Ohio State University Mandates AI Fluency for All Students

Ohio university says all students will be required to train and 'be fluent' in AI

Ohio State to embed curriculum teaching undergraduates how artificial intelligence 'can be responsibly applied' Ohio State University has announced that all of its students will be using artificial intelligence later this year, requiring them to become fluent in combining conventional learning with AI. "Ohio State has an opportunity and responsibility to prepare students to not just keep up, but lead in this workforce of the future," said the university's president, Walter "Ted" Carter Jr. He added: "Artificial intelligence is transforming the way we live, work, teach and learn. In the not-so-distant future, every job, in every industry, is going to be [affected] in some way by AI." Ohio State's provost, Ravi Bellamkonda, added that its AI fluency initiative will embed education about the technology throughout the undergraduate curriculum. "Through AI Fluency, Ohio State students will be 'bilingual' - fluent in both their major field of study and the application of AI in that area," he said. The university said its program will prioritize the incoming freshman class and onward, in order to make every Ohio State graduate "fluent in AI and how it can be responsibly applied to advance their field". The novel embrace of AI in higher education comes as a recent study by the Pew Research Center found 26% of of teenagers used ChatGPT for schoolwork in 2024 - twice as many as in 2023. But with AI rapidly becoming mainstream, students will not be allowed to use generative AI to pass off assignments as their own work - and faculty staff will be advised on how to maintain academic integrity. Steven Brown, an associate professor of philosophy at the university, told NBC News that after students turned in the first batch of AI-assisted papers he found "a lot of really creative ideas". "My favorite one is still a paper on karma and the practice of returning shopping carts," Brown said. Brown said that banning AI from classwork is "shortsighted", and he encouraged his students to discuss ethics and philosophy with AI chatbots. "It would be a disaster for our students to have no idea how to effectively use one of the most powerful tools that humanity has ever created," Brown said. "AI is such a powerful tool for self-education that we must rapidly adapt our pedagogy or be left in the dust." Separately, Ohio's AI in Education Coalition is working to develop a comprehensive strategy to ensure that the state's K-12 education system, encompassing the years of formal schooling from kindergarten through 12th grade in high school, is prepared for and can help lead the AI revolution. "AI technology is here to stay," then lieutenant governor Jon Husted said last year while announcing an AI toolkit for Ohio's K-12 school districts that he added would ensure the state "is a leader in responding to the challenges and opportunities made possible by artificial intelligence".

How Ohio State plans to make AI part of every major

Why it matters: AI is expected to reshape nearly every industry. By weaving it into general education requirements starting this fall, OSU aims to prepare graduates for a rapidly evolving digital world. The big picture: Other schools have created specialized AI programs and degrees. How it works: The basics of AI, including "ethical considerations," will be part of the required Launch Seminar course and first year Success Series workshops for freshmen. The intrigue: The conversation is quickly shifting. Academia initially focused on "catching" AI users and curbing dishonesty, but things have changed as bots like ChatGPT have become more mainstream. What they're saying: As with any emerging technology, from calculators to computers, educators must learn to adapt, OSU vice president and provost Ravi Bellamkonda tells Axios. What's next: The coming months at Ohio State will include lots of training and streamlining of campus resources to help faculty embed AI into their existing coursework. The bottom line: A scientist by trade, Bellamkonda admits he is "always skeptical when there's so much hype around something."

College Says Every Student Is Now Required to Use AI

Forget the debate about whether AI has a place in education: Ohio State University went ahead and announced that, starting this fall, every single one of its students will be forced to use AI in class. We hope your eyeballs are nice and lubricated, because prepare for them to do some major rolling, courtesy of this zinger by the institution's executive vice president and provost, Ravi Bellamkonda. "Through AI Fluency, Ohio State students will be 'bilingual' -- fluent in both their major field of study and the application of AI in that area," Bellamkonda said in a statement. "Grounded with a strong sense of responsibility and possibility, we will prepare Ohio State's students to harness the power of AI and to lead in shaping its future of their area of study." You heard that right. Ohio State isn't capitulating to the tech industry -- it's benevolently teaching "AI Fluency" to prepare its bright-eyed pupils for a world in which typing "can you do my homework please?" into ChatGPT is somehow an indication of resourcefulness. The writing has been on the wall for a while now. Large language models have become incredibly popular with lazy students -- much to the chagrin of their professors, if they aren't using chatbots themselves -- and many universities have already partnered with tech firms to integrate the latest AI tools. Duke University, for example, just began offering unlimited ChatGPT access to students, along with its own "DukeGPT" tool. Students are supposedly pretty enthused that they've been given the green light to use AI in class. We wonder why. "A student walked up to me after turning in the first batch of AI-assisted papers and thanked me for such a fun assignment," said Steven Brown, an associate professor in OSU's department of philosophy who's already using AI in his classes, as quoted by NBC4. "And then when I graded them and found a lot of really creative ideas. My favorite one is still a paper on karma and the practice of returning shopping carts." By his own admission, Brown encourages students "to write papers using AI however they'd like," including an exercise using AI to create Platonic dialogs between two people taking opposing viewpoints on a controversial topic, which helps "them understand how intelligent and thoughtful parties might disagree about that issue." Brown added that banning AI in class is "shortsighted." "It would be a disaster for our students to have no idea how to effectively use one of the most powerful tools that humanity has ever created," Brown said, per NBC4. "AI is such a powerful tool for self-education, that we must rapidly adapt our pedagogy or be left in the dust." This is an incredible claim to make, because "AI" -- a catch-all marketing buzzword, let's not forget -- is still plagued by factual hallucinations. As in, the tool that Brown is having his students learn stuff with gets the facts wrong all the time, lacking the expertise in a particular field that someone like Brown has. The tech's rapid adoption also means there's little long-term evidence of its benefits in education -- whereas there's plenty of worrying signs to the contrary, with multiple studies linking ChatGPT use with plummeting grades, memory loss, and diminished critical thinking skills. But Ohio State, along with many other institutions, are rushing to adopt AI anyway. Starting in the Fall 2025 semester, OSU students will now have to take a mandatory AI skills seminar, tailored to each field of study. As an example OSU provided to NBC4, education majors could be asked to use AI to create a lesson plan, which they'd then evaluate and revise. Then they'd write a reflection -- every student's favorite -- on their AI usage. Maybe some students could benefit from learning about the downsides of AI from these courses. But on the whole, university policies like these could foster a climate where AI usage is not just openly acceptable but desirable, having students believe they're being empowered by some all-knowing sci-fi tech, when in reality it's still very experimental with a future that is anything but certain.

Ohio State says every student will learn how to use AI with new program

COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) -- While other schools have been cracking down on students using artificial intelligence, the Ohio State University says all of its students will be using it starting this fall. "Through AI Fluency, Ohio State students will be 'bilingual' -- fluent in both their major field of study and the application of AI in that area," Ravi V. Bellamkonda, executive vice president and provost, said. Ohio State's AI Fluency Initiative will embed AI education throughout the undergraduate curriculum. The program will prioritize the incoming freshman class and onward, in order to make every Ohio State graduate "fluent in AI and how it can be responsibly applied to advance their field." The change comes as students are increasingly using ChatGPT and other resources to complete their schoolwork. The Pew Research Center found 26% of teenagers used ChatGPT for schoolwork in 2024, twice as many as in 2023. With AI quickly becoming mainstream, some professors, like Steven Brown, an associate professor of philosophy at Ohio State, who specializes in ethics, have already begun integrating AI into their courses. "...A student walked up to me after turning in the first batch of AI-assisted papers and thanked me for such a fun assignment. And then when I graded them and found a lot of really creative ideas," Brown said during a recent interview with Ohio State. "My favorite one is still a paper on karma and the practice of returning shopping carts." OSU said it will offer new general education courses and work with colleges to integrate AI fluency into coursework and help expand existing AI-focused course offerings. Each of Ohio's 14 public universities has incorporated AI in some way, but OSU is the first to officially incorporate AI fluency into every major. Students will be required to take an AI skills seminar, OSU said in a press release. "Artificial intelligence is transforming the way we live, work, teach and learn. In the not-so-distant future, every job, in every industry, is going to be impacted in some way by AI," Ohio State President Ted Carter said. Brown is one of several instructors who have already implemented AI into their courses, and some faculty found students were hesitant about AI at times. Subbu Kumarappan, an associate professor of economics and business, said that while students enjoyed AI projects, some told him they did not always feel like the work was really theirs. "High-performing students tend to use AI to take their work even further, while those struggling may fall behind if they don't fully engage," Kumarappan said during a recent Q&A with the university. "That's why I set clear expectations on how AI can or can't be used in every assignment and emphasize teamwork and collaboration -- skills that remain essential." Students will not be allowed to use generative AI to pass off assignments as their own. Faculty will receive guidance on how to maintain academic integrity while using AI as a tool from university offices that have been tasked with facilitating generative AI education programs. For instance, OSU said education majors could be asked to use AI to create a lesson plan, which they then will evaluate and revise. The sample assignment would require students to submit their lesson plan along with their initial AI prompt and a reflection on what they changed and how effective the generative AI was. Brown said AI is here to stay, so banning it is "shortsighted." He encouraged students to have discussions about ethics and philosophy with AI chatbots, asked them to write papers using AI however they'd like, and used AI to help create dialogues between two sides of a controversial topic to demonstrate educated arguments on both sides. "It would be a disaster for our students to have no idea how to effectively use one of the most powerful tools that humanity has ever created," Brown said. "AI is such a powerful tool for self-education, that we must rapidly adapt our pedagogy or be left in the dust."