Martina Moneke
As AI takes over essay writing, one-hour walk-and-talk conversations with instructors allow students to demonstrate a proper understanding through reflection, dialogue, and engagement with nature.
The rise of generative AI in education presents both an opportunity and a profound challenge. Tools like ChatGPT can produce polished essays, research summaries, and analytical responses in seconds; however, they cannot determine whether a student genuinely understands the material. Increasingly, instructors are faced with work that reads well on paper but masks shallow comprehension. Traditional detection methods—plagiarism checkers, stylometric analysis, and instructor intuition—are reactive and imperfect, often consuming significant faculty time while failing to capture the nuances of student understanding. In this context, the question arises: how can educators ensure that students are genuinely learning, thinking critically, and engaging with ideas?
One human-centered solution is surprisingly simple: students should have a one-hour, one-on-one conversation with their instructor about a key course topic. Ideally, this conversation should take place while walking, preferably in a natural or restorative environment. Real-time conversation cannot be outsourced to AI. Unlike written assignments, which can be generated or heavily edited by software, a live discussion allows instructors to probe reasoning, request clarifications, and evaluate the depth of understanding. Students must think on their feet, make connections between ideas, and articulate insights spontaneously—tasks that generative AI cannot reliably perform.
These conversations also restore a sense of relationality and trust in education. Traditional grading systems often reduce students to numbers and assignments, creating a transactional relationship with learning. The one-on-one, walk-based conversation emphasizes human engagement, accountability, and shared intellectual exploration. It reminds students that learning is a relational, ethical, and reflective process. Walking in conversation is not merely symbolic—it is a practice rooted in neuroscience, environmental psychology, and a centuries-long intellectual tradition.
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