A $750,000 National Science Foundation grant will enable three discipline-based education research (DBER) faculty members at Cornell to study the use of artificial intelligence tools that support student reflection and build critical thinking skills. 

“In the age of generative AI in education, students’ development of critical thinking skills is a major concern,” said Alexandra Werth, assistant professor of biomedical engineering and member of the Duffield Engineering Education Research Institute, the principal investigator on the grant. “Students can use these tools to circumvent or outsource the reasoning processes through which critical thinking skills are developed, allowing generative AI to make decisions for them. At the same time, since generative AI can produce inaccurate or fabricated information, students need critical thinking to determine what to question, what to verify, what to believe and how to act.”

With this project, Werth and collaborators in biology and physics are investigating whether generative AI can be leveraged to develop students’ critical thinking skills by prompting reflection on daily lectures and labs. Co-PIs on the project are Natasha Holmes, the Ann S. Bowers Associate Professor of physics in the College of Arts and Sciences (A&S), and Michelle Smith, Distinguished Professor of Arts & Sciences and Senior Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education (A&S).

The heart of the project is the Automated Critical Thinking Reflection (ACTR) tool, which uses generative AI to provide personalized interaction a human instructor might give. The interdisciplinary project, engaging students in physics, biology and engineering courses, will evaluate the role of AI for education research while also using the AI systems to build student reflection skills. 

Read the full story on the College of Arts and Sciences website.