AI/TA

Next week marks the arrival of three new members of my teaching team at Zayed University: Salma, Yasmin, and Farah, AI teaching assistants built to live where students already spend a lot of their time, inside ChatGPT. This is a first-time experiment to see how an always-available, course-specific assistant can help students stay on track, stay creative, and keep moving forward.

The goal is not to replace me… not yet! Instead, these AI TAs will work alongside me to guide students through the creative process, answer course-related questions, and suggest next steps when ideas stall. Armed with syllabi, assignment briefs, rubrics, and other key materials, they will be ready to offer timely and constructive feedback over the 16-week semester. It is an extra set of hands, or perhaps processors, designed to keep the creative momentum alive from start to finish.

The semester is about to begin, and so is this experiment in co-teaching with AI.