use a genAI tool to create an image. Choose one of the learning challenges we’ve been studying in class and ask it to create an image that represents the challenge. Reflect upon the results and whether, or how, they represent your choice. Include at least 5 facts from the readings in your analysis/reflection. Does the image help you understand the topic better?”   

“Use a genAI tool to have a conversation with one of the scholars who developed a theory we learned about in class. First draft some specific questions about their theory to include in the conversation. You can also ask about their life or anything else that interests you. Then write about what you learned from the engagement.” 

“Use a genAI tool to better understand the persuasion techniques we learned about in class. Prompt the tool to convince you to join a club or committee. Analyze the results. What persuasion techniques were used? Relate your experience to the text from class. Be specific. Use examples from the interaction to support your answers.”