Gary Huff
Lynn Dickinson
Lynn Dickinson's book "How to Use Chat GPT as a Teaching Assistant"
AI, a new world
Artificial intelligence is transforming how we learn, and Santa Monica College’s course Education 50: Teaching in the Age of AI enables the college’s instructors to leverage the technology’s benefits for students while preserving academic integrity.
“It’s about understanding AI’s impact on teaching and learning, and learning how to use it ethically and effectively,” says Gary Huff, SMC’s Education/Early Childhood Education Department chair, who co-teaches the course with author and Media Studies Professor Lynn Dickinson.
Offered online, the three-unit course is open to all educators, as well as anyone wanting to understand how AI can be used to enhance teaching. Gary based its curriculum on Lynn’s book How to Use ChatGPT (and Other Large Language Models) as a Teaching Assistant (opens in new window) . So, it was only natural that he asked her to help teach the course — and that her book be assigned as required reading.
“It’s kind of scary to have a class where all your students are professors,” Lynn jokes. But no concern was needed. The course filled to its initial capacity of 45 students within hours of opening for enrollment, and the response has been overwhelmingly positive.
Gary adds that, at the time they launched EDUC 50, a national survey showed that some 85 percent of higher education students were using ChatGPT but that only 15 percent of faculty had explored those tools. “That was eye-opening,” he says.
Expanding Horizons
The course covers topics such as how AI can be used to enhance lesson plans, improve teaching efficiency and personalize learning. “We’re teaching educators to better prepare students for the workforce, where AI is already becoming a crucial skill,” Gary says. “We can’t teach in the same way that we always have. Traditional education doesn’t necessarily work in the age of AI, so there needs to be an evolution of pedagogy.”
He says that some of the educators in the course were concerned about AI diminishing students’ critical thinking and writing skills because of too much reliance on AI. “In reality, AI can actually enhance those skills,” he explains. “You need to be a fairly solid writer to craft effective prompts, and you need to be a good critical thinker to evaluate output from AI. So those skills are still important. We just need to teach them in a different way.”
The course’s practical focus is one of its strengths, according to Lynn. “Once faculty realize how much time AI can save them and how it improves the quality of brainstorming and lesson planning, they don’t want to go back to the old way of doing things,” she says. “It’s like telling a math professor not to use a calculator — those days are gone. AI represents a huge sea change in education.”
SMC Computer Information Systems Professor Gerry Clark was part of the inaugural class of students. “I’d been interested in AI since it came on the scene and had been experimenting with it myself,” he says. Even with prior experience, Gerry found that the course expanded his notions about AI’s uses and value.
“The course has encouraged me to use interactive chats to let AI refine itself in helping shape my ideas into whatever I want,” he explains. “So now I use AI in a more comprehensive manner.” Even so, the results of each task remain of the users’ design and making, because AI must always be applied with care, specificity and honesty, he notes.
Genesis and Growth
The idea for the course developed after Gary noticed an almost-overnight improvement in students’ assignments. Having recently revised his curriculum, he attributed this to his own hard work — until a realization dawned. “It was students who had caught on to ChatGPT and what it could do for them in terms of generating text and helping with homework,” he says.
Realizing he needed a crash course to cope with this technology, he bought his colleague Lynn’s book. “I read it without stopping,” Gary recalls. “What she wrote is so practical and hands-on that I could begin using it right away in my own classes.”
With Lynn’s book in hand and the desire to craft a course in mind, Gary turned to his fellow SMC faculty for an interdisciplinary focus. “I had partners in the distance education department and professional development and worked with academic affairs and career education.” Lynn’s involvement completed the partnership, and EDUC 50 was born.
Used carefully, AI can bolster knowledge across a spectrum of subjects, Gary and Lynn say. For example, Gary shares an example from one of his own hobbies: “I have a ChatGPT bot set up as my Korean language partner. We have conversations back and forth in Korean, and it corrects my grammar and my pronunciation, and it introduces me to vocabulary, and then it summarizes it for me. And since ChatGPT learns as you use it — as do other AI platforms — it becomes more sophisticated about a topic with each prompt submitted.”
Writing the Book on AI
Lynn had been a sought-after expert on AI even before How to Use ChatGPT was first printed. In fact, that’s how the book came about. When organizers of a national AI conference asked her to be its keynote speaker, they also asked if she had published any books on AI in education so they could have something to promote.
Lynn, being an experienced author and educator, said, “Give me a month.” But more important than that deadline, she says, “I wrote the book to answer the most frequent questions everyone was asking me.”
Powered by Lynn and Gary’s combined skills — and cross-disciplinary input from fellow faculty — EDUC 50 is so popular that they doubled the offering to two sections for the spring 2025 semester, both of which are already full. And it may expand further as demand keeps growing. Gary and Lynn are also considering sharing their curriculum with other institutions. “The need is vast, and we can’t teach everybody throughout the state who needs this training,” Gary notes, adding that faculty who are interested in signing up for the Spring ’25 course can always reach out to him via SMC email.
Meeting that goal includes gearing the online, asynchronous course to account for teachers’ busy schedules — whether at the high school or college level. “One of the many great things about Gary and Lynn and what they did in the course is they understand that every one of their students is an instructor, and we’re facing the same sort of time challenges,” Gerry says.
Advantages and Advances
Classmates also benefit from each other’s knowledge and teaching methods, Lynn observes. “I’m actually learning a lot about pedagogy from Gary,” she notes as an example.
Still, the course is only the first stop to preparing educators for the changes and challenges of leveraging AI. Fortunately, it is just one part of SMC’s commitment to fostering AI literacy, addressing ethical concerns about the technology and enhancing its uses for improving students’ futures. This includes potentially building on EDUC 50’s foundation to develop a certificate in the educational use of AI.
“Every day we learn about new tools and advances,” Gary notes. “So, I think that what may follow on are deeper dives into specific types of AI tools and how that can be integrated into different disciplines across higher education,” he adds.
“I really enjoyed the class, and I got out of it as much as I could have hoped to get out, and the great thing was a lot of practical stuff that I not only can use, but am using in my classes right now,” Gerry says.
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SMC in Focus Volume XI, Issue 2
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AI for Educators
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Haute-to-Go at SMC
Produced annually by SMC’s Photography & Fashion Department, the LA Mode Fashion Show of today is practically a de rigeur rite of passage for aspiring designers at the College. Read Article
When Trauma Makes You Better
For 25 years Dorothy Chin has peeled back the layers of the human psyche to curious Corsairs. Since the pandemic, she’s discovered a new layer in her own mind—and it’s a gamechanger. Read Article
Bragging Rights
The SMC Foundation organizes a multi-day distribution drive for those affected by the LA fires. A journalism instructor elected regional director for National Association of Black Journalists. Read Article
Spider-Man, the Musical?
Ye Dyke’s first audition felt like a botched tryout reel from America’s Got Talent. But this student from Myanmar—who’d never been inside a theatre—wouldn’t let a first setback get in the way. Read Article