Welcome to this edition of Researching education: 5 further readings. In this series, we take a look at some further readings available on a particular topic, including open access research papers from various online catalogues, and Teacher archive content you might not have come across yet.
How are students currently using Generative AI (GenAI) in your school context? Is it being used to intentionally support their learning? As a teacher, how could you model intentional use of GenAI to students?
In the 5 open-access readings below, we’re exploring the use of GenAI in classrooms. You can access a guide for secondary school teachers that contains practical examples for how GenAI can support learning, read a rapid literature review about the implications of GenAI in schools, and view a paper where the authors propose a set of structural changes to essay assessment design in light of advances in GenAI.
- The Science of Learning and Generative AI: A practical guide for secondary teachers. This guide published by La Trobe University presents research from cognitive science, educational psychology, and neuroscience that informs how students learn, and explores the relevant impact of GenAI. The guide focuses on 4 areas where GenAI and the science of learning intersect most directly and presents classroom examples to demonstrate how GenAI can support and undermine learning.
Teacher recently interviewed the lead author, Professor Miriam Tanti, about the guide. Read the interview transcript, listen to the audio and watch the video here.
- Young people, learning, and generative AI. A rapid literature review and implications for PreK-12 education. This research was a collaboration between The University of Sydney and The Barker Institute. The paper touches on the science of learning, shares early and emerging evidence of the influence of GenAI on learning in PreK-12 settings, and outlines where further evidence is most needed. The authors also explore implications for teaching and learning: ‘The evidence suggests that GenAI’s educational value emerges from how it is configured within the wider learning environment. This includes how tasks are designed, how activity and responsibility are distributed across learners, teachers, peers, and GenAI tools, what forms of guidance and feedback are available, and how learning is evidenced across contexts beyond supported performance,’ they write.
- The GenAI Motivation and Learning Buddy: A Generative AI Prompt Library for Educators and their Students. This resource prepared by Andrew J. Martin from UNSW introduces The GenAI Motivation and Learning Buddy and its AI prompt scripts that practitioners can share with students to support motivation and learning. The resource shares the link to the open-access prompt scripts, explains what the GenAI Motivation and Learning Buddy does and doesn’t do, and how it can be used to support both student engagement and learning.
- “Is this a trap?”: Student teachers’ perceptions and adoption of GenAI in assessments in three teacher education courses. Published in the Australasian Journal of Educational Technology (AJET), this paper shares findings of a study that explored teacher education students’ interactions with GenAI when completing non-exam assessments while recognising sociocultural and technological factors influencing students’ behaviours. The findings show 62.4% chose not to interact with GenAI in assessments, despite being allowed; and that many students cited self-confidence and concerns about being wrongly accused of plagiarism as reasons for not using GenAI.
- On the essay in a time of GenAI. In this paper, the authors propose a set of structural changes to essay assessment design in light of advances in GenAI. They also present a different approach to assessment which they say could help show ‘how the essay can be reconfigured as both an educationally meaningful and valid assessment task, fit for an age of AI without being defined by it’.
Some of the resources featured in this article can be found through Cunningham Library Catalogue and EdResearch Online. At the links below, you can search for more resources on the topic of GenAI in these 2 online databases.
You can also browse other education topics at this page.
