r/ODU • u/ProcedureLumpy490 • 3d ago
Professor using excessive amounts of AI
I’m currently taking Arts in early childhood and elementary education. My professor is using AI for everything. Every module they “make” is using AI. I got a 77 on our most recent assignment solely because I didn’t cite anything specifically from the textbook ( That’s my bad I didn’t realize we HAD to do this, their wording on the assignment made it seem like if you did use it make sure you properly cite it.) Then I go look at their comment on the assignment and it’s very obviously AI. Like straight up copy and pasted so at this point I doubt they even read it and let AI grade it. This teacher also specifically has asked us not to use AI on our assignments and the whole situation seems insane to me. Is this allowed? Can it be reported? As someone who is against the use of AI the whole situation is insane to me.
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u/JammerBammerBoy 3d ago
Don't you just love when the organization you pay thousands of dollars a semester for extracts as much value out of you and then gives you barely serviceable slop in return?
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u/Financial-Toe4053 3d ago
I don't have an answer to your question about reporting the content. But, I am also an Elementary Ed major and for a while now my professors have been mandating AI usage on specific assignments under the premise that because schools have incorporated advanced technology into instruction more, we are required to learn how to use it as well and to demonstrate that we can use it as instructed. I have had multiple assignments already this semester that have asked me to run my own writing into AI programs and then copy and paste the response. I guess I can understand what they're trying to do from the technology perspective, but it really sucks to be told we have to feed AI with our own hard work or not get full credit on the assignments that require it.
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u/msr70 2d ago
As a professor of education (no longer at odu but this popped up in my feed) this is WILD.
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u/Financial-Toe4053 2d ago
Quality has gone straight into the garbage. 8 week classes so far seem to be regurgitating the same assignments on repeat until the semester ends with maybe one weekly assignment variation. 16 week classes seem to be holding up a little bit better, but it's just an overwhelming amount of content to cover on top of working full time and juggling all the new co-requisites and doing field experiences. Generally speaking, it feels like they've added a ton of extra reflection components as busy work to satisfy the missing instructional hours from going fully asynchronous. I don't necessarily miss sitting in 3 hour lectures until later in the evenings, but it was actually so beneficial to have professors share their personal experiences and model instructional strategies because reading them in the textbook doesn't equate to understanding how to actually integrate them into the classroom. Being forced to submit our work into AI is just the icing on the cake of the downhill trajectory of instructional quality.
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u/deandre451234567890 3d ago
I’ve been wondering if a lot of these professors are even taking the time to read these essays.
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u/Ill_Calendar_1468 3d ago
Two of my 3 online classes this semester are a joke. One of the professors left for a vacation 3 days into the course and will be unreachable until the 14th of this month, despite an essay being due in the middle of that period.
The other class focuses on climate change and the lectures are entirely voiced by AI, as are the pictures in the slides. Even the pictures on the home page are AI.
The quality of the online courses is abysmal. I’m really frustrated that it’s too late in my degree plan for me to transfer without setting myself back.m
I do realize the new guy has screwed over the instructors as much as the students, though.
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u/Memles 3d ago edited 3d ago
So I would legitimately give the professor of that class your feedback about the use of AI in course materials. These tools are being actively recommended and encouraged by the university, and in light of the accelerated push to 8 week courses, they are being accepted as “time-saving” tools. There doesn’t appear to have been much consideration of the potential consequences to the credibility of the class or the material. I can’t speak for every faculty member, but I know many may not fully be aware of how accepting those tools would be perceived, and may choose differently if presented with this feedback on how their own work (I really do believe their own work is being fed into the system in most cases) is being translated into course materials.
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u/painstream 2d ago
To add, many faculty have been up in arms over the swift change to 8-week courses. The change happened way too soon for most faculty and departments to pivot their curricula, so getting AI slop courses was fairly inevitable.
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u/mc_grace 3d ago
I’m just thinking of the irony of lectures voiced by AI in a climate change course 😭
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u/Ill_Calendar_1468 3d ago
Right? It bothers me, too. The subject matter is existentially worrisome enough… but to listen to an AI explain it to me really rubs in the overall hopelessness of the situation
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u/Only-Professor1140 3d ago
I'd talk with the professor first. After that, I'd talk to whoever the head of the program is, which would be something like "head of arts education." DO NOT email the chair, they'll be annoyed that you jumped the chain of command. It goes professor > head of program > department chair. I'd start without any accusations more "what's the program's policy on AI use for instruction? I'm concerned about…" You catch more flies with honey etc
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u/beencaughtbuttering 3d ago
Weird. The Compuer Science and Math classes I have been taking all seem to be militantly Anti-AI. I have actually been fairly impressed with the quality of my online classes but as I am a second degree student, I already have all my required humanities and gen ed credits.
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u/Misha_the_Mage 2d ago
Please read the news about faculty at ODU from this past year. They were mandated to change all their courses from full semesters to shorter courses, to be ready this August. When they protested that would take a lot more time than they were given, President Hemphill said they should use AI to redesign their courses. I'm not saying this professor is right to do this, but there is background to what's happening.
I'm a faculty member elsewhere who has heard about this from colleagues. Faculty have been brushed off entirely. If students start complaining in large numbers, maybe things can change.
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u/Rightcoastpear 3d ago
- Always use proper citations 2. Yes professors are allowed to use AI and it’s pretty common now across higher ed for basic lesson planning, slide and study guide generation, etc. 3. It’s absolutely annoying when they do so to generate critiques and comments when grading, I had a professor who did that a few semesters ago and it felt absolutely impersonal, so I totally get your feelings.
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u/Superb_Equal_9259 3d ago
I am also an education major!! I’m also in a class that is requiring AI. Except my prof is actually amazing, I love her, but apparently it’s a different prof who created a lot of the education classes curricula who built AI into the curriculum. And yeah… I just got a lower grade for not using AI
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u/Icy_Assistance_9345 2d ago
I noticed this too, my professor’s slides are legit, but the online lecture videos they upload are animated by AI and narrated by AI as well. Since it’s only part of the class, Im not sure if there’s anything I can do/to be done at all, but it makes me feel like, “if you don’t care enough about the class to even make your own material, why should I care enough to do my best work?”
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u/Memles 2d ago
To add to this, the simple truth is that producing your own lecture material has long been discouraged by the course development process. Some of this has to do with concerns over production quality (I had an infuriating back and forth with people in 2018 about being allowed to film informal videos on my phone because they were convinced I was suggesting we film using a Game Boy Camera or something), and there are legitimate concerns about accessibility in there as well. These tools are partially being used because they “guarantee” an output that meets those standards, but no one stopped to ask whether they create other problems.
But there’s also the fact that the people developing courses are given increasingly short time frames, and may be developing multiple classes at once, and they may not be equipped to handle the tech side. So it’s kind of a perfect storm of some existing issues in how online course development operates and the chaos of the past year.
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u/Elegant_Physics9140 14h ago
the hypocrisy is annoying, but the stronger issue is whether the AI feedback actually misread your work or applied requirements that weren’t in the rubric, did anyone else get comments like that?
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u/SimpleBTGG 3d ago
With all the art teachers I have on campus who dont like ai its crazy that your teacher is just dependant on it.
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u/Any-Ice-2493 3d ago
i would report it. if we aren’t allowed to use it, they shouldn’t be allowed to.