Today’s article is written by Loubna Terhzaz
Loubna Terhzaz is a lecturer at the Faculty of Science, Mohammed V University in Rabat, Morocco. She is a member of the ICESCO Chair for Open Education, the UNITWIN network UNOE and Secretary General of the Averroès Foundation for the promotion of scientific research, innovation and sustainable development.
Open education is an educational practice that facilitates open access to education, offering learners accessible, diverse, collaborative, and personalized learning. It provides the learner with an opportunity to develop critical thinking skills, a major challenge in the age of AI, through the competence of evaluative judgment.
According to Cowan (2010), evaluative judgment is the high-level cognitive skill required for lifelong learning. In other words, it is the ability to make judgments about the quality of one’s own work and that of others with accuracy, objectivity, and with the goal of improving and responding to future learning needs, especially in the era of artificial intelligence.
As a professor at Mohammed V University in Rabat, Morocco, I observe that the rise of AI has profoundly changed the way students approach their assignments. The ease with which they can now generate reports using AI platforms is undeniable. These tools allow them to quickly obtain well-structured presentations, but they do not necessarily contain reliable content. This is where critical thinking becomes essential. Open education, with its pedagogical approach focused on learner autonomy, offers an ideal framework for developing this crucial skill of evaluative judgment.
Open education, through Open Educational Resources (OER), allows students to modify, retain, reuse, revise, remix, and redistribute the educational resources (the 5 Rs) according to the approved license. It enables students to develop their ability to express, formulate judgments, and evaluate education, a common practice in Anglo-Saxon universities but still not widespread elsewhere (Younès, 2007). This evaluative judgment process gives students the opportunity to compare the relevance and quality of information, including that generated by AI. It also allows professors a valuable tool to identify needs and gaps in their content and pedagogical approach, especially when facing the challenges of artificial intelligence.
At the same time, and in line with this goal of developing critical thinking, the assessment of students by professors should also prioritize the ability to analyze and judge over the mere accumulation of knowledge.
Furthermore, open discussion forums present important spaces for exchange. They allow students to confront their ideas and construct new knowledge. The support and presence of professors in these forums are essential to guide these exchanges and ensure the success of all students, particularly those facing social difficulties, refugees, or immigrants. These opportunities for exchange also encourage students to analyze, evaluate, and question information while fostering a relationship of trust and mutual respect that enhances learning
“Jugement évaluatif de l’enseignement” by Loubna TERHZAZ. CC-BY
Although open education provides an environment conducive to evaluative judgment, measures must also be taken within traditional education to optimize its application until open education becomes more widespread.
To prepare students and professors to take advantage of this approach, the following measures would be relevant:
1. Integrate critical thinking education into curricula at various levels, organizing practical exercises where students must analyze situations involving AI and provide tools for evaluating the credibility of information sources.
2. Train professors and educational staff by offering training on new technologies, partnerships with AI specialists, and creating networks for sharing best practices and resources on integrating ethics and evaluative judgment into AI education.
3. Develop tools to support critical thinking and ethical reflection, encouraging the creation of software or platforms and environments where students can interact with AI systems and analyze the results produced by them.
4. Encourage a reflective learning environment by being autonomous and responsible for their own learning, which fosters strong judgment skills. However, students today are often more focused on finding a quick and easy answer by using AI responses, which limits the personal reflection that this autonomy promotes.
5. Encourage a collaborative and participatory approach through forums, learning networks, or knowledge-sharing platforms that allow for enriching evaluative judgment and developing a more balanced and reasoned approach.
Through the implementation of measures in traditional education, we can prepare students to develop sharp critical thinking and solid evaluative judgment, enabling them to thrive in an open education environment in the future and face the challenges of AI.
Cowan, J. (2010). Developing the ability for making evaluative judgements. Teaching in Higher Education, 15(3), 323–334. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562510903560036.
Younès, N. (2007). À quelles conditions l’évaluation formative de l’enseignement par les étudiants est-elle possible en France ? Revue française de Pédagogie, 161, 25-40.
Please note that this article has been translated with the help of artificial intelligence and reviewed by individuals who are not professional translators. Despite our efforts to ensure accuracy and fidelity, errors or inaccuracies may remain. Feel free to let us know at: chaireunescorelia@univ-nantes.fr
