How to use AI as a teacher (for beginners)

Samantha Breuër is a psychology lecturer in the Liberal Arts and Sciences bachelor programme at Erasmus University College (EUC). She teaches courses including clinical psychology, clinical communication skills and social psychology. She recently attended the MicroLab How to use AI as a teacher (for beginners).

Samantha’s motivation to participate mainly came from curiosity: “In my personal life, I saw that AI was already being used a lot in other industries for work, for example in the IT sector. That got me thinking about how I could use this myself for education; After all, people often say that AI is the future and that it offers many possibilities. So, I was definitely interested, and especially curious about what I could do with it myself, and how it could be applied in my own courses."

Samantha: "The discussion about AI tends to be very black-and-white. On one side, there’s the perspective that AI is a threat, and on the other, the idea that AI is a fantastic innovation. The MicroLab showed me that there are many shades of grey between this black-and-white thinking, even in the implementation in education. Its use can be very intensive, but also much more modest. You really do have a choice in that."

The MicroLab not only brought new insights, but also inspired changes in her teaching. This academic year, Samantha implemented AI in the Clinical Communication Skills course, using ChatGPT as a conversation partner: "Clinical Communication Skills is a course where students learn to communicate with clients in a professional manner. Online counseling is currently growing rapidly within the healthcare industry, but of course, that is difficult to mimic in a class. During the MicroLab, I talked to the trainers about the possibility of using ChatGPT as a conversation partner: By giving ChatGPT instructions to pretend to be a client with specific questions or issues, the students were able to actually practice online counseling."