Artificial intelligence is in McMaster’s classrooms and taking tasks away from its teaching assistants
By: Kate Linardic, Opinion Contributor
Artificial intelligence is beginning to integrate itself into life at McMaster and recently it has encroached upon our pipettes and Erlenmeyer flasks. Stemble is an AI grading software being used by the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology in its Level I courses to ease the burden of large class sizes.
Once the responsibility of paid teaching assistants, Stemble has absorbed the job of marking post-lab assignments and homework in Level I chemistry courses. The ability of AI models like Stemble to take on more responsibility is only increasing.
Level I chemistry midterms and final examinations have long been graded using scantrons. This was done to offload the work of grading, leaving teaching assistants with the responsibilities of attendance-taking, laboratory supervision and assignment-marking.
But can AI fully replace TAs? The answer is complicated.
AI is being rapidly welcomed into workplaces and schools while regulations are struggling to keep up. Its appeal is the opportunity it provides employers to reduce labour costs.
In academia, services like Stemble enable departments to cut back on the number of hours spent grading in TA job descriptions. Meanwhile, the cost of Stemble pops up as a separate subscription fee to be paid for by students.
Despite the benefits of AI grading for the university, there is an element of humanity innate to teaching that is not quite yet able to be replicated by AI.
There is an element of humanity innate to teaching that is not quite yet able to be replicated by AI.
A 2023 study at the University of Queensland found that 55 per cent of its global respondents were not yet comfortable with AI taking on people-management roles, like that of supervising undergraduate students performing titrations in the A.N. Bourns Building chemistry labs.
In its 2024 report, the World Economic Forum found that it is unlikely that current AI developments will impact the interpersonal aspects of teaching or replace the need for direct interactions between teaching assistants and students. It appears that a person-to-person connection adds something distinctly valuable to the learning process and remains a practice which still requires both participants to in fact be persons.
With these aspects considered, AI is unlikely to result in major job losses for the time being, meaning chemistry TAs can rest assured that they have a few more years of answering the same questions about where students can put their glassware at the end of a lab.
However, this may only hold true for the time being. The AI industry is only starting to pick up steam and new technology is developed every day. But even if AI’s teaching capacities improve, it cannot be a role model for students pursuing academia the way that student-TAs can.
TA positions also give students a critical opportunity to try teaching and mentoring, something that those pursuing academia will possibly be expected to engage in depending on where they find work. It serves as a trial run for those who may see themselves as future professors and instructors. If TA positions were to disappear, so would the opportunities for students to gain experience in teaching and mentoring others.
TA positions give students a critical opportunity to try teaching and mentoring.
Student TAs have an intrinsically human element to offer undergraduate students, unlike their environmentally damaging AI counterparts. And yes, AI may soon develop such “human” abilities, too, but there is no need to rush into that future when the alternative is continuing to grant real chemistry students an opportunity to share their knowledge with others.
McMaster should continue to take care when investing in AI like Stemble. In an increasingly atomized world, keeping open avenues for communal learning at McMaster should be regarded as important as ever.
By: Graham West
After a tremendous end to the season in which the men’s water polo team won bronze and the women’s water polo team finished fifth at the Ontario University Athletics tournament, the team looks to have a great season ahead next year, guided by the water polo OUA Coach of the Year Quinn Fairley.
This is the fourth time coach Fairley has received this award, and when asked about what winning coach of the year meant to the venerated coach’s response was quick to point out how much the team was involved in the award.
“The team really looked together,” Fairley said. “The way the guys operated in the water, the way that they communicated with each other. They were just a really together unit, and for me to win Coach of the Year, it’s an absolute compliment to them.”
Part of coach Fairley’s success can be attributed to his past experience as a player for the McMaster water polo team.
“I can relate to exactly what they’ve done,” Fairley said. “Especially as a McMaster player, you know going through the OUA season, going through midterms and all of the external stresses that a varsity athlete would have.”
He took a different approach with playing time for the season, to get more players in the pool. This tactic was successful as the players believed in each other’s abilities to make an impact in the pool, even though some players received less playing time for the purpose of chemistry.
“When I think of character, we put in a different system of substituting,” Fairley said. “Which meant some people actually played less than they might have in years past, because we just took a little different focus and a different way of going about it, and this is where the team brought in to it and then brought in to each other.”
Chemistry, camaraderie and depth are what coach Fairley attributes to their success during the season and at the OUA championship. Utilizing everyone's capabilities and having a great foundation of trust in all of his players, regardless of experience, has been a great contribution to the water polo teams.
“What we’re building on more so is camaraderie, using a couple of key pieces but, the other side of our team especially by the minutes and by playing time we were without a doubt one of the deeper teams in the league,” Fairley said. “We made a huge step in culture, we made a huge step in the way that we operate together, and that’s really what the result is.”
After battling through adversity such as injuries and other issues over the past few seasons, getting a medal at the OUA tournament was really important to many players on the team. As something that has escaped the team for a few years, making the podium was definitely one of the highlights of the tournament.
“We’ve had teams that I’ve thought, and think still to this day, should have medaled prior to this year for circumstances, whether it be a poor performance or injuries or whatever, we just never got it done,” Fairley said.
The water polo teams will look to repeat their success next year, building off of this year’s newfound success while continuing the new culture of trust developed by coach Fairley as they strive to receive a medal once more.
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