A few weeks ago, Educause published an article by entitled “Framing Generative AI in Education with the GenAI Intent and Orientation Model.”
The article discussed the potential of generative AI (GenAI) in education and introduced the above framework to help understand and implement GenAI in teaching and learning contexts. This model aimed to provide clarity on how GenAI could be used effectively in education by considering two key aspects: the intent behind the interaction (whose purpose is driving it) and the orientation of the interaction (who is directly interacting with the AI system).
The model outlined four modes of GenAI interaction in education:
- Instructor Assistant (instructor intent, instructor-oriented)
- GenAI supports the instructor’s objectives directly.
- Instructor Proxy (instructor intent, learner-oriented)
- GenAI acts on behalf of the instructor while interacting with learners.
- Learner Proxy (learner intent, instructor-oriented)
- GenAI advocates for the learner while communicating with the instructor.
- Learner Assistant (learner intent, learner-oriented)
- GenAI serves as a personal tutor for the learner.
Using case studies, the authors argued that this model could help novice users of GenAI in educational settings to think more critically about their use of AI-based activities and create more purposeful learning experiences. They suggested that as GenAI technology evolves, this model will remain useful in guiding educators and learners towards creating well-informed learning activities with AI.
As I read this article, I could not help but think about the educational model that has guided me for the past decade or more – The Community of Inquiry Framework.
The Community of Inquiry theoretical framework represents a process of creating a deep and meaningful (collaborative-constructivist) learning experience through the development of three interdependent elements – social, cognitive, and teaching presence.
- Social presence is “the ability of participants to identify with the community (e.g., course of study), communicate purposefully in a trusting environment, and develop inter-personal relationships by way of projecting their individual personalities.”
- Teaching Presence is the design, facilitation, and direction of cognitive and social processes for the purpose of realizing personally meaningful and educationally worthwhile learning outcomes.
- Cognitive Presence is the extent to which learners are able to construct and confirm meaning through sustained reflection and discourse.
Importantly, the three presences are assumed to be present in both instructors and students…or as I used to tell my online students, we were all co-learners.
In comparing and contrasting the two models, there are some interesting alignments … as well as interesting differences. I think that the GenAI Intent and Orientation model could be enhanced by folding in aspects of the CoI framework.
Both models emphasize the important of interaction. Both provide for roles and presence implications. Both are focused on learning, and both could be applied to a variety of educational contexts, including online learning.
The GenAI model seems to emphasize the direction and purpose of interactions while the CoI model to me focuses more on the quality of the interactions. Also, the CoI model explicitly includes the process of constructing meaning through reflection and discourse, which is not directly addressed in the GenAI model.
If one integrated the CoI model into the GenAI model, one could add to the model the “social, cognitive and teaching presences” of the GenAI agent. One of Mollick’s four principles of AI use is to treat AI as a person…so one could not be more explicit in seeing a possible social presence role for GenAI. The back and forth discourse of GenAI could help build the cognitive presence in students. Instructors could through their prompting build community with their students through their use of GenAI. Finally, co-opting the idea of collaborative learning and shared meaning-making implicit in the CoI model might give the use of GenAI new avenues for instruction.
I believe that integrating aspects of the CoI model to the GenAI model would provide a more holistic view of learning. There is power in leveraging the strengths of GenAI with human collaboration. We now have the opportunity to explore the social, cognitive and teaching presence of not only instructors and students, but our GenAI agent as well!
I would be interested in your thoughts.
{Graphics: Dale Pike, Randy Garrison, DALL-E}