AI's Future in NOCCCD Classrooms
The District is pleased to announce a grant award from the Regents of the University of California, acting as a pass-through entity for the California Education Learning Lab and the Foundation for California Community Colleges to study the effectiveness of a new AI coach for writing and digital literacy. English professor Stephanie Tran of Cypress College explains how PapyrusAI could help students and instructors alike.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is pervasive in nearly every sector of the professional world. As it finds its way into education, educators and instructors might question what purpose technology like this would have in a learning environment, where the answers aren’t supposed to be simply handed over. The Enhancing Academic Writing and Digital Literacy with an AI Coach grant recently awarded to NOCCCD, Cal State Fullerton, and UCI totals $442,805 and will support the research, development, and evaluation of such a tool over the next three years.
A conversation with Stephanie Tran, English professor at Cypress College and the grant’s principal investigator (PI) representing NOCCCD for the grant, provides inside perspective on how students can benefit from the tool developed—PapyrusAI—and what it could mean for classrooms.
“What I’m excited about exploring through the grant project…I want to investigate whether or not PapyrusAI can reduce equity gaps for our most disproportionately impacted students,” Tran explains. “I want to see—is this going to help students succeed? Is this a tool that will be more successful in developing their writing skills, their critical thinking skills?”
This investigation is what the grant project will allow Tran and the other PIs from CSUF and UCI to explore in classrooms for the next few years.
| Fiscal Year | Funds awarded by Grant |
|---|---|
| 2024-25 | $114,561 |
| 2025-26 | $160,568 |
| 2026-27 | $167,675 |
PapyrusAI was presented at the NOCCCD AI Expo earlier this year. Intended to be a writing assistant, the AI coach’s Socratic approach means that it isn’t just handing answers out when prompted; instead, it assists students by creating a thought-provoking dialogue so they can reach their own conclusions when drafting topics or arguments for their essays. This conversational method allows students to still think for themselves and develop stronger writing strategies that they can then apply to future work.
Tran was not involved in generative AI before 2024, but when she realized it was something readily available to most students, she decided that as an instructor it was relevant to understand what resources her students may be using outside the classroom. “My initial concern [was] about academic integrity… A lot of writing instructors are a little skeptical about cognitive offloading and I completely understand that. Part of this grant is exploring about whether or not that actually happens.”
Currently, she serves on Cypress College’s AI Taskforce along with fellow faculty from different disciplines, classified staff and management. Tran has been incorporating some AI resources into her curriculum since Spring 2023 and was part of the Nectir AI pilot afterwards. She believes that the inclusion of AI in learning spaces is dependent from industry to industry. “As instructors, they’re the subject-matter experts. They [should] get to decide.”
Please visit the PapyrusAI website to learn more about the tool and its use in the classroom.
