I am a lecturer on the MA Design Management course and have taught on that course as an AL and then permanent staff since September 2023. Outside of my teaching I own my own consultancy practice and have witnessed the growth in the use of AI since 2022 in the organisations I work with, and have reflected back into the University context and realised we are not exploring or challenging ourselves on our course to understand how to address this issue.
I bring industry and commercial context to my view of this technology and am aware that the ethical considerations that UAL may put around the use and adoption of AI may be more rigorous than that of industry so have tried to be aware of that, however, feel that as our students will be using these tools in the future we have an obligation to understand how we, as teachers, will use and adopt them in our practice.
The issues of fairness in marking and ensuring that feedback is personalised to all students is critical however I am personally also aware of the time that this takes and the pressures it can place on the teaching staff. I have, this week, completed marking of 15 final major projects, all of which take at least 3-4 hours to read, mark, moderate, and wordsmith constructive and positive feedback. The appeal of a ‘third marker’ who could support me, who doesn’t get tired or grouchy and is always consistent is high. Therefore this may lead me to be more sympathetic to the role that AI could play for teaching staff.
I believe in the role that digital technologies may bring to supporting students with neurodiverse conditions and the same applies to teaching staff. I have a daughter with ADHD and dyslexia and have seen first hand the frustrations and lack of confidence that can emerge from not ‘fitting’ within the educational system.