From Recycled Exams to Authentic Assessment: The transformative push of AI in Higher Education

The rapid rise of generative AI programs has prompted an increased focus on cheating. As a result, instructors frequently ban the use of these programs, while, ironically, using plagiarism detectors and online proctoring involving generative AI to prevent students from using it. Innovators and early adopters of generative AI have already begun creating authentic assignments that leverage the strengths of AI, prompting the students to think critically about the problem solving their disciplines require. Nevertheless, there is a significant gap between these technophiles and the majority. With the pace of generative AI development, educational developers cannot wait for the majority to catch up with the technophiles in changing assessment in the context of generative AI.  

The solution is clear: instructors need to be supported in creating authentic assessments that account for the strengths of generative AI. Authentic assessment involves assignments with real-world relevance and active student engagement in analysis, evaluation, and creation, using multiple forms of evidence and personal experience. The challenge with these types of assessments is that they require not only analysis of the course material but also a change in how the students engage with the course materials. This is both intellectual and emotional labor.  

To support instructors in this complex labor, educational developers need to address the emotional labor of moving to authentic assessments and folding generative AI into the learning process. Creating instructor learning communities or communities of practice, rather than single presentation workshops, addresses the need for community support and the elevation of competence of learning in a social context. In these discussion-oriented learning sessions, instructors can address their fears of cheating and changing deeply rooted academic tradition. Also, these social learning settings can allow experienced instructors to create value through shared experiences and discipline specific case studies, addressing the intellectual load of transitioning to authentic assessment while providing emotional ballast. Ultimately, it is social settings that allow instructors to have agency, both as learners and educators, in driving and shaping the transformation of assessment in a rapidly evolving educational landscape.