When Kelly Gross, assistant professor of visual arts education at NIU received a grant from the NIU Student Engagement Fund for a study into the use of artificial intelligence, she knew which students of hers would be perfect for it.
She approached Lane Staffeldt and Evie Mulcahey, visual arts education majors who had worked with her on a project in her art and technology course to earn honors credit. She had connected them with Casey Macko, an art teacher in at St. Charles North to conduct some interviews on how he was using AI in his classes.
Under Gross’ mentorship, Staffeldt and Mulcahey have taken different, but parallel approaches to their research project on how high school teachers are approaching the use of AI in their classes. Staffeldt has done individual interviews, while Mulcahey has done focus groups.
Mulcahey said that in the focus groups she has found that art teachers focused on technology are more skeptical about how effectively students can use AI than teachers who are focused on fine, or studio art.
“The studio art teachers didn’t seem to have fully grasped how to use AI in their classes,” Mulcahey said. “The art technology teachers understand AI better, and they have more concerns about ways it could be used wrong. But it’s understandable, because it’s harder to use AI if you are doing something physically like painting, as opposed to something digital like animation or a photograph.”
Staffeldt is particularly interested in the ethics, bias and environmental impact of AI, something that has come out in the interviews as well. “In our classes we have been discussing what does AI in an art classroom look like? We are exploring where the line is. So, in the research interviews, it was good to hear about the ways teachers are talking about it with students, because students are really starting to use it all the time now.”
Mulcahey and Staffeldt had the opportunity, along with Gross, to present their initial findings at the National Art Educators Association national conference in Chicago in February.
“It was a great opportunity for them,” Gross said. “The NAEA Conference drew 6,000 art educators from around the country, and we presented to a very engaged crowd of about 45 in our session.”
Staffeldt said that presenting at NAEA was “Terrifying, but awesome.”
Mulcahey was excited to see the interest teachers had in their topic. “It was a good range of people,” she said. “There were a lot of great questions. It really got us thinking more deeply about what kinds of questions we still needed to find answers to.”
The pair presented at NIU’s CURE Conference on April 28.
“Lane and Evie have been great to work with,” Gross said. “They are very motivated students, and have become more and more interested in their subject as they’ve done the research. They are very well prepared. Sometimes more prepared than I am.”
