Philosophy 104: Bioethics

Responsibly, Proactively, Transparently

Reflection on Instructional Change:

1. I focused on the practice "Empowering Students to use AI Responsibly" and specifically "Clarifying instructions and expectations for what types of GenAI uses are appropriate (or not) for writing discussion board posts." I began by typing this into Chat GPT 3.5:

Draft a friendly reminder for your syllabus that encourages students to use GenAI wisely and with integrity. Make it for a college philosophy course PHIL 104: Bioethics at Sacramento State. Reference the university academic integrity policy. Make sure it is a self-referential announcement, noting the fact that "even this reminder was created using Chat GPT 3.5"

After seeing what results Chat GPT generated, it struck me that sharing something like this with students, along with whatever "final" product of such an announcement I include in the actual syllabus (where the "final" product would be complete with hyperlinks to the academic integrity policy at Sac State), might be a more effective way of communicating with students than simply including a quick paragraph entirely of my own making. That way students could see just how the "final" product differs from the "penultimate" product generated raw from ChatGPT.

2. However, really implementing this practice involved not so much the Syllabus as my Announcements about the Discussions in Canvas. In particular, early in the course I made a long Announcement (including a 10 minute video of me reading the Announcement) that explained why using AI for our weekly small group Discussions was generally discouraged, potentially problematic, not especially useful, yet still technically allowed -- as long as students acknowledged using it within a given post or reply, and as long as students formatted their own edits in italics like this to indicate what were their own words in the post or reply. I also gave a verbatim example of how our first discussion board prompt was answered by ChatGPT, so I could say "see?--that is not even better than what you can do." I did not ask for student reactions to this Announcement, so the only student evidence I have so far is whether students are writing Discussion board posts that say "I used ChatGPT for this" with italics in their posts. Not surprisingly, I have no such evidence yet. This could mean that students just are not using AI for their Discussions, or that they are using it but know acknowledging it.

3. Not surprisingly, one of the most influential activities from the ACUE Gen AI Course Activities was "Empowering Students Using AI: Discussions and Reflection." As explained above, my work on the Reflection part flowed into my eventual instructional implementation in the Fall 2024 version of the course.

4. I got further (meta-) reflection on this implementation during my own "Observe and Analyze" synchronous zoom session with my colleagues. I walked through part of the Announcement I made to students, and I got the "warm" and "cool" feedback from my colleagues on it. One of my "take aways" from this experience, strangely enough, came from a place that I did not expect it. As I was re-explaining my long Announcement to my colleagues, and as I was explaining why I made a verbatim videotape of me reading my Announcement to students, I had the thought : "wait, the experience of typing is actually quite different than the experience of speaking; and the experience hearing another person speak in their own voice is actually quite different than the experience of merely reading what another person says in a typed medium...why don't I have my own students do more of their discussion board entries by making audio or video files of them speaking in their own voice about their own thoughts? That could enhance their presence in the discussion boards in ways that would perhaps utilize, but also transcend, whatever AI help they received from ChatGPT or elsewhere in generating or refining their content."

Evidence of Instructional Change


Video Clip from "Observe and Analyze"	Screen Shot of Discussion Question	Screenshot Module Completion Badge

Practice and Reflect Teaching and Learning with AI:

The AI ACUE course influenced my teaching practice by suggesting I "show and tell" students how current GenAI might be either ignored or used or misused in my particular course. While the opportunities of integrating AI into my Bioethics course include expanding a student's ability to express themself clearly, the challenges include a student being tempted to replace their own voice entirely with the GenAI voice--even on the small group discussion boards. An example of an AI tool I have incorporated into my course is Chat GPT, which I refer to in an early Announcement explaining how to use (and not use) this tool to help students write their a reply to a Discussion prompt.

Course Syllabus

Course Syllabus and Schedule

Faculty Bio

faculty bio
	Russell DiSilvestro is a professor and chair in Philosophy at Sacramento State. He works on the intersection between metaphysics and ethics, especially as it relates to contemporary bioethical issues involving the nature and moral status of human beings. He teaches PHIL 104: Bioethics and PHIL 181: Metaphysics.

Funding
	This work was supported by: US Department of Education Hispanic Serving Institution Project TECH4Equity US Department of Education Hispanic Serving Institution Project STEM4Equity P031C210012 *Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation or the US Department of Education.