The challenge
Like his peers at Florida Southern College (FSC) and broadly across higher education, Professor Larry Young is navigating the choppy waters of generative AI in the classroom. Students increasingly turn to tools such as ChatGPT and Gemini to retrieve ready-made answers to difficult questions and concepts in their coursework. But quick wins can shortchange the deeper understanding and critical thinking they need to succeed — now and in the future.
The solution
Pearson’s AI-Powered Study Tool, available in select Pearson eTextbooks and MyLab® and Mastering® courses, is an ideal solution for Young. It provides individualized support, practice, and feedback to learners directly within their assigned materials.
With Pearson’s AI tools, Young — who teaches biology and A&P — can confidently bring AI into his classroom, using clear guardrails to support real learning and critical thinking, while giving students a strong starting point for success.
The story
A native of southern New Jersey, Young developed an early fascination with the natural world, including a passion for saltwater marshes. The diamondback terrapin was especially fascinating to him because its unique physiology allows it to thrive in an environment that fluctuates multiple times daily due to changing tides. The terrapin found its sweet spot in the brackish marsh, much like the one Young is finding with generative AI in the classroom.
To Young, the challenge of AI in the classroom aligns with a familiar trend.
“Higher education is slow to respond to social changes,” he says. “There’s a new application out there, such as ChatGPT, and students are fast on it. They’re looking to see how they can get through content more easily. They start using it before we know it’s out there. That puts us in higher ed behind the eight-ball because we don’t have the opportunity to get out ahead of that and say, ‘No, this is how it can be used beneficially.’”
Many of Young’s students are heading into careers in healthcare delivery, such as nursing and exercise science. He sees the danger of AI providing students with shortcuts to finishing their work.
“They’ve never thought about the question, they’ve never reviewed their notes, they never went back into their textbook or attempted to critically think about what the question is asking,” he says.
However, AI’s potential for overreach hasn’t prompted Young to banish it. Quite the opposite.
“We’re embracing it by putting up guardrails around what we want students to use it for,” says Young.
The approach resonates with students.
“They’re starting to see a more positive, healthy relationship with AI,” he says. “Because they’re seeing their instructor embracing it, they’re seeing how it can be beneficial, and they’re seeing how it can make them understand the concepts better. They’re starting to realize we can use this as a foundational tool that’s going to allow for more conversations, more engagement, more review, more self-reflection.”
Pearson pilot underscores student adoption of AI tool
For the Fall 2024 semester, Young’s Anatomy & Physiology students participated in a pilot around the AI-Powered Study Tool. During the pilot, student usage of the chatbot available within the eTextbook was tracked.
The tool’s “Explain” feature, which provides an AI-generated assist for breaking down concepts in the eTextbook, consistently ranked as the most used.
“A student says, ‘I’m having a hard time understanding action potential formation. Can you please explain this to me in a more detailed or concise way?’ The chatbot will go into the section and re-explain it to the student in a different format or a different wording separate from what was used in the textbook, and possibly a little different from what I have, giving them a third voice in how to understand it.”
Young says that’s a healthy, beneficial use of AI.
“They’re still doing the work, but it gives them a context,” he says. “It opens engagement and dialogue with me. It flips the script to, ‘I’m a partner in your education. I’m here to support you, and these are the tools we’re going to use.’”
Students can compare the notes they take during lectures or while studying to the explanations provided by the bot to identify concepts they may have missed.
“They’re reviewing and studying those gaps without them really knowing they’re doing it,” says Young. “They can have a more in-depth understanding about a topic that perhaps they didn’t realize they didn’t understand. That’s a beneficial, healthy way of using this technology. It’s taking all this content, and it’s giving them a starting point so that they’re not so overwhelmed.”
At the end of each exam, Young includes a “wrapper,” a meta-cognitive survey that asks students to reflect on how well they feel they did, what they did to prepare for the exam, and what they could do differently moving forward.
“When we looked at what activity students were doing to engage with the content, I was surprised by how many were using the AI feature in Pearson,” he says, “whether it’s to summarize a diagram, create review questions that they can study from, summarize part of the text, or create an outline of key points.”
For Young, that’s an AI win, and an exciting reason to continue its thoughtful adoption in the classroom.
“Students are actively using it to identify gaps in their learning and understanding, and they’re filling those gaps. They’re coming in less anxious; they’re coming in with a better sense of what they know and don’t know, and that’s translating into higher success on exams.”
