KBLOG 20: The AI Elephant in the Classroom: Part 3: Will ChatGPT Force Educators to Walk the Walk, not just Talk the Talk?

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The Challenge Part 1:

Since the beginning of my teaching career, over thirty years ago, educators have been touting the importance of moving education in the direction of critical thinking, creativity, problem solving skills and real-world learning opportunities. Changing direction to a more student-centered environment has been a slow process, with stops and starts and inconsistent application across disciplines; too often there has been fewer opportunities to engage in authentic student-centered learning as it relates to social economic and ability levels of students. Even with the obvious and not so obvious classroom challenges of AI, it just may be the push needed for educators to properly implement this new and exciting direction in learning. I must admit, my initial reaction to ChatGPT was panic. I focused on the negative. My reaction was similar to Professor Alex Lawrence of Weber University in Utah which was, “Holy Cow!” and his second, “This is the greatest cheating tool ever invented.”  I found this statement in an article in the Wall Street Journal (1),  the byline was, “The powerful paper-writing chatbot presents an educational challenge: Ban it or build on it?” Banning stuff never works long term so it is time to start building.

 A Solution:

The question of how to incorporate the use of AI into our teaching is in its infancy. But it is getting an enormous amount of attention and great ideas are emerging. I list below eight general ideas that I have found by reading various articles (article links in resources).

• ·Provide interactive digital content that does way more for students than textbooks and worksheets (2)

• A student could travel anywhere in the world virtually, and even learn about different cultures using VR and AR (2)

• Ask students to generate a short essay using ChatGPT then have them think of more incisive questions to get a stronger response then edit the essay for tone and voice and tailor to their intended audience (3)

• Have students write on issues in the school or a local issue that may not appear on the web (4)

• Give students a ChatGPT generated writing to a specific response and have them critique its response for accuracy (4)

• A way to generate ideas for a topic question or interview or experiment (4)

• Students can ask AI to explain a concept they are having trouble understanding (5)

• Testing students through interviews and having them write using pen and paper

 I love the ideas of Ethan Mollick, an Associate Professor at the Wharton School.  He introduces a must read article from Jan. 24, 2023: “The practical guide to using AI to do stuff” in this way:

 “My classes now require AI (and if I did not require AI use, it wouldn’t matter, everyone is using AI anyway). But how can students use AI well? Here is a basic tutorial and guide I am providing my classes. It covers some of the many ways to use AI to be more productive, creative, and successful, using the technology available in early 2023, as well as some of the risks.”(5)

He offers practical advice in the following areas: writing, making images, coming up with ideas, creating videos, coding, learning stuff.

Resources:

Note some of these articles are through subscriptions, check with your library to get full text.

1.  https://www.wsj.com/articles/professors-turn-to-chatgpt-to-teach-students-a-lesson-11674657460

2. https://www.eduporium.com/blog/eduporium-weekly-questions-about-ai-in-education/

3. https://www.wsj.com/articles/professors-turn-to-chatgpt-to-teach-students-a-lesson-11674657460

4. https://www.ft.com/content/41243091-d8d7-4b74-9ad1-5341c16c869f

5. https://oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-practical-guide-to-using-ai-to?r=i5f7&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web