GenAI assisted synthesis of group work

Students use GenAI to summarise and synthesise their own notes, evaluating the output for accuracy and usefulness.

Purpose

This activity encourages students to see GenAI as a potentially useful tool for summarisation and synthesis but requiring evaluation and verification.

Note: Copilot and Spark protects IP. However, some students may not wish to use GenAI. Alternative options should be made available.

What will students achieve?

Students will be able to:

  • Apply critical analysis skills by collaboratively annotating a text.
  • Synthesise multiple perspectives with the assistance of GenAI.
  • Evaluate GenAI outputs.

Required resources

  • Access to Aila through an LMS site , or a GenAI application such as Copilot.
  • An online digital annotation tool such as FeedbackFruits, or an  editable document/PDF stored on the Cloud.

Activity instructions

  1. Prior to class, divide students into groups and assign each group a text (for example, research article, policy document, primary source).
  2. All group members use a digital annotation tool (for example, the document tool in FeedbackFruits, Perusall, a Word or Google document) to summarise and analyse the document.
  3. Once students have completed the readings and added their annotations, prompt students to have a discussion of their takeaways and to compile their key insights into a document.
  4. Groups select a GenAI tool to summarise and synthesise their notes.
  5. Groups upload their summaries and analysis, prompting the tool to provide a high-level summary and synthesis of all the comments.
  6. Groups then critically evaluate the GenAI output:
    • Identifying what GenAI captured accurately.
    • Identifying what GenAI missed.
    • Assessing whether it introduced any misinterpretations or hallucinations.
    • Reflect on how useful GenAI was.
  7. Groups share their GenAI summary and critical reflection with the rest of the class.

Considerations

  • Please note that students cannot upload copyright protected articles into any GenAI platform unless copyright permissions have been granted to do so. For this reason, a step has been added into activity that requires students to incorporate their comments into a document that may then be used for the prompt.