I’m really excited to announce that I won a Faculty Research Grant to study AI in education, which I am VERY excited about! Here’s an excerpt from my proposal:

Perhaps no topic of discussion has been more perplexing in the past five years than the use of generative AI (such as ChatGPT) in the classroom. Since OpenAI went public with ChatGPT in 2022, this software has entered into a kind of arms race in the technological sphere: who can integrate AI the most seamlessly into their existing technology and for the most commercial benefit? As a result, students (and professors) are bombarded with AI in their Google searches, their word processors, their phones, and their advertisements. In the classroom, this has resulted in students who seem boundlessly tempted by not only what AI does, but the linguistic dexterity with which it is done. A common refrain in my online classrooms is “I just thought what it said sounded so much better than anything I could write.” Desperate professors have equally argued that AI is the death of traditional educational assessment as we know it and that we must embrace it fully in the design and execution of our courses. But what if adaptation studies offers a different way of thinking about generative AI in the classroom? This project intervenes in a gap in humanities discussions of AI by suggesting that reframing AI as a collaborator rather than a tool may help clarify authorship and limit student misuse of these powerful platforms.

I’m really excited to use the funds to connect adaptation studies and pedagogy.