AI as Collaborator and Accessibility Tool

AI as Collaborator and Accessibility Tool

Cat Mahaffey (CHESS)

Cat Mahaffey | Teaching Professor | Writing, Rhetoric and Digital Studies Department 

Tools: CoPilot  | Keywords: #Accessibility #Neurodivergency #collaborator

Course Redesign Collaborator

I recently redesigned a course on information literacy. I collaborated with Copilot to rethink it from the ground up: foundational readings and discussion, major assignments, and sequencing throughout the course. Copilot consistently offered multiple options that helped me see possibilities I hadn’t before. The best part is that it saved me so much time. I often struggle with a blank page, and Copilot is always ready to get me started. Having said that, this was MY collaboration with Copilot. I don’t at all feel that the new course we co-designed is rote or basic. Quite the opposite. It’s probably the most unique, engaging, and informative course I’ve ever designed.

I don’t mean to say that this was overly simple or quick. Even though the process was quicker with Copilot, it took a lot of time to weed through what was not usable or appropriate from the AI. This is where my own expertise in the content of the course along with my own pedagogical values were essential. I mean to say that Copilot could not design the course without me, the human in the loop.

AI as an Accessibility Tool

I currently have a student with whom I’ve developed a strong rapport. He is intelligent and honest. In class a few weeks ago, we were conducting writing workshops, and he was rubbed the wrong way by a classmate’s feedback on his draft. I intervened and shut down what was becoming a heated exchange, and I reached out to him after class. He wrote me a heartfelt email of apology. The email was expressive and sounded like him. It was very well-written, and I told him so. His response to this praise was both heartening and heart-breaking. He felt guilty because he “type[s] up an email and then [he] prompt[s] Ai to clean it up.” He continued to share more details about specific barriers that he felt have stood in the way of his learning and his success throughout his educational career; very real challenges that AI was now helping him overcome. 

Consider what he shared: guilt over using AI to fully engage with writing to people of authority. I assured him that he is using AI in an ethical way and that his email was his own. 

I’ve heard this story from many students who have a variety of differences (dyslexia, anxiety, dysgraphia, and so on). I suspect they share these things with me because my classes tend to focus on exploring oneself as a writer and critical thinker. The idea that AI can liberate such students to finally fully participate in written discourse gives me joy, but it also makes me consider how many students weren’t able to pursue higher education because they didn’t have such tools. How many brilliant students have been disenfranchised because they didn’t conform to arbitrary, stifling standards.