Teachers Using AI Tools: A Survey and Student Reactions

Instructor Adoption of Generative AI

• 📈 A survey by Titan Partners revealed a significant increase in instructor use of generative AI tools, rising from 8% in Spring 2023 to 36% in Spring 2024.
• 💡 Instructors are employing AI for various tasks, including preparing course materials like notes and slide presentations.
• 🤖 AI is also being used for grading student work and creating custom chatbots to act as tutors or teaching assistants.

Student Perspectives and Frustrations

• 😠 Students express frustration, with some labeling professors' AI usage as hypocritical, especially when AI-generated feedback is used for assignments.
• 💸 In one notable case, a student demanded a tuition refund after her professor used AI for lecture notes and slide presentations, which contained errors like AI-generated images with extra body parts.
• 🎓 The professor involved expressed contrition, admitting he did not closely review the AI's output after uploading his past course materials to freshen up the content.

University Policies and AI Detection

• ⚖️ University policies on AI usage for faculty and students are still emerging, with many institutions lacking clear guidelines.
• ⚠️ Professors often dislike AI detection tools due to frequent false positives, where non-AI content is flagged as AI-generated.

Student Comfort and Ethical AI Use

• ✅ Students are more comfortable with AI usage if it is disclosed by instructors.
• 💼 Some instructors believe incorporating AI into the university experience is crucial to teach students the right and ethical ways to use AI for their future workplaces.
• 🎧 A student expressed dissatisfaction with a professor who used AI to create a podcast of fake people discussing lecture material instead of providing traditional lectures.