- 15.05.2026 07:38
From AI to new educational programs: TulSU students shared their vision for the university
At a meeting of the Tula State University Discussion Club, a closed survey was conducted and its results were discussed in a focus group format.
TulSU Discussion Club, initiated by Rector Oleg Aleksandrovich Kravchenko, holds regular meetings on current issues related to the university's development and ongoing processes. Typically, these meetings are attended by department heads, faculty, and experts. Students were invited to the latest meeting - those who are active and engaged, as Vladislav Viktorovich Kotov, TulSU Vice Rector for Academic Affairs, put it.
“Improving the educational process is a constant concern for the university's leadership”, he said. “Modern, new, and interesting educational programs, effective technologies, and methods are our goals. In this work, it's important to understand students' opinions, so we want to establish a feedback mechanism, and we decided to begin with a focus group.”
The organizers prepared a number of topics for discussion. Questions and multiple answer options appeared on students' screens and phones. Participants anonymously selected the answer they felt most comfortable with. No one saw how others voted. The system collected aggregate statistics in real time.
The first block dealt with artificial intelligence in education. Students were asked, “Do you believe that using AI for academic assignments is a form of cheating?” The answers ranged from strong to compromised, and the results were also varied: some advocated a complete ban on neural networks, others saw them as a convenient tool for explaining complex topics, and some honestly admitted, “We used to pay for essays, but now we don't, it's the same thing.”
Other topics included whether and how teachers should be evaluated, what changes they would like to see in the educational process, and what should be changed at the university.
Vice-Rectors Vladislav Viktorovich Kotov and Marina Olegovna Panfyorova, and Acting Director of the Institute of Humanities and Social Sciences Anastasia Aleksandrovna Lavrikova, participated in the discussion of results. They thanked the students for their honest responses and promised to take their opinions into account in future work.
