“Some innovative teachers see generative AI as a tool to produce lesson prompts, help students avoid future digital divides, and more.”
Why this is important: With the rise of artificial intelligence (“AI”) and the popularity of new online tools like ChatGPT, professionals of all industries are grappling with how to best use, or not use, AI in the work that they do, while managing the concern that these tools could eventually replace them altogether. One area particularly affected is education: Are students cheating if they use AI? Will AI degrade the value of an education? Can AI eventually replace a teacher? Rather than dwell on these negatives, this article discusses some ways that teachers are adapting to AI without compromising their standards.
First, Danny Liu of the University of Sydney in Australia is helping to educate educators on what generative AI tools are and how to use them. Liu stresses the importance of a well thought out and well written prompt to produce the best results. If teachers learn to craft specific prompts, the AI is likely to return something useful in the classroom. A part of this education effort is also to remove some of the initial fear-based stigma around the use of AI. It was once thought that having access to the internet during the school day would give students too much opportunity to cheat, but teachers have largely adapted and have made use of the internet an integral part of their curricula. The same could be true of AI.
In California, Peter Paccone is following this initiative by integrating ChatGPT into his work and allowing his students to use it. Paccone may use it to help create tests, write prompts, and form study guides. The students may use it to generate some results that contribute to a broader classroom discussion. As Paccone sees it, even if they are using AI, they are thinking and participating, which is the point of the exercise. Other teachers are using AI to generate summaries of presentations, fill-in-the-blank exercises, and other classroom materials to save time without losing value.
Of course, there are concerns about academic integrity when using tools that are so skilled at mimicking natural human language. That is why some teachers are requiring short and varied writing samples from their students at the beginning of the semester so they can get a sense of their voice and are better able to point out language that may have been generated by AI.
Lastly, educators embracing AI are acknowledging that students must have access to these tools during their education or they could fall behind in a world that is rapidly adapting to them. Just as a divide formed when some students had home computers and internet access while others did not, some students who are banned from using AI could enter a job market one day that expects a proficient understanding of how to use them. In this respect, it is an educational imperative to adapt to the use of AI and find ways to integrate the tools into school work rather than restrict or outright ban its use. This takeaway, it seems, is what all sectors and industries are dealing with right now – adapt or be left behind. --- Shane P. Riley