In a guest essay on Tuesday, Clay Shirky, a vice provost at N.Y.U., explains how his thinking has changed recently: “Our A.I. strategy had assumed that encouraging engaged uses of A.I. — telling students they could use software like ChatGPT to generate practice tests to quiz themselves, explore new ideas or solicit feedback — would persuade students to forgo the lazy uses. It did not.” Instead, he argues, the best way forward for teachers who want to make sure that the mental work needed for learning is happening may be to embrace older, analog forms of assessment, like in-class blue book essays, oral exams, Socratic questioning and “other assessments that call on students to demonstrate knowledge in real time.” These “medieval options” will be an adjustment for students and teachers alike, but Shirky argues they don’t represent a loss of rigor, just a return to an earlier model of higher education — one that may have benefits in itself. “A return to a more conversational, extemporaneous style will make higher education more interpersonal, more improvised and more idiosyncratic, restoring a sense of community to our institutions,” he writes. Read the guest essay: Here’s what we’re focusing on today:
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