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A subject coordinator at TD School, the home of transdisciplinary education and research, explains why he converted written assigments to a visual artefact.
Academic in focus
Samuel Yu is the subject coordinator of a brand new TD School subject 95006 TD: Envisioning futures worth wanting.
The LX.lab has been working with Sam as part of its AiR (Academic in Residence) program. The AiR (Sam) receives practical support and expertise for their learning and teaching project, and for sharing its outcomes within and beyond UTS.
The challenge
Samual Yu’s subject ‘Envisioning futures worth wanting’ asks students to think critically about the future. Until recently this subject, and others in the TD space, had been heavily reliant on written assessment tasks. These were potentially open to academic dishonesty using AI.
Objective
To test the limitations of ChatGPT and then redesign assessments based on the results.
AI results
One of Sam’s subject assessments asks students to envision the future of the City of Sydney local area. This includes analysing emerging trends. When Sam asked ChatGPT to complete the written assignment, he was surprised at the rapid output. The result was a decent ‘pass’ result. So Sam set about changing the assessment from a wholly written task to a visual artefact.
The task
Sam has developed a task that requires students to produce a visual artefact instead of a written report. The artefact is a rich picture that requires students to take a step beyond research and contextualise this research. The system map structure of the image prompts students to engage with the course content and layer their synthesised knowledge to it.
What next?
Sam has rewritten the rubric and marking criteria to fit the new assessment format. He collaborated with four other course coordinators in TD on the assessment redesign. Three subjects had run before, while Sam’s subject is running for the first time in Autumn 2023 with five tutors and one co-coordinator. He shared the assessment briefing document with them, which served as an overarching guideline for both tutors and students. The document was also shared in Canvas for comment by the students.
Sam is keen on establishing a space for open dialogue between students and the teaching team. He has developed a guide encouraging students to try out AI, drawing their attention to its limitations.