A Workshop on PowerNotes and AI in the Classroom
November 16, 2024 | 9:00 am – 3:30 pm | Strong Hall B1
Lunch and refreshments provided
Register Now: tiny.utk.edu/PN-AI-Workshop
Are you concerned about students generating textual output without making their own choices as thinkers and writers? Are you interested in approaches to using generative AI that assist rather than replace reading, research, and writing processes? Join us for a workshop on November 16 to learn how to bring more accountability and transparency into your classroom with PowerNotes, a powerful tool designed to support critical engagement with reading and writing.
What is PowerNotes?
PowerNotes is an effective tool that helps students better engage with their readings and research. It allows students to make AI queries to fill in gaps in background or historical context, better understand concepts and terminology, and gain a clearer sense of a reading’s complex organization. Students can integrate their notes and ideas seamlessly into their writing projects, making PowerNotes an invaluable part of the learning process.
PowerNotes’s basic features help students organize and synthesize their reading notes while working on any writing project that includes digitally available content. Students can share their notes and work-in-progress with instructors and peers for feedback, creating an interactive learning environment.
PowerNotes also offers AI-enabled features, such as “Brainstorm” and “Discovery,” which allow students to query ChatGPT 4.0 while reading. The “Insight” feature gives instructors a unique ability to view students’ text annotations and AI use throughout the reading and writing process, providing a window into student engagement and comprehension.
Why should you participate in the PowerNotes and AI Pilot?
The PowerNotes and AI Pilot’s goal is to explore the potential of this platform to:
- Support students’ increased critical engagement with essential course readings.
- Provide a writing environment where AI tools assist students’ research and writing processes rather than replace them.
Workshop highlights:
- Develop or refresh your own AI literacy.
- Learn how to integrate PowerNotes into your Canvas site for use in your Spring 2025 courses
- Discover how to use both basic and AI features to enhance reading and writing assignments.
- Create assignments that encourage students to engage deeply with course content.
- Discuss how to ensure accountability and transparency in AI use in the classroom.
- Certificate provided to instructors who complete the workshop and use PowerNotes in one or more Spring 2025 course(s).
This workshop, a joint effort of the College of Arts and Sciences, the Judith Anderson Herbert Writing Center, and UT Libraries, will equip you with the tools to ensure that AI supports rather than replaces students’ own thinking and writing processes.
What have past instructors said about using PowerNotes?
- “Teaching students how to read is a crucial element of teaching them how to write, so the PowerNotes annotation tools are really important.”
- Using PowerNotes “was a really good way to get students involved in sort of the disagreements within subtopics, like, you know, in the capital punishment debate. What are…10 philosophical disagreements? Very helpful. I thought.”
- “I showed them how to use the Philosopher’s Index, and that got them into the narrower context that I wanted them to be in, so in those assignments, I think the use of the AI was very successful, and I modeled that in class.”
- “I had my students use PowerNotes for secondary research; I think that’s the type of project PowerNotes is made for.”
- I like the fact that the AI was able to do what my students normally do. They were like, ‘Oh, this is a great paraphrase, I learned a lot from it.’ And then I pointed out, ‘Okay, but what’s the conclusion? Why does the author think that those reasons lead to that conclusion?’ And the AI had not answered any of those questions, right? So, it was a really useful demonstration.”
- “I had them using PowerNotes to make an informal annotated bibliography. So I had them highlighting and taking notes about things they were reading for a secondary source research project, and then we moved into using the AI Brainstorm feature a little bit, with the highlights to think about. We had it summarize, paraphrase, fact check, explain a passage in a layman’s terms.”
- “Most of the students used PowerNotes for brainstorming or for learning a little bit more about the specific genre they were writing. Some of them used it to make an outline. Most of them adapted what they found–added some research, took some stuff out because it wasn’t as important, or elaborated a little bit more.”
How have past students used the AI features of PowerNotes?
Students in last year’s PowerNotes Pilot courses described the ways in which they used AI to assist with various aspects of writing:
- Research assistance: Students say they appreciate how AI can facilitate research by suggesting relevant topics and helping formulate research queries.
- Clarifying prompts, getting started, & brainstorming: When they need help getting started, some students say they turn to AI for clarification of assignment prompts and brainstorming help. Some say they see value in using AI at the beginning stages of writing but that it’s better to rely on their individual efforts for the remainder of the process.
- Outlining & structuring written work:Some students say that using AI to help them create outlines is beneficial for organizing thoughts before getting into more detailed writing.
- Improving sentence structure & vocabulary using AI models: Some students say that comparing their own writing to AI-generated text helps them learn better sentence construction and vocabulary.
- Proofreading: Students mention that using AI to identify errors in their writing benefits them.
- Concerns: While students express many positive views about using AI, some express concerns about potential overuse, saying it could hinder creative thinking or originality. There are varying opinions about whether AI responses are too generic; some say they value their own originality over the convenience of AI. A few express doubts about how helpful AI is for improving their writing skills, saying it may not be worth the learning curve compared to its benefits.
Don’t miss this opportunity to explore how PowerNotes can transform your teaching and help your students become more engaged and thoughtful readers, researchers, and writers!
Register Now! tiny.utk.edu/PN-AI-Workshop
- Registration is open to all UTK faculty (professors, lecturers) and GTAs.
- Priority registration for College of Arts and Sciences faculty and GTAs: Friday, October 18, 2024
Photos:
- Ayres Hall at sunrise with the Smoky Mountains in the background on September 11, 2019. Photo by Steven Bridges/University of Tennessee
- Photo by Andras Vas on Unsplash
- Photo by Alessandro Bianchi on Unsplash