HOW can universities preserve authentic learning when artificial intelligence (AI) can practically perform the tasks that students traditionally do?
The University of Asia and the Pacific (UAandP) opened its classes a little more than a month ago with clear guidelines to preserve university learning amid AI’s growing role in education: Protect students’ attention. Rethink AI-era assessments. Allow responsible AI use.
UAandP’s ‘Policy on Authentic Learning in the Age of AI,’ rolled out in July, affirms the university’s mission of forming the whole person while acknowledging AI’s transformative presence in the educational landscape.
Gadget-free environments
ONE of the policy’s most concrete measures is adopting a gadget-free classroom as a general rule. Junior college and undergraduate students are expected to refrain from using mobile phones, tablets, laptops, smartwatches, and other personal electronic devices during class-unless the instructor expressly authorizes them for legitimate pedagogical purposes.
‘Students have the habit of clicking, scrolling, or swiping in tabs while classes are ongoing,’ observed Vice President for Academic and Faculty Affairs Dr. Fe Gladys Golo. ‘We want students to understand that focused concentration, human connection, and deep thinking matter more than screens.’
‘[Research also] shows that handwriting activates a broader network of brain regions associated with motor control, sensory perception, and higher cognitive functions,’ Dr. Golo continued. ‘Between typing and handwriting, students will benefit more if they practice their handwriting again, turn real paper pages, and converse with one another while in the classrooms.’
While faculty members may permit the use of electronic devices for a clear educational purpose, periods of device-free learning are encouraged to cultivate sustained attention, meaningful conversations, and genuine human interactions in and out of the classroom.
Authentic assessments
THE policy also calls on faculty members to use assessments that require students to exercise their own understanding, judgment, critical thinking, and abilities.
Faculty members may use assessment strategies that include oral examinations, presentations, in-class writing, case discussions, practical demonstrations, supervised exercises, and reflective work.
‘Recitations and group work, where students simulate that they are like a teacher to their classmates, favor the gadget-free guideline,’ said Fr. Gary Soria, who has been teaching The Apostle’s Creed and Christian Moral Life to junior college students for more than a decade. ‘Including a mini lecture in between interventions, as the students proposed, seems to get the attention of most students.’
Responsible use of AI
UNDER the new policy, the responsible use of AI is permitted by default-unless the instructor prohibits it. However, students remain accountable for the accuracy and integrity of all work submitted in their name.
Submissions with material AI assistance must include an ‘AI Disclosure Statement.’ Faculty members are also expected to communicate course-specific permissions or restrictions on AI use to their students.
While the policy stresses disclosing and citing AI use in detail, the university is not trying to police student outputs but to promote independent and critical thinking at the heart of liberal education.
‘We want to train students to think, create, imagine, and problem-solve,’ Dr. Golo concluded.
The Policy on Authentic Learning in the Age of AI, which applies to UAandP’s junior college and undergraduate programs, does not ordinarily cover graduate, executive, professional, and other continuing education programs-unless otherwise determined by the dean or head of the concerned academic unit.