Not-So-Artificial Intelligence: Teaching and Learning AI Literacy in a PME Community
Air University Public Affairs
Video by Michael Tate
Dec. 8, 2023 | 01:01:39
Kate Egerton, Aileen Houston, Dr. Sandra Leavitt, & Ms. Chloe Woida
Adult learners in professional military education (PME) need both autonomy and community to achieve learning, writing, and professional goals, especially in demanding graduate programs. The acceleration of artificial intelligence (AI) presents opportunities and challenges in PME contexts. Success depends on whether students, instructors, and writing centers can collaborate to understand and creatively engage with AI, which will likely become critical for maintaining military advantage where arguably humans remain more important than technology. As an entry point into this discussion, we examine student intake assessments and exit surveys at the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS), and the perspectives these instruments reveal about student learning and development of critical thinking skills. As mid-career military officers and graduate students, NPS learners are collaborative stakeholders in their education. In the wake of ChatGPT’s launch, AI literacy has emerged as both a desired learning outcome for students and a critical capability for educators. Defining AI literacy is useful, but definitions vary across disciplinary and professional contexts. We consider how military priorities to develop AI capabilities
across the ranks compare/contrast with other efforts to capture essential AI skills and abilities.
As generative AI consumes all the oxygen in the room, it’s important to remember the role AI already
plays in learning and teaching. At the NPS Graduate Writing Center, AI-powered plagiarism detection
software is used as a tool for learning and skill-building around attribution and academic integrity, and requires a team approach among students, writing coaches, and faculty. Finally, we turn our focus to the classroom, the front line of generative AI integration. Here, opportunities for supporting AI literacy proliferate through active engagement and discussion that emphasizes
critical thinking and creativity. The way students respond to outputs and academic scenarios related to generative AI use provides valuable insights for effective AI integration in PME. More