Staff from the Business and Law Faculty discuss how AI tools can be embraced in Higher Education and what the implications are.
Our Business and Law students increasingly turn to artificial intelligence (AI) tools to aid their studies. One popular use is AI-notetaking using technology to summarise lectures, generate outlines, and organise key points. While there are concerns that this reliance on AI could erode critical thinking and independent learning, the tools represent an opportunity for students to learn smarter, not harder. Properly integrated, AI can enhance accessibility, equity, and efficiency in education. As lecturers, it is proposed we should encourage our students to use AI to complement their notetaking and highlight caution if seen as a shortcut.
The benefits of AI notetaking in higher education
AI tools like Notion AI, Otter.ai, and ChatGPT can transcribe lectures, generate summaries, and create personalised study aids. For many students traditional notetaking can prove challenging, due to lack of time, language skills (Siegel, 2024) and disabilities (Suritsky, 1992). This technology can be transformative. Students can focus on understanding the material, confident that AI is capturing the details rather than focusing on their ability to take notes. Furthermore, in live sessions, it frees students to become more interactive with peers and lecturers.
Notetaking with AI potentially promotes inclusivity. Not all students enter higher education with the same set of skills, some excel at synthesising information quickly, while others take longer to process and organise their thoughts. AI offers students 24/7 access to study at their own time and pace. There are real advantages for our disabled students. Through transcription to ‘speech to text tools’ for hearing impaired students or ‘read aloud’ features for visually impaired or dyslexic students. There are further advantages for our PGM students who can use Google Translate to choose their language of preference to check understanding. Or, for British students unfamiliar with accents harder to comprehend. AI can bridge these gaps, providing tools to structure, organise, prioritise and quickly retrieve information, allowing students to focus on deeper learning and application.
Within our business faculty, we need to prepare our students for the future workplace. Employers value tech-savvy graduates who can leverage AI resources effectively and collaborate with peers using shared AI-integrated platforms like Microsoft OneNote.
Criticism and concerns
The rise of AI, particularly in Higher Education, is controversial. There is an opinion that relying on technology diminishes students’ ability to engage deeply with lecture content. Traditionally, it is argued that notetaking is part of the cognitive process, as actively encoding or summarising and organising information helps students learn and retain concepts. (Kobayashi, 2006a, DiVesta & Gray, 1972). Potentially, students outsourcing this process to AI could be compromising their intellectual growth. As lecturers rather than closing discussions, we should be open to AI notetaking conversations and sharing joint key concerns as they arise. For example, if AI-generated notes misunderstand complex or nuanced information is this a further opportunity for students to discuss validity and question further learning with the lecturer.
Finally, a concern is the dependency, students become so reliant on AI that they struggle if there is no access. Rather than block AI notetaking, we should encourage reiterating advice to students to complement their notetaking skills.
Using AI effectively, guidance as a lecturer
The key to using AI note-taking tools effectively is intentionality. Students must approach these tools as partners in learning rather than shortcuts to avoid effort. As lecturers a few ideas of how we ensure the right balance:
- Encourage AI note taking from the beginning of modules; in return there is expectation of greater interaction and note refining post session.
- Recommend refining AI notes to ensure accuracy and personal understanding. For example, lecturers can encourage questions to forums to clarify content that students are unsure of and discuss potential AI inaccuracies and links to further explanations.
- Encourage students to personalise notetaking for their own learning. For example, suggest that students ask AI to write test questions or flash cards to ensure definition understanding or provide further coaching on key terms.
- Extend and develop critical thinking through skill-based exercises. Lecturers have more time to support condensed knowledge developing ideas, analysis and taking questions through debating, problem-solving and applying real life concepts.
- Teach AI Literacy by encouraging students to evaluate AI outputs. Teaching ways to cross-check information from source.
The future of learning
AI note-taking tools are part of the student toolkit for learning and for lecturers it’s important to know how we can support students to enrich their education. The future of learning offers opportunity for students to reduce the time taken for the process aspect of notetaking and engage more deeply with the relevance and purpose of their newly learnt knowledge to expand their problem-solving and creative skills for assessment and their future employability.
References
DiVesta, F., & Gray, S. (1972). Listening and note taking. Journal of Educational Psychology, 63(1), 8–14. https://doi.org/ 10.1037/h0032243
Kobayashi, K. (2006a). Combined effects of note-taking/reviewing on learning and the enhancement through interventions: A meta-analytic review. Educational Psychology, 26(3), 459–77.
Siegel, J. (2024). Factor affecting notetaking performance, International Journal of Listening, 38(2),118–130. https://doi.org/10.1080/10904018.2022.2059484
Suritsky, S.K, (1992) Notetaking Difficulties and Approaches Reported by University Students with Learning Disabilities, Journal of Postsecondary Education and Disability, 10(1), 3-10.
More Education Matters blogs
Student engagement: How can we invite students to fall in love with the challenge, not a pre-determined solution?
Dr Ailsa Crum discusses the fundamental nature of higher education and the benefits of engaging students as constructive collaborators in an advancing digital environment
How can we remove barriers to placements, and help to address awarding gaps between graduates of different ethnicities?
Lee Woods tells us how the Faculty of Technology has been developing structural initiatives to help students secure industrial placements
How can we foster a sense of belonging among postgraduate students?
Belonging is just as important for motivation and academic performance for postgraduate students.
