Redesigned Presentation for Authentic Assessment

Lara Cardoso Goulart, School of Design
Lara Cardoso Goulart, Lecturer, School of Design

In my Capstone course, my colleague and I noticed a growing issue where students were taking text directly from ChatGPT and placing it on their presentation slides, often resulting in them being unable to even pronounce the words they were supposedly presenting. To foster more authentic learning and ensure students truly understand their own work, we redesigned the final assessment into two parts. We now allow students to use AI as much as they like for a written "process book," where they document their project's development. However, for the slideshow presentation, we now require minimal words, focusing instead on visual evidence like drawings, process photos, and renderings. By removing the text-heavy slides, students are forced to speak directly about their work and demonstrate their personal proficiency of the subject matter, which allows us to effectively navigate around AI-generated content in the classroom.

To implement Lara's authentic assessment solution in your course, you can follow these five main steps:

Divide a single large project into two distinct deliverables: a written documentation of the process and an oral/visual presentation.

For the written portion (a "process book"), permit students to use GenAI as much as they like. This allows them to use the tool for synthesizing information, organizing research, or formatting their documentation.

For the presentation portion, set a strict requirement for minimal to no words on the slides. Instead, require students to fill their slides with visual evidence of their work, such as drawings, process photos, and renderings.

Evaluate students based on their ability to speak directly about the visuals they are showing. This prevents the "ChatGPT-to-slide" pipeline where students present complex text they may not be able to pronounce or explain.

Instead of grading only the final result, make the development stages a core part of the grade. This ensures students are "grappling with the hard stuff" and building necessary brain pathways instead of just rushing to a final answer.

  Click here for another example of how RIT faculty have adapted their teaching methods in response to AI.