Co-pilot as a Socrative partner in my teaching (CPD Case Study)
Kirsty Duff (IELLI)
- What motivated you to use AI in this module, and what goals or challenges were you aiming to address?
I’ve been using M365 Copilot in my Communicating in Medical Contexts module for International Pre-Med students over the past three years. My motivation has been to explore how AI can be used ethically and effectively to support learning and not in place of learning. I am also motivated in exploring how AI can be used in my own teaching practice.
One new activity we have been experimenting with is using CoPilot as a Socratic partner to encourage in-depth exploration of their chosen essay topics. The aim of the formative activity was to get students to engage more critically with the topic and use CoPilot to question their assumptions and help them to explore alternative perspectives, before they approached the research stage of essay writing.
- How did you design or adapt the assessment, and how did you prepare students for using AI appropriately?
The Copilot activity was designed to align with a core Intended Learning Outcome (ILO): “Develop the intellectual attributes to think critically by adopting reflective and inquisitive attitudes and to undertake critical analysis, evaluation and synthesis of ideas, concepts, information and issues that are within the common understandings of health and medicine.”
To ensure appropriate use of AI, the activity was framed within the module’s guidelines for acceptable AI use, specifically under level 2 of the AI in Assessment scale AI-assisted idea generation and structuring (AIAS: Perkins et al., 2024). All of our assignment briefs explicitly reference this scale, and we adapt the guidance to fit specific tasks.
The formative activity was delivered through Microsoft Teams assignments where I openly used the AI tool to ‘create steps’. This expanded and clarified my instructions (CoPilot Socratic Questioning Assignment Instructions ). I declared this to the students and asked them to identify the telltale signs that the instructions were AI ‘enhanced’.
- What challenges did you encounter, and how did you address them?
The main challenge was time; particularly how much classroom contact could be dedicated to essential pre- and post-activity discussions. These conversations are crucial for framing the activity and helping students reflect on their use of AI.
Another challenge was the variation in students’ ability to write effective prompts and interpret AI-generated responses. To address this, I provided a recommended prompt, that I had previously tried and tested and students were required to write a reflective paragraph as part of the formative task. The reflections helped me to identify themes for further exploration or clarification.
Students also noted that CoPilot was very fawning and responded to their answers with phrases like “this is deeply insightful” and “perfect response” when this was clearly not the case. They also noted that the ‘auto prompts’ in the chat could lead them to using CoPilot in ways that were outwith the limits of the task.
- What benefits did you see for students and for your own teaching practice?
Student reflections highlighted several benefits. Copilot provided a ‘safe space’ where students didn’t feel judged, allowing students to explore ideas without the pressure of producing a “correct” answer.
For my own practice, it offered an additional way to facilitate students’ engagement with content and foster independent learning. It also provides a useful tool for challenging my own beliefs and assumptions when designing the essay questions for future cohorts.
- How did you evaluate the usefulness of this assessment to ensure that it reflected the desirable learning outcomes?
Evaluation was primarily based on student reflections. Many students reported that the activity helped them clarify their own ideas and consider alternative perspectives. This feedback suggests that the task supported the intended learning outcomes related to critical thinking and intellectual exploration. I hope to see an improvement in grades for this essay particularly in relation to the critical evaluation criterion.
- What would you do differently next time, and what advice would you give to colleagues?
Next time, I plan to allocate more time to discussing the Socratic method in class before introducing the Copilot activity. This will help students better understand the rationale behind the task and how it connects to their academic writing and critical thinking skills.
My advice to colleagues would be to experiment with the use of AI and speak to your students about how they are already using it in the learning process. If you aren’t sure how you might use it in your module – then ask CoPilot 😊!