Saddleback utilizing AI in hope of making tasks efficient

Students in LRC computer lab have AI chatbots and assistants | Christian Roberts Lariat

For any first-time college students in need of financial support, the Promise Program in Saddleback College helps to pay two years of tuition. Riley Phelps, a Promise Program Success coach utilizes artificial intelligence to help complete her tasks to accommodate students and staff.

“So I usually use AI when it comes to promise program to help me when it comes to making sure my ExL formulas are working correctly and that when I’m trying to think about how I can explain to the stakeholder is what I’m trying to communicate that I see on the front line,” she says. “AI has been a great resource for me to help articulate the way that I need to speak.”

Phelps sees the benefits for herself and her coworkers. Campus departments are utilizing AI to make tasks on campus efficient, cater to student needs and enhance in class learning. 

While views on AI differ, there is optimism on the technology and its benefits while there are some concerns about its use.

“I do believe that it can be useful,” says Georgiana Martinez, the coordinator of the Mathematics, Engineering, Science Achievement or MESA Program.

Martinez, who is also the president of the classified senate, uses AI to complete quick tasks such as writing things up, coming up with ideas for events like workshops, scheduling, inputting meeting transcripts and responding to student emails quicker. 

“We have an AI companion and our Zoom workplace to help us, especially when it comes to taking notes,” says Riley Phelps, who is also vice president of classified senate. “And so it’s been very helpful because AI can help us recap and make sure that we know what our action items are, what was necessarily discussed and what might have been fluffed.”

The senate does not have a secretary, so AI has made tasks easier.

“And so being in the position where I’m vice president at large for the classified senate and also with the promise program, I do find myself very insecure because I don’t feel as articulate as those who have PhD’s in the rooms,” she says. Phelps appreciates how the technology helps her and validates what she has to say is important, even if it’s not a dictionary book.”

With the large flows of students, the AI companion has helped her ensure students’ needs are met thanks to chatbots and summarize key points from what others need which makes things efficient. 

AI has also helped the Disable Students Programs and Services, or DSPS, to assist students with disabilities and accommodations to keep up on their assignments. 

“We use tools to help with reading, with comprehension, with writing, with memory,” says Mike Sauter. “We can utilize AI to help summarize course materials, to produce different versions of them in different modalities, so we can take advantage of audio formats, text based formats, and also visual formats as well.” 

Sauter believes that the technology along with accommodations to students with disabilities would help level the playing field for their classes and democratize learning. Students with reading disabilities can struggle with the material, he says, especially those with dyslexic issues that may impact reading fluidly or focus on topics longer than a few seconds.

“AI can be utilized to help break down that reading information into a more concise, summarized version that they can process and still have that same understanding of the material,” Sauter says.

In classrooms, the academic senate uses AI to come up with creative ways to teach students.

“So I think the way the faculty uses AI as a working tool is to create more creative content and more creatively disseminate their content in ways that might be more attractive to students,” says Frank Gonzalez who is a mathematics professor.

Gonzalez, who is also the president-elect of the academic senate, says that he uses AI tools to come up with math problems and examples quicker and even create exams and quizzes.

According to research by Computer Life in 2024, AI showed to “not only enhance students’ learning motivation and stimulate their interest, but also promotes the diversification of learning styles and helps students learn more effectively and independently.”

The research results from this article show that when it came to personalized learning, 85% of students said they have increased interest and shared positive feedback on personalized content to enhance their motivation for learning.

“There’s a lot of tools out there, but we’re already so busy doing everything else that we’re doing, and the landscape is changing so quickly that it’s really just overwhelming,” Gonzalez says.

The costs and ability to use AI models have been a challenge since new initiatives get released almost daily. Models have a free or paid version in which the paid versions have more features but the costs can make it hard for departments to get a hold of. 

“So making sure that we have pro level versions of these AI apps has been the biggest challenge,” Sauter says. He also mentions that purchasing the software takes time and that’s where they lose their ability to serve students.

As AI tools start to get more advanced, there are concerns that AI may impact teachers and negatively impact students on how they use it.

“I think that English is obviously severely impacted by the fact that the nature of our discipline means that it makes it very easy for students to use AI inappropriately,” says Suki Fisher, a composition professor in the English department.

New tools for AI have advanced to complete assignments quicker which include writing essays. This has affected the English department as these tools could hinder student skills in the long run.

“It’s because it’s actually teaching very important skills in relation to critical thinking,” she says. “And when you have a shortcut that impacts your ability to develop critical thinking skills, it will have long term consequences that are tied more to the idea of being able to assess the world versus just whether or not you did well on one paper.”

Fisher expects students to think critically when coming up with essay ideas, but with a tool like AI, students can use it to bypass critical thinking and not develop skills in the process. 

The whole purpose of her class is to teach critical thinking.

“The point is to teach students how to think,” she says. “And when you take out the things that are teaching them how to think, not what to think, but how to think, how to be critical, then that will impact them beyond.”

If AI was used as a tool to help students with research and not write essays, it would be the appropriate way, she says.

Phelps believes if AI is handled properly, it can be used to solve problems and be a useful tool in the long run.

“I’m very optimistic that with the right leadership and everything, AI can become a huge resource and big win for us because it will help us minimize those little tasks that take up everything else that we need,” Phelps says. “I think things will become better in the sense that we’ll be able to focus more on the things we want to focus on.”

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