By Cara Gallagher and the GLP Team
We’ve heard from lots of school teachers and division directors that the evolution of ChatGPT – an Artificial Intelligence-based platform that can automatically generate original content about any prompt or essay topic it’s given – is causing English and History departments to hit the panic button. In an article from The Atlantic written by English teacher Daniel Herman, the technology is a gamechanger for educators and schools. “This would be like the printing press, the steam drill, and the light bulb having a baby, and that baby having access to the entire corpus of human knowledge and understanding. My life—and the lives of thousands of other teachers and professors, tutors and administrators—is about to drastically change.”
The implications of this technology are indeed significant for schools and universities where competition for college admissions led to a cottage industry of essay tutors and coaches, leading many to wonder for years how fair the process is. Perhaps ChatGPT will help level the playing field for socio-economically disadvantaged students. Mr. Herman, the teacher in the Atlantic article, asked it to write him a “sophisticated, emotional 600-word college-admissions essay about how my experience volunteering at my local SPCA had prepared me for the academic rigor of Stanford.” The results impressed him and would be certain to catch the attention of admissions officers at Stanford.
So what are schools going to do if students can write an essay with ChatGPT in a matter of minutes? Initial reactions include banning the use of the website or making it almost impossible to use by requiring students to write essays by hand in-class or making every assessment oral, as this article from the New York Times discusses. Rushing to ban or create rules when the tech is already out there and in the hands of–and probably being used by–students seems futile. We also can’t help but wonder whether these reactions are pedagogically sound and good for learners. Plus they raise questions that could result in bigger problems -- are these alternatives equitable, especially for students with disabilities or those who qualify for extra time?
No doubt, ChatGPT is disrupting education, but it’s also provoking a much-needed dialogue about an excellent question Herman posed in the article: “The question isn’t ‘How will we get around this?’ but rather ‘Is this still worth doing?’”
The creation of ChatGPT feels like a point of inflection similar to when the calculator was mass produced. No doubt teachers believed that students who didn’t learn how to do long-division would never reach a standard of math that was widely accepted as critical to learning. And yet, the calculator proved to be an opportunity to push the limits of what was possible for teachers to teach and teenagers to learn in secondary school. ChatGPT may be a stand-in for the modern calculator, but the fact is students still need to learn how to think critically, build an argument, evaluate sources, and communicate a thesis or point of view.
What if ChatGPT isn’t a platform to ban but a teaching tool used to engage students?
One school in the Netherlands is using it to teach undergrads and grad students about original content and misinformation. A teacher at the school gave her students a debate-style assignment. Groups of students first designed and presented three of their own arguments and two counter arguments to the class without the assistance of ChatGPT. Next they fed the same assignment to ChatGPT and compared the chatbot’s answer with their own unique responses. According to the teacher, the students were amazed by how fast and eruditely the bot produced a response—until they read it with a closer eye. The response got certain facts wrong. It also attributed work to the wrong authors. The students quickly learned that, although it helped them see their original ideas and arguments in a new way, it had the potential to result in misinformation and poor scores had they relied exclusively on the bot to write their response.
Some alternative ways in which teachers use the technology in their classrooms include this article from an author who shows students the benefits of observing and studying writing in action. It could save educators time and allow them to cover more content by generating instructional texts to use for discussion on the elements of good writing. Another teacher asked her students to create outlines for a writing assignment using ChatGPT. Once they reviewed and assessed the quality of the outlines, they were asked to close their laptops and write an essay by hand. Instead of taking hours to write a quiz, one teacher used ChatGPT to generate a quiz for him. And there’s even a blog written by a teacher listing ways to use the technology in the classroom.
This feels like a “teachable moment” for educators and schools in which productive and timely solutions can be designed, in partnership with students, so that online tools can be used in ways that uphold the highest standards as well as school policies on academic honesty and acceptable use. Education Reimagined offers several ideas about ways to use technology to enhance learning experiences:
One Student at a Time/Personalization: Leverage the tool to differentiate students’ learning experiences. Have them develop personalized learning plans that enhance their strengths, while also exploring interests and curiosities. Learning targets can be pre-determined, tracked, assessed, and modified as needed by learners. They can also analyze their own learning data and design support systems/strategies for their growth areas. In other words, the learner is the curriculum, and learning is driven by agency, choice, and empowerment.
Relationships: In a time where ChatGPT is pushing the boundaries of academic integrity, relationships could be a deterrent for learners not to engage in such activities. Inversely, when educators know their students well, they can easily identify inauthentic student work and approach it with a focus on accountability, care, and growth. The common denominator here is the strength and authenticity of relationships.
Real World Learning: One of the most effective ways of supporting learners to develop critical skills like learning how to write and communicate on their own is through authentic real-world experiences. Transformative learning experiences can be had through internships, externships, apprenticeships, community service, service learning, leaving-to-learn expeditions, dual enrollment, and more.
Competency-Based Education: Instead of content standards, a system that allows learners to apply what they know through new forms and situational contexts is needed—one where academic, industry, and social-emotional skills provide a learning framework for learners to curate, moderate, and evaluate their learning. Learning is measured by demonstrations of mastery versus hours spent in a classroom. This system is anchored in placing students at the center of their learning.
Authentic Assessments: Deeper learning is not only about the acquisition of new knowledge but also in its application. Authentic assessments should align with student interest, challenge students to create something new, be multi-dimensional/interdisciplinary, extend beyond the school, have real-world implications, connect to experts in the field/topic, and be evaluated by different audiences. Learners’ work must be deeply personal, have a real impact on the world, and offer intentional opportunities for reflection. The focus is not only on the product but also on the process of learning and how they will take what they learned and apply it to their future learning experiences.
This technology is going to pose serious challenges to those schools and educators who revere traditional methods of teaching; where writing is iterative, linear, and teacher-centered. Conversations about writing policies and the use of ChatGPT by students will spark necessary dialogues in schools about the purpose of and need to teach writing in a time when a platform can do it for you.
We hope these discussions will push schools to leverage technology like ChatGPT and use it as an opportunity to assess what really matters – how to think critically, evaluate information, conduct research, multiple and conflicting viewpoints at once, and defend an opinion in fair and flexible ways beyond assigning the typical 5-page paper.
We’ll continue to follow this unfolding conversation and update you. And we encourage you to share any interesting pieces with us!