Welcome to EPOL 490: Generative AI in Education. This course explores the rapidly evolving landscape of AI in learning contexts, combining technical understanding with critical perspectives.
Course Overview
How did we get here? And where are we going? This course examines:
- The historical development of AI and its connections to learning theory
- Technical foundations of machine learning and transformers
- Human-AI communication and prompt engineering
- Alignment, ethics, and critical perspectives on AI
- Accelerationism and visions of AI futures
Weekly Structure
- Week 1: Pathways to AI - History and Foundations
- Week 2: How Does a Machine Learn?
- Week 3: How Do We Talk to AI?
- Week 4: Supervised, Unsupervised and Reinforcement Learning
- Week 5: The Problem(s) of Alignment
- Week 6: Accelerate Now! Futures and Manifestos
- Week 7-8: Cybernetic Societies - Preparing People and Machines
Key Questions
- What does it mean for both humans and machines to “learn”?
- How do we talk to AI, and what does “talk” mean?
- What values should we align AI to?
- What is our collective manifesto for AI in education?
Assessment
- Blogposts and weekly engagement
- AI-reviewed draft submission
- Peer review participation
- Final publication
Learning objectives
- Understand the history and development of artificial intelligence
- Gain intuition about how machine learning works
- Critically evaluate AI alignment and ethics
- Apply AI tools thoughtfully in educational contexts
Course materials
Lecture notes and workshop materials from this course.
- Gen AI - Week 1 - Pathways to AI
- Gen AI - Week 2
- Gen AI - Week 3
- Gen AI - Week 4
- Gen AI - Week 5
- Gen AI - Week 6
- Gen AI - Week 6
- Week 1
- How does a Machine Learn?
- How Do We Talk to AI?
- Pavlovian Machines? Supervised, Unsupervised and Reinforcement Learning
- “The Problem(s) of Alignment”
- Accelerate Now!
- Cybernetic Societies - How do We Prepare People? And Machines? And People?
Reading list
- Artificial Intelligence in the Long View (2022)
- On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots (2021)
- How to Do Things With Words (1962)