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ChatGPT In Your Classroom

cell phone displaying intro to ChatGPT

There has been no lack of resources, musings, and opinions on ChatGPT and other natural language processing tools’ meteoric rise over the recent months and its impact on the classroom. A few things we know is for sure: (1) there are a lot of facets to consider about the tools’ usage both from a student and educator perspective, (2) it is constantly changing, so whatever adaptations we bring into the classroom must be flexible enough for those changes, and (3) this is not a new challenge.

A librarian colleague once shared with me how people told her the onset of the internet was the “death of the library.” Decades later, we know that is not the case. Libraries have evolved to be stalwart partners for students to develop their digital literacy and research skills. Below, I’ve listed a few thoughts on how we can approach ChatGPT in our classrooms and some of my favorite resources.

There are a few things to understand about ChatGPT, as it stands right now. Note that this might be very different if you’re reading this a few months (or weeks) after this has been published! ChatGPT is trained by text written by humans, so it inherits the biases that we imbue into our writing. It does not update in real time and it can’t access resources that aren’t public (such as many academic papers.) ChatGPT is built to sound like it knows what it’s talking about…but we’ve found that the information is not always accurate. Even the citations it cites might not even be real ones.

Are students already using ChatGPT for their coursework? Yes. It doesn’t necessarily mean all students are using it to submit coursework. To many, students are using ChatGPT in the same way that Google and Wikipedia became important tools for research and review. There are many AI detection tools that help, for example, an instructor see if submitted work was generated by AI. However, it’s not perfect, and we can’t “outcheck” ChatGPT as it is constantly changing and learning as more people use it. So how do we approach ChatGPT in our classrooms? How do we talk about responsible usage of it and what plagiarism with an AI tool means? For those who are interested -- how do we incorporate ChatGPT as a learning tool in our classroom? 

A note for CREA, JOUR, and EXPO instructors: Any usage of ChatGPT is not permitted in Writing Program courses.  Please discuss with your program head, Pat Bellanca, if you have any questions.

 

Set Expectations

Create Your Environment of Trust

Assignments, Cheating, and the Gray Area

Is there such a thing as “ChatGPT-proofing” your assignments? The better question to ask is, “why do students plagiarize?” The student may feel like they don’t know what a successful submission is, fear failing, or simply think something that wasn’t written specifically for the class can pass muster. How do we approach building our assignments so there is trust between the instructor and student? The instructor trusts that students will approach the assignment with motivation and a desire to put their own voice into the work. The student trusts that the work they’re doing is meaningful and worth any struggle or challenges they come across.

 

Approach 1:  Authentic Assignments

  • Ask yourself: What drives your students? What will motivate them? What do you do in your own work/field that requires practice and feedback? Include these elements in your course assignment.
     
  • For prompts and small assignments: have your students connect their thoughts with the class or their own personal lives
     
  • Invite or require students to add personal components, such as past experiences, and/or local context, such as asking them to consider something that is specific to where they are or current events.
     
  • Remember: ChatGPT doesn’t know your class as a whole and what is discussed in it. Invite your students to make these critical connections on their own.

 

Approach 2: Support and Highlight the Process

  • Is it worth doing something step-by-step when the answer can be immediately generated? For decades, the answer from math teachers has been “yes.” We still learn how to calculate by hand even with the advent of calculators, because understanding the process is important. We teach the process so students can apply it and use it beyond the classroom. The same goes for writing, even as ChatGPT gives students the ability to generate written work immediately.
     
  • Highlight the value of the writing process -- explain to students the components of generating good writing, such as learning how to craft and justify opinions
     
  • For complicated processes such as good writing, let your students practice it often in class. Break down the steps of the process so they can understand it and learn how to approach each part of the process.

 

Ready to dive deeper?

Here are suggestions on how you can use ChatGPT in your classroom

  • Using it as a simulation assistant
     
  • Lean into the meta -- have your students actively use ChatGPT to give information about a topic and have them pick it apart and assess it. Ask your students:
     
  • What’s accurate?
     
  • Are the sources correct?
     
  • What voice is it taking on? What specific audience is it speaking to?
     
  • Use it to generate written text that students can critically analyze/give feedback on as practice before they do peer review with their actual classmates.

 

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