ATMS Natural Medicine Educator ’ s Forum 2023
Airdre Grant , Louise Rubic , Sandra Grace , Peter Berryman , Brad McEwen , Donna Eddy , Kathleen Daniel and Natalie Hume
The annual Natural Medicine Educator ’ s Forum is a platform designed specifically to bring educators and practitioners together to talk , share ideas , look at innovations , explore challenging issues and , in so doing , contribute to professional development in natural medicine education .
The 2023 Forum focused on the impact of Artificial Intelligence ( AI ) and asked how it is changing the way we teach , assess and connect with our students . It took place on the 1st of September , and 45 natural medicine educators and practitioners gathered to become informed and to discuss and share their strategies .
ChatGPT is used widely by content creators and by students . It raises many questions for us as educators , including : When is AI used ? Are students cheating or simply using a new , very available resource ? What constitutes plagiarism ? How do we assure the integrity of our qualifications ?
We created a forum where we could share knowledge and invite discussion with our community . Louise Rubic , ATMS Academic Review Committee ( ARC ) committee member and senior learning facilitator at Torrens University , Australia , gave a presentation called Dancing with the AI Tiger which spoke to the cautious and sometimes confusing relationship educators have with this complex and fast-moving technology , and one which reaches into every corner of education , assessment design and teaching practice . Louise gave a review of definitions of AI , a brief history of ChatGPT , and highlighted the challenges , risks , and benefits of AI in education .
A student panel talked about how they and their fellow students are using AI in their studies and the value , or not , of AI as a learning resource . We had three students on the panel , Matthew studying a Bachelor of Health Science ( Clinical Myotherapy ), Ekaterina , a recent graduate in the Bachelor of Health Science ( Western Herbal Medicine ) and Riley studying a Bachelor of Health Science ( Nutrition and Dietetic Medicine ). The panel was facilitated by ARC committee member Airdre Grant . The student panel was asked for their observations on how widely AI is being used and how it has worked for their studies . While students are using AI , particularly the early adopters of our panel , students are cautious , noting certain downfalls such as reliability of information . AI has been useful when trying to understand assessment specifications , to simplify the question and provide some direction . However , students commented that AI is a tool and not suitable for writing a whole assignment , acknowledging issues of AI ‘ hallucinations ’ where references must be double-checked . A benefit of AI is that it saves time for content creation for use on social media and is a handy study buddy to help quiz them for tests .
In the final part of the Forum , attendees broke into small groups to discuss three questions :
1 . How do we manage assessment in the age of AI ?
2 . How to encourage integrity when using AI ?
3 . How do we use AI to create an engaging learning experience for students ?
The ‘ Brains Trust ’ of the forum attendees set to work and came up with many good ideas . The consensus was to think about ways to utilise it effectively , rather than resisting it . We need to teach students to use AI as a tool that serves them . We need to educate students about copyright and plagiarism .
Examples of how natural medicine educators were using AI to support students ’ learning included :
• include activities that ask the learner to ' research ' or use AI , and to then critique AI ' s response for its validity and relevance compared with what is being taught in the course ;
230 | vol29 | no4 | JATMS