One Day Workshop on AI as an effective tool for teaching learning and Research

Report on Workshop on AI in Teaching, Learning and Research

A One day Workshop on AI in teaching, learning and research was conducted by IQAC in collaboration with Research and Development Cell, GDC Pampore on 18^th December 2024 at the College Conference Hall. The resource persons for the workshop were Dr Syed Nisar Bukhari Scientist – D at NIELET Srinagar and Dr Mutahhar, Assistant Professor PG Dept. of Computer Science, GDC Baramulla. The event was moderated by Dr Iqbal Malik, HOD Islamic Studies and reported by Dr Huzaifa Pandit, Assistant Professor, English. The workshop was attended by 46 faculty members of the college.

The workshop commenced with an introduction of its scope and aims by the moderator, following which a welcome address was delivered by the Principal Prof. Saffiya Khalil. In her address, she highlighted the need of AI and its importance in pedagogy, especially in today’s age and era. She extended a hearty welcome to the experts and the participants. Technical sessions followed.

The first technical session was conducted by Dr Nisar, who began with an introduction to the ubiquity of AI in routine lives and therefore not a phenomenon divorced from our mundane realities. He began by providing an inventory of technologies like SMART Sense in our Washing Machines that employ algorithms to refine the washing experience. Accordingly a definition of AI was arrived at as a field of computer science that focuses on creating systems capable of performing tasks like recognizing patterns that typically require human intelligence, as opposed to automation that simply reduces effort and time after human inputs.

Accordingly, a detailed examination of the history of AI was undertaken with its roots in 1956 and a description of the stages of AI: Artificial Narrow Intelligence (Weak AI) like Alexa and Google Maps. In contrast strong AI involves machines that possess the ability to perform any intellectual task that a human being can like self driving cars or hospital operating rooms and Artificial Super Intelligence when the capability of computers will exceed that of humans, famously predicted by Elon Musk to occur around 2040. A real world example of AI was provided by alluding to IBM that uses AI Software for Medical Diagnosis or Google AI eye doctor that examines retina scans and identifies a condition called diabetic retinopathy that ultimately leads to blindness. The question, however is why is AI receiving so much attention lately. The answer is not straightforward rather led by several factors like increasing amount of data generation with a reduction in cost of sensors. Moreover the cost of storing this data and cost of computing has come down significantly, which in addition to the democratizing computer by Cloud.

The session next moved to distinguish between generative AI and Discriminative AI. The former uses AI to create new content based on patterns it has learnt from existing data e.g. Chat GPT. In contrast Discriminative AI uses data to predict and compute decisions that require a level of analysis and discrimination. After such a detailed introduction, the lecture moved to the main theme of the workshop – AI in Education wherein the various tools, capabilities and impact of AI was discussed to enable educators to personalize the educational experience. Such capabilities involve providing tailored learning experiences by accurately identifying learning gaps, performances, strengths and weaknesses to refine the lessons or practices activities to match the student capacities. AI can also be used to track progress by assessing how students perform in quizzes, assignments or exercises, adopting lessons and in turn in providing productivity and efficiency. A few such tools are audiopen that takes words and enhances them as it generates the text, which can be edited as per the need. Similarly Canva Magic Write inspires creativity in writing by providing lesson plans. Curipod similarly enables teachers to create interactive lessons in minutes by combing text, images and relevant content according to the level of teaching viz primary, secondary and higher education. A few more tools like Eduaide, Open AI, Sidesgo and Quizzz were also discussed. 

Further the AI tools for research were enumerated. Samwell AI for example instantly writes essays and paper sections in accordance with inputs provided for citations, word length and title. Semihuman. Ai bypasses AI detectors and humanizes texts to bypass the problem of plagiarism. Writerless AI creates High quality research papers that are well structured and coherent. A key component in research is Literature review. Litmaps and R discovery for example helped identify relevant papers, audi stream them, and translate them. Other platforms like Scite, Paperpal and Grammarly were also discussed. For statistics and mathematics platforms like Jullius were discussed. For languages tools like Lang Buddy and Bhashini – a Govt of India Initiative that focus on language learning, enhance cross cultural communications and textual language detection were also alluded to. indicAsr a speech dataset encompassing more than 7348 hours of natural and spontaneous speech from more than 16000 speakers across 238 languages were looked at. Other AI tools for various jobs like Resume writing, Blog writing. Summarising messages, video creation, copy writing and website generation were also discussed. A question and answer session followed wherein the faculty deliberated with the expert on questions like ethics, impact on ecology and emotional integration with AI.

The next session was delivered by Dr. Syed Mutahhar who talked on ‘leveraging AI for Teaching, learning and Research.” The resource person began with alluding to dystopian legends promoted by Science Fiction that inevitably creates a pejorative impression of AI. Therefore, technology needs first to be demystified in order to promote its acceptance. An overview of the objectives of AI was undertaken: understanding AI, identifying practical tools and ethical concerns in AI. A brief survey of milestones from 1996-2023 like Gary Kasprov’s loss to an IBM supercomputer (1996), launch of Google in 1998, IBM Watson’s victory at Jeopardy (2011) and passing of law, medical and business degree exams by ChatGPT (2023). AI therefore has emerged as a major disruptor of the status quo and emerged as a force to contend with. What should be the response to such a dominant force, the speaker asked poignantly: flight or fight.

Quoting from Churchill that we should never waste a good crisis, the correct response can never be to avoid the same. Reluctance towards technology is only akin to burying the head in the sand. Providing a historical allusion of the perils of reluctance, he alluded to the Ottaman empire’s resistance towards the printing press for fear of loss of jobs resulting in Europe taking a lead in knowledge generation. By the same analogy, fighting a 140$ Billion market is a project fraught with futility. The concerns about Ai however remain: Privacy and intellectual property, accuracy, bias, regulation and academic integrity. How then should we adapt to AI that these concerns are addressed. The obvious answer then is avoidance of Rote Learning and questions that don’t address the intellectual capacities of students, else students will find little use in taking the trouble to memorise dates and reproducing information that can be found easily on Chat GPT. The culture of learning will then have to be reinvented wholesale. Traditional methods of analyzing intelligence which traditionally favour memory, also need tinkering by emphasizing hands of experiences, focus on meaning and relevance, encouraging real-world connections, developing emotional intelligence by working on awareness, empathy and relationships, and importantly promoting creative and divergent thinking. Further the lecture enumerated AI tools like Chat GPT, Kahoot, Edmodo, Nearpod and research toolsd like Zoterop and Mendely.

The ethical considerations and challenges were addressed next. AI Tools collect large amounts of data, raising concerns about data misuse. Dependence on AI, Bias in AI models and Balancing AI and Human Input are important concerns that demand pressing engagement. The future of AI in education and research was also discussed with AI Tutors, Immersive Learning and AI-Powered Lab, offering fascinating possibilities for the future. The speaker concluded by highlighting that AI is not a replacement for human intelligence, and so the only viable option before it is to augment capabilities and creative thinking capacities.

A felicitation ceremony was held after the sessions, wherein the resource persons were bestowed with momentos to express the gratitude of the college towards the speakers. The workshop concluded with a vote of thanks delivered by Dr Pervez – HOD Urdu, who highlighted the role of stakeholders including the Principal, resource persons, faculty, audience, organizers, and those who worked tirelessly behind the scenes to make the event a success.