Professor and writer Ethan Mollick (Wharton School, UPenn) recently published a succinct and clear-eyed appraisal of what educators will face this fall as Generative AI engines become better and more available entitled “The Homework Apocalypse” on his site, One Useful Thing. To paraphrase, he says this fall will be a moment of immediate disruption, but massive opportunity.

What I think is most valuable about this piece for faculty is that he identifies the most common assignments educators give students that will be disrupted by AI and provides, in the clearest terms, our options for how to approach the disruption and threat that AI engines pose as they become free, good, and ubiquitous. His most optimistic options involve innovating to include some component of AI competency alongside or within our traditional assignments and then holding students accountable for the accuracy of the final products.  

Like others writing in this space recently, Mollick wants to frame the advent of free and accessible Generative AI as a moment for creativity and innovation in pedagogy. The examples he provides are helpful, concrete, and can be used as a springboard for your own creativity in assignment/assessment creation.

The Homework Apocalypse threatens a lot of good, useful types of assignments, many of which have been used in schools for centuries. We will need to adjust quickly to preserve [what] we are in danger of losing, and to accommodate the changes AI will bring. That will take immediate effort from instructors and education leaders, as well as clearly articulated policies around AI use. But the moment isn’t just about preserving old types of assignments. AI provides the chance to generate new approaches to pedagogy that push students in ambitious ways. 

Read more here: (LINK).