Introduction to Generative AI in Assessments: Using GenAI to Generate an Assessment

10. Using GenAI to Generate an Assessment

Now that you have perused a list of human-created assessment ideas where students use GenAI, consider using GenAI to come up with additional suggestions and customizing them to your discipline and your class. In other words, let’s use GenAI as a design assistant in creating an assessment for your course.

LEARN

Here are some ideas generated by GPT-4.0 in a variety of disciplines. You will notice that the GenAI suggested using many different GenAI tools that we haven’t yet covered.

If you don’t know where to start, take a look at the following examples. They show the prompts and responses obtained using Bing in Creative Mode (GPT-4.0, August 2023). Note that what’s shown below are static responses. In a real conversational chat, you can ask the GenAI to modify its response to align more closely with what you want. Through this back-and-forth, the GenAI’s responses become progressively closer to your expectations. This is not captured below – what’s shown is only the first response. However, much can be learned about how a GenAI responds to a prompt from this information.

The first list of examples below (Brainstorming Assessment Ideas) shows prompts and responses with the goal of brainstorming ideas of alternative assessments where students must use GenAI.

As you review these examples, pay attention to the prompts (what was provided and requested) and how the GenAI responded to the prompt. Try to articulate what you observed about how the GenAI responds to what it was asked to do. Use what you learn from these examples to craft a prompt that will give you the type of response that is most helpful to you, in your context.

The second list of examples (Developing an Assessment Idea) shows prompts that request more details about a specific assessment activity. Note that the author of these example prompts is unfamiliar with the academic disciplines used in these examples, so please forgive any disciplinary errors in these prompts.

Now it’s your turn. Using a GenAI tool of your choice (e.g., ChatGPT or Bing) to either brainstorm ideas for using an alternative assessment in your course where students use a GenAI tool, or dive deeper into an idea that you have for a specific assessment.

One word of warning about using GenAI to generate such assignment ideas...
If you tried to track down some of the GenAI tools mentioned in the responses above (which were generated with Bing in Creative Mode), you may have noticed that the AI hallucinated the tools and they do not exist...! So a lesson here would be to use the more "creative" settings (like Bing in Creative Mode) to create an assignment idea. But then use the less "creative" settings (such as Bing in Precise Mode) to find potential tools (that actually exist) to support your assignment. Another approach is to use repositories of GenAI tools to find the one you need for the assignment. Two comprehensive ones are:

REFLECT

Using the tool. Take a moment to reflect. What did you learn about using a GenAI tool effectively to generate an assessment idea for your class. What worked and didn’t work? What do you want to remember about using this tool for this purpose in the future?

Assessment idea. From your explorations and experimentations with GenAI, did you find an idea for an alternative assessment that uses GenAI that has merit? Is there one idea you would like to flesh out in more depth this week? It’s okay if you don’t have one yet, but if you do, be sure to capture it somewhere, so that you can continue to work on it this week.