I have reported final grades for the semester and am more or less ready to close the book on my teaching for spring 2024.
I taught three classes—an introductory survey of United States history after the Civil War (Hist 2302); an upper-division course on labor history (Hist 4336 Work, Wealth, and Power); and the senior capstone research seminar for majors (Hist 4300)—and enjoyed each of them.
The specter of generative artificial intelligence hovered over several core assignments. I sometimes wondered whether student authors wrote the text or copied it from a chatbot. I have revised many assignments to emphasize student ideas, but I still have work to do thinking about the promises and perils of teaching history in the age of AI.
Right now, the key question for me is, when is AI a useful tool that can be helpful, and when is it not? Textbook publishers have celebrated AI in marketing email messages as they rush to appear on the cutting edge. (The cutting edge of what, I do not really know. I haven’t assigned a traditional textbook in years.) Technologists and computer programmers have invoked biggest-thing-since-fire rhetoric to suggest a revolutionary turning point in human history.
I probably need to take some time to figure out for myself what I think about the technology’s impact for students, teachers, and researchers of history. I’m also curious about the political economy of artificial intelligence.
I’ll return to some of these questions this summer as I prepare fall courses. For today, though, I’m celebrating the close of another semester.
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