A study at MIT has found that Generative AI tools are having a significant impact on the way students are learning. That’s not terribly surprising in of itself, but the report presents data and results that support the assertion and makes suggestions about what to do about it.

Skipping to the end of the report, in summary:

Adapt educational processes for an AI-aware world (Section 3.1)

Campus-wide and as soon as possible, review what our students need to learn. Led by instructors and departments, this “AI-aware” process will inform the design of classroom activities that are more social and experiential, and in tune with innovative assignments and assessments that provide feedback on those key student outcomes. This will also require an investigation into the nature of grades and grading.

• Facilitate this process by providing instructors with dedicated resources (for example, additional TAs) and by adapting physical spaces for experimentation, community-building, and AI-free interaction and assessment.
• Create “communities of practice” at MIT that allow members to share challenges and findings, as well as tools and techniques to improve teaching and learning.
• Center people, community, and the residential experience (Section 3.2)

Reinvigorate and reclaim the residential experience based on shared experiences, transparency, and a focus on in-person activities.

• Thoughtfully integrate AI literacy and responsible and ethical AI use as a foundation and throughline for student work, attending closely to how it connects to specific disciplines. This will demand technical proficiency, of course, but it hinges on adopting a human-centered approach to AI as an augmentative tool.
• Build processes, teams and tools to enable continuous reflection, iteration and improvement (Section 3.3)

Establish roles, processes, and ongoing committees to address these challenges.

• Collect feedback and data, stay apprised of research and best practices, connect with peers and learn from them.
• Provide technical and educational support to enable all of this.
• In addition, we identify a set of concerns about the wider impact of AI on society, jobs, the environment, and more, that also bear on our on-campus AI policy.

There’s tons more here. If you’re involved in teaching or in education (board service, classroom work, testing, etc) you need to read and digest this report. I’m active in all three areas so this is a goldmine for me. Pass it around to people who need to see it.