KEYWORDS

in-person tutoring; synchronous online tutoring; asynchronous online tutoring; verbal feedback/response; written feedback/ response, writing process; global/ higher-order/ higher-gravity concerns

abstract

The focus of this training activity is to showcase how AI can aid tutoring appointments and students' writing but cannot replace the humanistic, cognitive, and social perspectives that are present in writing center consultations. This activity helps to facilitate the examination of the types of feedback given, and specifically whether and how well AI feedback vs. consultant feedback addresses higher-order concerns . As we know, AI has the capability to help students in their drafting and revising process, but it doesn’t cater to the students' needs without being specifically prompted. How does the student know what their needs are if they don't have targeted feedback? This activity highlights the need for a collaborative and humanistic approach to giving and receiving feedback. To utilize this lesson, directors will need to provide a common assignment seen in their university writing center (UWC) to the consultants and ensure consultants have access to a GenAI tool of their choice. 

CONTENTS

TRAINING DETAILS

LESSON OVERVIEW

Engaging with Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools and embracing their benefits and disadvantages, rather than focusing solely on their drawbacks, is essential for fostering a balanced perspective about AI, especially as it concerns its implementation in classrooms and students' writing. Writing center admin and consultants that understand the capabilities of AI, in terms of what it can and can’t do effectively for feedback on students’ papers, can help reinforce the importance of human-centered consultations and help alleviate consultants’ fears surrounding AI's role in writing center work, such as AI making writing centers obsolete by taking over consulting and giving feedback. Through this lesson, consultants gain deeper insights into how their training and collaboration with students enhance students' abilities to revise and reflect on their writing and the overall writing process. This lesson also highlights the main goal of consulting, which is to “support the long-term development of a writer” (Patchen, 2024, p. 21).

To prepare for this activity, the admin at the East Carolina University Writing Center spent Fall 2024 facilitating discussions about the consultants' feelings toward AI and their proficiency with various AI tools. Weekly staff meetings and professional development (PD) sessions included research tasks, discussions, and hands-on exploration of AI capabilities. At our weekly one-hour staff meetings, we would spend about 30 minutes reflecting and discussing how consultants were feeling about the PD tasks they were assigned. For example, at one staff meeting we discussed the science behind AI and how consultants defined AI based on their exploration of how it was created and had advanced in modern technology. These efforts expanded consultants' understanding of how AI can be effectively utilized for consulting and feedback tasks, such as explaining specific concepts, like expanding on sentence level concerns.The Humanistic and Social Advantages of Tutor Feedback vs. AI Feedback activity further encouraged dialogue about AI's role in the writing center. This activity involved consultants providing feedback on a common writing assignment that is seen in our writing center. They then compared their feedback to Generative AI-provided feedback on the same assignment. Consultants concluded that while AI is helpful for lower-order concerns (LOCs), human tutors are crucial for higher-order concerns (HOCs), as “working with tutors humanizes the writing process” and helps interpret assignments in ways AI cannot (Patchen, 2024, p. 21). As humans, we “have the ability to actively listen to our partners’ [students’] words, rather than simply predict, from a large data set, what the next word in a sentence should be” (Essid & Cummins, 2025). This ability highlights the need for a humanistic perspective for drafting and revising processes in which consultants engage the writer's agency and understand that the writer’s identity is entwined with their writing and thought process. Essid & Cummins (2025) reinforce the use of the humanistic perspective, pointing out that “by using AI mindfully, writing centers may help to level the playing field for students marginalized by identity, neurodivergence, or socioeconomics." 

Overall, consultants appreciated the opportunity to work with AI, which alleviated some fears about its ability to replace their roles, since AI “feedback did not offer opportunities for the writer to engage with or reflect on their work, which is a key part of the learning process” (Krasova & Othman, 2025). As administrators, we plan to continue exploring whether the outcomes and consensus determined from this particular activity remain consistent across various contexts. 

REFERENCES

• Essid, J., & Cummins, C. (2025). A future for writing centers? Generative AI and what students are saying. The Peer Review, 9(2), https://thepeerreview-iwca.org/issue-9-2/a-future-for-writing-centers-generative-ai-and-what-students-are-saying/ 
• Krasova, A., & Othman, M. (2025). Writing center instruction for the age of AI: Tutors professional development workshop. The Peer Review, 9(2), https://thepeerreview-iwca.org/issue-9-2/writing-center-instruction-for-the-age-of-ai-tutors-professional-development-workshop/
• Patchen, A. (2024). Tutors’ column: The people make the place: Reminding tutors of their value in a world of artificial intelligence. WLN: A Journal of Writing Center Scholarship, 49(1), 20-23. https://wac.colostate.edu/docs/wln/v49n1/patchen.pdf

 

LEARNING OUTCOMES/OBJECTIVES

Engaging in this activity will help reinforce the need for student-centered consultations and help alleviate fears surrounding AI and writing center work. As consultants/tutors engage with the activity, they will further understand how their training and collaboration with students helps students better engage with the writing process. 

• Consultants will have better AI literacy, through comparison of the type of feedback they give versus the feedback AI gives. 
• Consultants will be able to articulate whether and how well AI feedback versus consultant feedback addresses student writing, specifically HOCs
• Consultants will be able to provide context to students about how to consider and incorporate AI feedback when reviewing drafts of an assignment. 

INSTRUCTIONAL PLAN

PRE-WORK STEP (OPTIONAL)

This activity takes places in two parts, two 60-75-minute meetings. Before starting this activity, administrators may want to include any research they have gathered and also any research that consultants have conducted about AI to have open dialogue/conversations about said research. Having consultants read through research and talk about AI is necessary to understand the importance of writing centers and the work that consultants do, especially when it concerns personalized and targeted feedback for students.

Leading up to this activity, we had our consultants research how generative AI impacts their specific disciplines and the current capabilities of AI. Some of the research tasks we had consultants complete were:

• Generate your own definition of generative AI and how it works behind the scenes (mechanics).
• Investigate AI and its ethical considerations: Are any ethical considerations discipline specific?
• We had consultants research both positive and negative considerations.
• Reflect on “outsourcing” lower order concerns to AI.
• This was based on Akiyoshi and Alshareefy (2024), “ChatGPT and writing center tutors: Establishing a ‘both/and’ relationship.”
• Research how other writing centers are “dealing” with AI.
• This was based on writing centers releasing AI statements.

We followed this research with open discussions about their findings and what potential impacts generative AI could have in the writing center.

I would like to note that our university doesn’t have a direct policy about AI. There are some mentions of generative AI in our Academic Integrity Policy and mentions of generative AI and using it with institutional data. We did not include this in any of our research or discussions before delving into this activity, however this might be something that other writing centers will want to include if their university has an AI policy.  

PART ONE: CONSULTANT FEEDBACK
INTRODUCTION (10-15 minutes)

• For the first part of this activity, consultants will provide feedback on one paper of the admin’s choosing. Admin are encouraged to choose a paper or genre-specific assignment that is seen in the writing center regularly. 
• Admin will prep and explain that this activity is intended to see how consultants  give feedback and the ways in which they provide similar or different types of feedback.

Give a brief overview of the Consultant Feedback Form and explain its purpose. Our explanation was that it will be used to gather generalized data that could be compared to the data we will receive when consultants do Part Two of the activity where AI provides feedback.

The form itself has space for the consultants to provide feedback and comments about the thesis, audience awareness, organization, development of ideas, and purpose. These are the main higher-order- concerns (HOCs) that admins in our center want consultants to focus on. It also contains a section to mention lower-order concerns (LOCs), if consultants have time to address them.

The form itself can be customized to fit the needs of any writing center.

BODY OF LESSON (30-40 minutes)

• Consultants will spend this time reviewing and providing feedback on the given paper. This can be done individually or as a group. We encouraged consultants to work as a group to have open discussions about providing feedback and allow for admin to see how they engage in providing feedback.
• Consultants are encouraged to provide feedback as if it were a consultation they were having with a student. The consultants should fill out the Consultant Feedback Form and provide inline comments as they are reading through the paper and providing written feedback.

CONCLUSION (10-15 minutes)

• Admin will facilitate open dialogue discussing the feedback and where consultants were differing or providing similar types of feedback. 
  
• Part of this discussion should lead into how the consultants would give the feedback to a student and why.
• The discussions we had focused on what types of targeted feedback were provided by consultants, and how feedback was provided. Was the feedback engaging with the student’s needs? Did the feedback provide enough context for the student to self-revise? How did the consultants present feedback about the HOCs?
• Here the admin will include some discussion about converting the written feedback to verbal feedback that consultants would give a student.
• Admin will prepare consultants for the next part of this activity (we did this at our next staff meeting). The admin should explain the instructions for the next part of the activity and encourage consultants to find an AI tool they will be comfortable using. Most of our consultants used ChatGPT, as this was what they were familiar with.

PART TWO: AI FEEDBACK

INTRODUCTION (10-25 minutes)

• For the second part of this activity, consultants will use an AI tool of their choice to provide feedback on the same paper they provided feedback for in Part One of the training. 
• Admin will explain that this activity is intended to see how generative AI provides feedback to students who have writing concerns. 
• Consultants will be given a prompt (see Using AI for Student Feedback slides) to run through the AI to  try to get feedback on HOCs. LOCs are intentionally left out of the prompt to see what AI will focus on. 
• Consultants will also receive a Consultant Feedback on AI form similar to the form they filled out in Part One. This form is used to gather generalized data that can be used to compare the data received from the consultants and the data received from AI. The form itself has space for the consultants to highlight areas where AI provides feedback and comments about the HOCs.
  
• The form itself can be customized to fit the needs of the writing center.

BODY OF LESSON (30-40 minutes)

• Consultants will spend this time using  a generative AI tool to provide feedback, and then reviewing the feedback given about the paper. This can be done individually or as a group. Group work allows consultants to have open discussions about how AI is providing feedback.
• Consultants will analyze the feedback given and fill out the form provided.

CONCLUSION (10-15 minutes)

• Admin will facilitate open dialogue using the Assessing for Understanding questions below to discuss the feedback and how AI feedback is similar to and/or different from consultant feedback. 
  
• Part of this discussion should lead into how and why students might prefer feedback from consultants.
• While our consultants are still critical of AI and the feedback it provides, some centers may need to encourage their consultants to be more critical of the feedback AI provides.
• To achieve this, have consultants analyze AI feedback based on the prompt given. Is the feedback specific or generalized?
• Consultants should discuss how the AI feedback made them feel and if the AI feedback is actionable when revising and editing writing assignments.
• Admin will wrap-up the discussion by allowing consultants to address any concerns or questions they might still have about AI

ASSESSING FOR UNDERSTANDING

I encourage admin to provide printed or digital copies of the forms and assignments to consultants and collect the at the end of each part. These copies provide data for the admin to look and see how consultants are giving feedback, but also how they understand the AI-generated feedback. 

Assessment also takes place through the various open dialogues. These allow admin to see how consultants justify their feedback and also understand their thought process when it comes to analyzing AI feedback. Some questions that we asked include:

• Based on this activity, how does the AI-generated feedback compare to consultant feedback?
• Does the feedback given by AI create further anxieties about AI use or does it help alleviate any concerns you have as consultants about AI?

This pertained to our consultants having concerns about AI being able to do their jobs.

• In what ways  does the feedback given by AI contribute to the writing/learning/tutoring process?
• How does the feedback given by AI subvert the writing/learning/tutoring process in the writing center?
• Why is the humanistic and social aspect of consulting beneficial to students?

As defined previously, humanistic and social consulting is where consultants engage the writer's agency and understand that the writer’s identity is entwined with their writing and thought process.

• In what way(s) is targeted feedback from the consultant beneficial to the student?
• In what way(s) is generalized feedback from AI beneficial to the student?

After having completed this activity, our consultants determined that AI provided generalized feedback that could be applied to any form of writing and we discussed the uses of targeted feedback that is central to each student.

1. Adapting the lesson for various writing genres. 

This lesson and the included forms can be adapted for various types of writing assignments and writing center needs. The forms based on HOCs and LOCs, typical concerns that writing centers focus on, can be adapted to focus on different aspects and qualities of a paper. For example, our consultants have expressed interest in seeing how this framework can be applied to lab reports or library memos, which are common assignments we receive. 

2. Adapting the lesson to incorporate more research on generative AI
Another adaptation could be research-based. Having consultants research various types of feedback and how AI provides feedback before completing this activity could potentially change the outcomes of the assignment and what the consultants find valuable.

3. Adapting the lesson to hone the AI prompt
The AI Feedback activity in Part Two can be extended by altering the AI prompt. For example, admin have talked through having the consultants revise the prompt after the first iteration of feedback to see how the AI feedback might change. The change in the prompt would lead to an analysis on what caused the feedback to change and if the change was necessary based on the outcome of the prompt.

4. Adapting the lesson for online training contexts
For an online adaptation, the optional Pre-Work Step might make use of an online collaborative tool, like Google Docs or OneDrive, where consultants can showcase their research. 

• Part One can take place on a video chat service where the admin use an online collaborative tool where consultants can annotate and provide feedback live during the activity. After annotating and providing feedback, the admin can set up a Padlet or some other digital whiteboard where consultants can share their main thoughts and generate dialogue. 
• Part Two will also take place in a video chat service. This part will require the consultants to do more individualized work during the AI feedback phase. Once consultants review the prompt and have received feedback from AI, admin can set up polls to gauge consultants’ reactions to AI feedback and utilize digital whiteboards to further discuss thoughts about AI feedback. 

5. Adaption for Time
This lesson can be adapted to fit staff meetings that are less than an hour. Admin can cut time on introductions and supplemental work by assigning tasks as homework/pre-meeting. For example, the admin can have consultants review and provide feedback before the staff meeting and allow for the meeting to be a space for open dialogue. Admin can also choose to use shorter pieces of selected texts, such as lab reports, memos, or emails to cut down on time needed for the feedback review.

RESOURCES

The following scholarship helped to inform our understanding of the evolving conversation around writing center tutor notes. 

• Buck, I. (2024, September 5). Beyond the hype: Writing centers and the AI revolution in higher education. Digital Rhetoric Collaborative. https://www.digitalrhetoriccollaborative.org/2024/09/05/ beyond-the-hype-writing-centers-and-the-ai-revolution-in-higher-education/
• Duin, A. H., & Pedersen, I. (2023). Augmentation technologies and artificial intelligence in technical communication: Designing ethical futures. Routledge.
  
• Esfahani, M. N. (2024). The changing nature of writing centers in the era of ChatGPT. International Journal of Scientific Research and Management (IJSRM), 12(8), http://dx.doi.org/10.18535/ijsrm/v12i08.ec01
  
• Guo, K., Pan, M., Li, Y., & Lai, C. (2024). Effects of an AI-supported approach to peer feedback on university EFL students’ feedback quality and writing ability. The Internet and Higher Education, 63, 100962. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.iheduc.2024.100962 
  
• Hicks, M. (2024, August 12). College writing centers worry AI could replace them. EdSurge https://www.edsurge.com/news/2024-08-12-college-writing-centers-worry-ai-could-replace-them
  
• Mollick, E. (2024). Co-intelligence: Living and working with AI. Penguin Publishing Group.

REFERENCES

• Akiyoshi, J. (2024, August 13). ChatGPT and writing center tutors: Establishing a “both/and” relationship. Another Word. https://dept.writing.wisc.edu/blog/chatgpt-and-wc/

AUTHOR INFORMATION

Elizabeth Gagne'

East Carolina University

Elizabeth Gagne’ is a PhD student in the Rhetoric Writing, and Professional  Communications Department at East Carolina University. She is the current graduate assistant director in the University Writing Center and has worked in writing centers since 2020. Her current research interests are gaming studies, writing studies, and accessibility.

Gagne', Center Moves, no. 4, 2025.