COlumbus, Ohio (WCMH) – Starting this fall, all Ohio students will be asked to use artificial intelligence.
“Through AI ency, Ohio students become “bilingual.” You will be able to enjoy both the key areas of research and the application of AI in that area,” said Ravi V. Bellamkonda, Executive Vice President and Provost.
Ohio's AI-style ency initiative embedding AI education throughout the undergraduate curriculum. The program prioritizes freshman classes and said OSU will be able to excel in applying AI in the field from 2029 onwards, with all Ohio alumni becoming more proficient in the application of AI in the field.
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Changes occur as students begin to use CHATGPT and other resources to complete their studies. The Pew Research Center found that 26% of teenagers used ChatGPT for their academics twice as many times in 2024. Double the number of times 2023. AI quickly became mainstream, with some professors, such as Associate Professors of Philosophy, who specialize in ethics, already beginning to integrate AI into courses.
“After turning the first batch of AI assisted papers, the students approached me and thanked me for such fun assignments. And I graded them and found a lot of really creative ideas,” Brown said. “My favorite is still a paper on karma and returning shopping carts.”
OSU said it will help to offer new general education courses and work with the university to integrate AI flow ency into coursework and expand the offering of existing AI-focused courses. While each of the 14 public universities in Ohio incorporate AI in one form or another, OSU is the first to officially incorporate AI ency into all majors.
The university requires students to participate in AI skills seminars and incorporates workshops into existing frameworks such as first year seminar programs. The seminar is an optional one credit course tailored to first-year students with specialized themes like TV's Fantasy World Building, Know Your Recreational Drugs, and immediately AI.
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“Artificial intelligence is changing the way we live, work, teach and learn. In a not too distant future, all jobs in every industry will be affected in some way by AI,” said Ohio State President Ted Carter.
Ohio said this does not mean that students can use generated AI to pass assignments as their own. OSU has entrusted at least six university offices to promote generative AI education programs. These offices will issue guidance to faculty on how to maintain academic integrity while using AI as a tool.
For example, OSU said education majors could be asked to use AI to create lesson plans. Sample assignment requires students to submit lesson plans with their initial AI prompt and reflection on what has been changed and how effective the generation AI is.
OSU also recognized that faculty and instructors may need support. The university's Michael V. Drake Institute for Teaching and Learning is tasked with expanding resources to help faculty members integrate AI, including new grant programs for instructors.
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Brown is one of the instructors who already implement AI in their courses, and some faculty members have discovered that students sometimes hesitate to do so. Subbu Kumarappan, an associate professor of economics and business, said that students enjoyed AI projects, but it wasn't necessarily the case that their work really belongs to them.
“High-performance students tend to use AI to take their work further, but those struggling may be delayed if they aren't fully involved,” Kumarappan says. “That's why we set clear expectations about how AI can and cannot be used in all challenges, highlighting teamwork and collaboration.
Brown said that AI would stay here, so banning it is “myopic.” He encouraged students to discuss ethics and philosophy with AI chatbots, asked them to use AI to write papers, and used AI to create dialogues between both sides of the controversial topics, helping them to demonstrate educated discussions on both sides.
“It would be a disaster if students didn't know how to effectively use one of the most powerful tools humanity has ever created,” Brown said. “AI is a very powerful tool for self-education, so pedagogy must be adapted quickly or left in the dust.”
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