Use of the AI for Active Learning

Education
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Like a lecture passing from the instructor’s notes to the student’s notes without passing through the mind of either.

My first encounter was a YouTube lecture posted by Dr. Eric Mazur.

The video had a profound impact on my teaching.

From that point forward, we spent at least half the class in active groups. To be sure, it wasn’t perfect, but without question it was better than the passive lecture. On the best days, students lost track of time and I had to escort them out of the room. They were awake! They were excited to learn, they asked many questions, and they showed a tremendous respect and compassion to each other as they wrestled with challenges. They were even excited to work the complex math shown as this article’s opening image.

Active learning with the AI as the More Knowledgeable Other

Don’t be too quick to dismiss the AI in education. Personally, I view it as Vygotsky’s More Knowledgeable Other (MKO). If the learner is honest and not satisfied with just finishing the assignment, the AI has much to offer as a partner in an active learning environment.

While I am no longer teaching in a traditional classroom, my passion has not diminished. Today, my lessons are written for an international audience on the DigiKey TechForum with teasers here on LinkedIn.

Teaching with AI is something that I’ve been thinking about for a long time. Today is my first attempt to organize my thoughts and share them with the world.

Let’s start with a recognition that the AI is generally aware of many highly technical topics far more than my finite mind will ever know. However, our objective is not to be like the AI. Instead, we need to focus on specific topics and applications. If we can focus the AI into that small corner of the world, it is a capable learning tool.

A Focused AI Learning Example

As an example, let’s focus the AI on a highly specialized topic. If I’ve done my job correctly, this article is written for Junior EE students, with lessons extending to Seniors exploring a related capstone project.

We begin with a simple prompt to focus the AI on a specific topic and to place it into “MKO mode.” Note that GPT 4o is used in this example:

Read this article. Test me by asking related questions. One question at a time: Guide to Selecting and Controlling a MOSFET for 3.3 VDC Logic Applications

The AI will dutifully ask questions related to the article. It’s generally smart enough to understand your written responses and point out when you are missing a critical point.

It’s not perfect, but neither is a real MKO. Over time, the AI tends to drift back to a global focus, requiring a periodic memory flush and reload of the page. It’s been my experience that the AI is getting smarter. I wouldn’t have written this article for GPT 3.5. Personally, I can’t wait for the next version.

Expanding Examples

We could continue our learning examples by asking the AI to summarize the article, write T/F questions, or make flash cards. It is certainly capable of this and more.

However, it’s not the only AI. Your students may be better served using a purpose-built AI. An example is https://notebooklm.google.com/. This tool is advertised as a “Your Personalized AI Research Assistant.” It is purpose-built to present the key points. It can even convert a page into a podcast allowing you to listen to the host and guest explore the content.

Parting Thoughts

The AI makes a reasonable stand-in MKO for the learner willing to take the time to explore the material. It’s a worthy tool, but it lacks the respect, compassion, and enthusiasm associated with a well-run active learning session. It can’t (yet) read the tone of a classroom like a skilled teacher.

Please share your thoughts on how to integrate the AI into your classroom.

Sincerely,

Aaron

About this author

Aaron Dahlen, LCDR USCG (Ret.), serves as an application engineer at DigiKey. He has a unique electronics and automation foundation built over a 27-year military career as a technician and engineer which was further enhanced by 12 years of teaching (interwoven). With an MSEE degree from Minnesota State University, Mankato, Dahlen has taught in an ABET-accredited EE program, served as the program coordinator for an EET program, and taught component-level repair to military electronics technicians.

Dahlen has returned to his Northern Minnesota home, completing a decades-long journey that began as a search for capacitors. Read his story here.

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抵抗分圧器の学習ガイド
Learning Companion for the Resistive Voltage Divider
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I’ll respectfully state that I believe such a view to be perilous at best.

It would appear to recommend that students make themselves subjugate to the machines and be conditioned to regard them as an authoritative source. Whether one thus conditioned represents a user or a tool seems debatable, and I struggle to imagine how one might make a student more easily replaceable by an AI than by training them to become dependent on such.

As for matters of pedagogical methodology and student engagement, I’d suggest there are issues of motivation and confusion of proxy for object afoot that the introduction of AI seems more likely to aggravate than moderate.

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Hello @rick_1976,

Agree with your reservations and would point to the hedge in the original post:

If learner is honest and not satisfied with just finishing the assignment.

To add more fuel to this fire, I learned that OpenAI has added a “study mode” to GPT. It performs using an interactive Socratic method.

Yet, I wonder if professors will leverage this tool to align students to the material. At the same time, I wonder what is lost in the art of critical thinking and rhetoric.

May you live in interesting times.

Cordially,

Aaron

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I think so long as it is used as a tool to facilitate learning as @APDahlen explained, then we can benefit from it greatly. This points to the same dilemma as when the first phones came out. Such tech was a means for facilitating ease of communication at an instant, connecting millions of people together from all areas of the world. However, such tech also has led to the decrease in the appreciation of the old traditional way of writing post cards, letters, etc. and has also led us to take for granted the depth that one goes in one’s effort to truly appreciate communication without it becoming a tool for distraction and rather facilitating disconnection with a reality that is away from the screen. In my opinion, it’s about how and why we use it keeping in mind that we at the end of the day use it for our benefit, and not the other way around.

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Thank you @patrickbassett28,

That’s the old saw; are we using AI or are we being used by the AI?

r/

APD