COMMUNITY COLLEGE FACULTY need to rethink how they teach and assess students as artificial intelligence rapidly reshapes the classroom and the world, Sonya Christian, the chancellor of California Community Colleges, said Wednesday in front of an audience of technology workers at a conference in San Francisco.

“We’re trying to bring a whole system along,” Christian said in an interview after her onstage conversation at Dreamforce, Salesforce’s flagship annual conference. “Would I say we are doing a lot in this space? Yes … Could we do more? I would say yes.” 

More than 2 million students are enrolled in one of 116 institutions that make up the state’s community college system. Roughly 1 in 10 undergraduates in the United States is a California community college student.

The chancellor said faculty need to change how they assess students’ learning now that AI tools are able to write essays and solve mathematical equations for students. Professors need to work to develop students’ curiosity and desire to learn, she said. 

In conversation with will.i.am

Christian’s comments came during a Wednesday discussion with the musician and entrepreneur will.i.am about how AI is reshaping higher education. The Black Eyed Peas frontman taught courses at Arizona State University and with a San Jose community college professor this summer about how to prepare students for an AI-impacted workforce.

“I think education and academia has a reboot, reimagination of what it means in 2046 and beyond,” will.i.am said to applause from the Dreamforce crowd.

Christian said this is an important time for community colleges to ensure their students know how to engage with the technology. 

“If communities don’t even understand how to operate and work with these machines and these intelligent tools, they’re not going to be able to harness it and really be able to engage with society as a whole,” she said.

Investing in faculty development

The state’s community college system has not made large financial investments in AI technology, Christian said. Instead, her office has focused on several lower-cost initiatives to help colleges adopt AI. Those include an AI ambassador program, which enables faculty members to take a yearlong sabbatical to pursue AI-related projects that aim to benefit the system and their colleges.

“We had to figure out the levers where we could invest … by just unleashing the talent of our own people who are deeply committed to communities, are deeply committed to our students,” she said.

Other California universities have taken a different approach. The California State University system, for example, is paying OpenAI $13 million a year for a version of ChatGPT.

As AI reshapes learning, Christian said internships and work-based learning, which have “always been in the margins of academia,” will become more central to how students are taught and prepared for the workforce.

This story originally appeared in EdSource.