GenAI in the Classroom featuring Christopher Claysmith

Chris Claysmith teaches Astronomy at Chemeketa. He uses Gen AI in his teaching workflow and with students as a learning tool. He has used a variety of generative AI tools in the workflow, including Google Gemini, MS Copilot, Notebook LM and Khanmigo. He shares about his experience with NotebookLM.

“NotebookLM has been my favorite tool and the largest tool I’ve spent time working with. Unlike other generative AI tools that pull information from sources that can be difficult to confirm, NotebookLM allows you to upload documents as PDFs or Google Drive files that it sources and links to when you ask questions. Since I use an open source textbook, I’ve uploaded the chapters as PDFs and my lecture slides from Google Drive as sources it can refer to. It’s extremely useful for helping to generate discussion questions, study guides, and even homework and exam questions that are consistent with the terminology that students are using as their primary sources.

A feature I find dubious but students enjoy is the NotebookLM “podcast” feature. It can generate a two person conversational podcast on specific topics and for an intended audience. I find this dubious since there are sometimes audio glitches or confusing “facts” that aren’t quite right and so it can take a bit of editing to make it flow. But students seem to enjoy listening to them, particularly as a review.

I’ve also found that by generating multiple choice questions for exams I can find holes in my own teaching materials. If there isn’t as much detailed information on a topic, it can’t generate detailed questions. This has helped me realize that certain chapter slides don’t have as much information on them as I’d prefer and I can go back in, edit those slides, resync them and then generate new questions. Coming up with new questions is something I struggle with but so far generative AI tools have allowed me to come up with new multiple choice, homework, and discussion questions.

My hope for the future with NotebookLM is that I’ll be able to share my Notebooks with students as a walled garden generative AI tool, where they can find information that is cited and drawn from the resources that they already have access to in the class.”