Addressing Complex Social Issues in the Age of Generative Artificial Intelligence

• In Event: Confronting Complex Educational Challenges in Instructional Design and Technology Research and Practice

Abstract

Michele is a Professor of Learning Design and Technology, and Academic Unit Head of the Learning, Technology and Leadership Education (LTLE) department at James Madison University. The department is home to mostly graduate programs including a new doctoral degree with concentrations that explicitly foster equity in education through curricular and leadership development. These programs are a bold step toward addressing inequities and related social issues in educational practice. For prospective doctoral students from the field of learning design and technology, the degree represents a step toward generating the research (Reeves and Lin, 2020) and design models (Moore, 2021) we need to address complex social issues in education. With 30 years’ experience in the field of learning, design and technology, Michele believes that diverse groups of individuals such as practitioners and researchers are uniquely qualified to analyze complex problems in education and society, ask and respond to big questions, and apply rigorous solutions through research and innovation, in practice. Even so, this can be complicated; and innovations often emerge outside education, sometimes magnifying accessibility and equity issues in our field. For example, the rapid and widespread adoption of ChatGPT after its public release by OpenAI amplified an existing divide between early adopters and laggards in education, raising ethical questions about GAI as both an assistant for deep learning and efficient problem solving, and an undetectable plagiarism technology, among other things. Dr. Estes serves on her university’s President’s Task Force for Artificial Intelligence; and has led the development of generative artificial intelligence guidelines for the College of Education. She has created and delivered professional learning experiences on the use and applications of GAI in education for college administrators, faculty, staff, and secondary teachers in various disciplines. As a consultant, she creates school safety media for various professional learning initiatives - most recently co-generating 1,000+ GAI images for the P-5 Be Safe Virginia curriculum that will be shared with school systems throughout the Commonwealth. These experiences contribute to a practical understanding of the technology, adjacent to her theoretical interests. Access is a nuanced term (Rieber and Estes, 2017) that arguably relates to an increase or decrease in equity and power. While learner-centered research methods such as design-based research (West and Christensen, 2013), and learner and user experience research (Schmidt, Tawfik, Jahnke, and Earnshaw, 2020) hold promise for the study of social issues in education, a theory of access - with principles for application in practice - is important for the systematic and progressive study of issues by diverse teams, in times of rapid change.

Michele’s portion of the symposium will center on complex social issues and the need for a theory of access in the age of generative artificial intelligence.

Author

• Michele D. Estes, James Madison University