The Origins of Global Economic Inequality (RHI30806): See the study handbook for learning outcomes and further course details.

We examine historical evidence regarding the origins of global economic inequality and connect this evidence to various economic theories that elucidate aspects of the significant divergence in income and wealth post-1500.

• Bachelor: Economics and Governance
• Number of students: 36
• Prior knowledge and skills in GenAI: none or very little

GenAI was incorporated into this course as an emergent tool that can help students in their learning process, particularly in the writing of essays that engage critically with academic literature. It's important to introduce students to relevant tools, especially if they haven't used them before, so they can understand how to utilize them. This is particularly valuable because these tools can support their critical thinking skills, which is an important aspect of the course.

During the course, students must select a study subject and formulate a research question. In the adapted assignment design, students are required to feed the research question into ChatGPT. They must identify three crucial elements in the ChatGPT output that they evaluate using literature and data. Subsequently, they compose a response essay to the one generated with AI in which they assess the reliability of the ChatGPT output along different dimensions, such as factual accuracy, quality of argumentation and logic, etcetera. Therefore, this is not an original essay but rather a reply process in which they demonstrate how they evaluate ChatGPT outcomes with the use of literature and data.  

The learning process is supported by an introductory lecture that focuses on 'how to write an essay' and illustrates the use of ChatGPT with a concrete example. Additionally, students have three individual meetings with a teacher to discuss the various steps in the assignment. Students present their work and receive feedback that they then apply to their final essay. 

Chosen GenAI tool: ChatGPT but students were also allowed to choose a different genAI tool. 

No Gen AI alternative: when students do not want to use a GenAI tool, they can write a traditional essay. 

Evaluation in PaCe: The feedback is moderately positive, the students may have encountered challenges due to the limited guidance in the assignment. Instead of concentrating on critically reflecting on the output, students were preoccupied with figuring out how to generate 'good' output from Chat-GPT.

Teacher's perspective: the guidance process is improving because more focused conversations can occur when a text is used as a basis during individual feedback meetings. Two challenges are reviewing work in time, and support students struggling with ChatGPT.

• Focus on the learning outcomes and what is needed for students to show that they have achieved the learning outcomes. In this case, the critical reflection and essay writing skills. The use of GenAI is complementary rather than substitutive for existing learning goals. Help students to understand this.
• Give students instructions and guidance on how to prompt the tool. For example, by using a prompt guide or prompt formula. 

Daniel Gallardo Albarran (course coordinator) and Sandra de Pleijt and [email protected]