This year, I am teaching exactly the same course as last year. Same subject, same kind of students, same assignments. Or at least, that was the plan.
Because something big changed in between. Not the course. AI.
A year makes a big difference
A year ago, AI was already there. My students used it. But it could do a lot less than it can now. And because I am teaching the exact same course, I notice the difference very clearly.
Take Excel. Last year, students could not get AI to do the right calculations in Excel. They tried, of course. But the numbers were often wrong, so they still had to figure it out themselves. This year, it is incredibly easy. You ask, and the calculation is done.
That asks something of me as a teacher.
I assume they use AI
I changed my assignments. I now assume that my students make them with AI. I am not going to pretend otherwise. I do it myself too. I hate Excel, so I am very happy that AI can do those calculations for me.
But I do want my students to understand what they are doing.
If AI calculates the retention rate or the NPS score, that is fine. Those calculations are not that complicated. But making them yourself had a purpose. Students had to dive into the numbers. And by doing that, they understood much better how such a score is built. What goes into it. What makes it go up or down.
That part is now easy to skip. So I came up with a lot of extra questions. Questions that make students think about the numbers, so they still end up with the same kind of understanding. A few examples from my retention lesson:
- Is acquiring more new customers the solution to this company’s problem? What happens to the value of all that acquisition spending when more than 90% of customers leave within a year?
- You are an investor. You can buy one of the two businesses from the case. Which one do you choose and why? Which three numbers would you ask for first?
- An investor says: “I don’t care how many customers you have. I care how long they stay.” Do you agree?
None of these questions need a calculation. But you can only answer them well if you understand what the numbers mean. Of course AI could answer these questions too, but talking about it and discussing this in class helps with the understanding.
Always and everywhere, but mostly for schoolwork
My starting point is simple. Students use AI always and everywhere in their assignments and schoolwork.
Outside of that, they hardly use AI. At least, my students do not. They hardly build apps or tools. They mostly use AI to get around difficult work. To write texts. To do quick calculations.
And I think that is a shame. Because AI can do so much more than that.
Two jobs for education
So what does that mean for us as teachers? I think we have two jobs now.
The first job is to help students understand things, even when they use AI to look for a quick answer. That is our task. And it is a real challenge. A quick answer is not the same as understanding. And it is very tempting to stop at the quick answer.
The second job is to help students do more useful things with AI. There is so much more possible than what they are doing now. Right now, many of them use it as a shortcut. I would love to help them see what else it can be.
Curious about next year
I have no idea what this course will look like next year. If AI changes as much in the coming year as it did in the last one, I will have to rethink my assignments all over again. I am really curious how that will go.