Students in Aycan Kara's Venture Growth Management class learn to navigate the challenges that businesses face. Along the way, they try their hand at using generative AI tools ethically and thoughtfully to help grow a business.
Aycan Kara
Associate professor of strategic management and entrepreneurship
IU Southeast
Kara creates assignments that introduce using generative AI to gather data that students then analyze to make sound business decisions. At the start of the course, students identify a fictitious business—like a coffee shop or a gym—and they research its needs and environment.
Early on, she also explains her course policy on the use of generative AI. As part of that, Kara includes an overview of how the technology behind generative AI works, some pitfalls to avoid when using it, and an explanation of why this technology will be used as part of their assignment. Topics like personal information, privacy, and copyright are also discussed.
Toward the middle of the term, the students use two generative AI tools of their choosing (such as ChatGPT, Omni, or Perplexity) for an assignment to gather data on two social media platforms that they choose (like Instagram or TikTok). They use this data to compare the social media platforms across several criteria. Using two different generative AI tools allows them to compare the quality of the answers that they receive.
Students then use the data to decide which of the two social media platforms is best for their business, and they justify their choice in a report. (In the report, students also highlight the information they found using generative AI and cite each tool and each prompt that they used.) For Kara, this analysis that addresses the specific needs of the business is at the heart of the assignment. And it all begins with the business content knowledge that they bring to the table.
The most important thing as instructors is to emphasize the importance of content knowledge. You cannot ask the correct questions if you don't know content knowledge," she said. "You cannot evaluate the answers you're getting from generative AI if you don't know the content.
For example, "You can have any of the platforms write a marketing plan for you, but if you don't know the components of a good marketing plan, then you can't make a judgment about if the marketing plan you received from ChatGPT is accurate," she said.
So how has this worked? Kara compared student use and attitudes toward generative AI at the beginning of the term and then in the middle of the term after they had been using it for several weeks. Initially, students were aware of generative AI but also apprehensive about its possible impact on their future jobs, and therefore about using it.
However, by halfway through the term, their responses were more positive. She said that students mentioned how generative AI has helped them to collaborate better and learn better. She noted that they appreciate how it can help them find more examples of a concept or how it can act as a tutor to help them understand concepts. She believes that this use of generative AI will pay off down the road.
I think that if we do not talk to our students (about generative AI) and if we do not look at ways that generative AI is impacting the fields that we are teaching in and preparing them to work in, we are doing them a disservice.