As the last months have made clear, Generative AI tools – such as ChatGPT – are here to stay, are certain to get more and more powerful, and will change the way we do many things. This includes teaching and learning, as the university committee on generative AI’s recent report is at pains to demonstrate.
Implicit in the report is the idea that faculty will need to adjust to these tools. Once again, like with the pandemic, we are presented with a set of challenges we didn’t necessarily ask for but will need to respond to. Hopefully, learning from the pandemic, we can respond as best we can in ways that balance our commitment to improving student learning with an understanding that we can all only do so much.
My immediate experience with ChatGPT, similar to the experiences of many, was to marvel at how quickly and deftly it can generate an answer. I asked the simple prompt “Malcolm or Martin?” and instantly got a comparison of the contrasting ideas and tactics of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr.
I’ve also sat with faculty as they tried it for the first time, and the experience is almost always surprising. After the initial shock, things get more interesting, with differences between disciplines and across the types of assignments tested. For some faculty, the tool instantly generates exactly the sort of answer they would expect from students. “But, that’s perfect,” one professor exclaimed in surprise.
For others, the initial response is relief that ChatGPT doesn’t really do a strong job of addressing their prompt. “It can do C work,” was how one faculty member explained it to me. That resonated with my own attempts to get it to generate a synthetic, analytic, and comparative essay. Though even then, a few refining questions can often generate a much stronger response. How you ask ChatGPT to work matters a great deal.
So where to begin? I recommend you start by trying it out yourself. (If you’d like assistance getting started, let us know we are happy to meet and walk you through how to access and use ChatGPT and other AI tools). After experiencing the tools yourself, you will be better prepared to decide how you might want or need to change your course assignments.
“Can I use a prompt that ChatGPT can answer” is a tough question, and one with many different answers. Perhaps it means revising or changing your assignment. Perhaps it means emphasizing that the skills this assignment uses are essential skills for the student to develop, and encouraging them to not take shortcuts that will leave them unprepared down the road. As always, and as the committee report recommends, it helps to go back to your core learning outcomes.
You might also consider how your students are using the tool, and how they are thinking about its role in their education. The initial conversations around ChatGPT centered on academic integrity concerns and the fear that the tool could do many assignments for students. This is a valid concern, and one many students share (“what happens if I do the work but other students cheat?”). But that concern can blind us to the many ways students are finding to use ChatGPT that may not cause academic integrity concerns. For example, ChatGPT can provide immediate, formative feedback on work. Students may find it easier to get timely feedback from the tool than to wait for scheduled office hours to talk with an instructor or TA.
So a second recommendation: talk with your students about generative AI tools. Be clear in your own expectations about whether it is appropriate or inappropriate to use the tools, and on the importance of academic integrity. But also ask them about how they are already using these tools. They will likely be finding creative uses for generative AI, some of which may improve their learning and some of which may force us to be clearer in what sorts of uses are acceptable.
This is a fast developing topic. We have resources to help you understand these tools, offer suggestions on how you might respond, and help you think about some of the difficult ethical questions these tools pose. We are always happy to meet with you directly. We will also share new ideas and approaches here in the months ahead. Please let us know if you have concerns you would like to see us address.