Chronicle of Higher Education article by Beth McMurtrie
ChatGPT: A Must-See Before the Semester Begins by Cynthia Alby
Excerpts:
First, if you want to make your assignments AI-proof, that’s likely impossible. These tools can be used in large and small ways. Maybe you won’t receive a paper written by a bot, but a bot-written essay may inform your students’ writing. Yes, you can shift all writing to in-class assignments, or you can have students write by hand. But as Anna Mills, an English instructor at College of Marin pointed out to me, these strategies introduce new problems. For example, you may have students with learning disabilities who struggle under such conditions.
Second, you may want to shift to different types of assignments and assessments. Maybe you allow students to produce a podcast instead of writing a paper. Or you create fewer writing assignments, but build in more feedback and revision to the ones you keep. Or you try prompts whose answers are less likely to be found on the internet. Of course, there is always another option, which is to invest in detection software. Already several tools on the market promise to do that. But many digital-learning experts say that’s a losing game — tech will keep advancing, and students will find ways around detection tools. Nor do most instructors want to become writing police.
The approach that most intrigued me is one that has to do with engaging students in a conversation about why and how they write, sometimes using these AI tools.
John Warner, a writing expert and author, notes that writing is a form of thinking. Writing requires you to process and synthesize a range of facts and ideas, and to come up with a coherent and hopefully insightful take on what you have learned. Students, though, may have been trained in high school to see writing as a form of regurgitation based on a set of formulas (compare and contrast!).
If you can explain to students the value of writing, and convince them that you are genuinely interested in their ideas, they are less likely to reach for the workaround, Warner told me.
There are also a host of people excited about using this technology in their classroom. Why? Well, for one, it’s not going away. Ignoring the fact that students will use it is seen by some instructors as an abdication of professional responsibility. These are powerful tools and it’s better to help students learn how to use them judiciously, and to understand their limitations and benefits. The other reason to use them is that they can help spark the creative process, professors say, and enhance learning.
Marc Watkins, an instructor at the University of Mississippi, wrote a thoughtful essay about this recently. He and his colleagues in the department of writing and rhetoric started a working group last summer to figure out how to incorporate AI research, writing, and brainstorming tools into their classes. They used a counterargument generator to encourage students to explore different perspectives on a topic, and a research tool to help them brainstorm.
“What message would we send our students,” Watkins writes, “by using AI-powered detectors to curb their suspected use of an AI writing assistant, when future employers will likely want them to have a range of AI-related skills and competencies?
“What we should instead focus on is teaching our students data literacy so that they can use this technology to engage human creativity and thought.”
…Let me be clear about my first goal; I desperately hope that I can convince you to take an hour to get a feel for what ChatGPT is and what it is capable of right away. I’ve collected some ideas and resources to get you started. A few will walk away from this exercise thinking, “What a relief. Nothing needs to be modified in the courses I teach; ChatGPT will not impact my instruction, but I’m glad I can converse about it.” But I suspect the vast majority, and especially those who teach online courses, will recognize that this is a game-changer that may require substantial course revisions before the new semester.
But I have a second, more important mission once you’ve taken a look, perhaps worried about how to approach this technology, and wondered how swiftly AI is going improve and expand. I want to beg you not to turn to increased punishment, surveillance, and control, and instead consider how this fascinating turn of events might be a reason for rejoicing. Might this be an opportunity to turn away from assembly line efficiency and toward a model where we help students use AI to extend their capabilities, allowing them to pursue interests and solve wicked problems? Could this be a chance to design a model where students wouldn’t dream of using AI unethically or allow it to steal their learning, a model where educators find more meaning and purpose in their work as well?