Benjamin Goodwin
Assignments & Activities Archive
Activity Description
This activity, designed for the first day or week of a first-year composition course, aims to address several key beginning-of-the-term concerns: breaking the ice and building community, giving students a sense of agency and ownership of the learning space, and addressing the complex issues and impacts of Large Language Models (LLM) or “AI” on higher education. The basic idea is to first open an honest conversation between student groups about their history and experience with LLMs used for coursework, as well as their opinions about its impact on them and students in general. The “controversial” nature of the topic and the space to talk openly about it engages students and harnesses the unique energy of the first class-day—building relationships by having students get to know each other through critical discussion, thinking, and analysis. The instructor, by creating a safe space for discussion and a non-judgmental environment, hopes to begin the creation of a positive and comfortable class culture. Asking the students to collaboratively build a policy for the syllabus serves to give them a voice and an investment in the course itself. Introducing concern about LLM use in this way is educational and practical without being authoritative, an unusual icebreaker that attempts to tackle the tricky task of setting the right tone for the instructor and the class at the beginning of the term. The theoretical foundation of this activity comes first from the American Association of Colleges and Universities High Impact Practices (HIP) which are “based on evidence of significant educational benefits for students who participate in them including and especially those from demographic groups historically underserved by higher education.” Specifically, this activity seeks to practice collaborative learning, utilizing a first-year seminars approach to build intellectual and practical competencies by involving students in cutting edge questions and issues, and the building of a learning community (“Higher-Impact Practices”). Secondly, the activity utilizes scholarship such as Catherine Bovill’s “Co-creation in learning and teaching,” which concludes that involving the whole class in co-creation has the potential to be an inclusive way to build positive relationships and communities as well as build more effective learning environments (Bovill 1034).