Teaching with Generative AI

What is ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is an A.I. chatbot that can explain ideas and concepts using simple sentences and generate convincing, though often oversimplified, written text. ChatGPT can write college-level essays, working computer code and even jokes. You can create an account here, to try it yourself and see what it does for your discipline. 

What about detection tools?

It’s too soon to tell if detection tools will be successful at determining what is and isn’t A.I. generated writing. 

Companies like Turnitin are working to address the detection of AI writing (click here for Turnitin’s summary of how they’re addressing Chat GPT). However, other tools are being created just as rapidly to defeat detection; for example, this “paraphrasing” tool.

Here are some things GPT can write/create:

• academic paper
• common app essay
• syllabus
• music
• jokes
• code
• explanations

See what it does for your discipline by trying it yourself:

• Sign up

It’s too soon to conclude on detection tools:

• Turnitin has addressed what they're doing to address AI technology

Turnitin detection can be defeated by a “paraphrasing” AI tool (Quillbot) that has GPT technology

READ

• Teaching Experts Are Worried About ChatGPT, but Not for the Reasons You Think (chronicle.com)
• Will Artificial Intelligence Kill College Writing? (chronicle.com)
• Freaking Out About ChatGPT—Part I | Just Visiting (insidehighered.com)
• ChatGPT and AI text generators: how HE can respond | THE Campus Learn, Share, Connect (timeshighereducation.com)
• The Computers Are Getting Better at Writing, Thanks to Artificial Intelligence | The New Yorker
• AI Will Augment, Not Replace (insidehighered.com)
• How to cheat on your final paper: Assignment AI for student writing | AI & Society 
• AI Could be great for college essays | Slat
• My first chat with ChatGPT (opinion)
• GPT in Higher Education | Inside Higher Ed

• Alarmed by A.I. Chatbots, Universities Start Revamping How They Teach | NYTimes

• A College Kid Built an App That Sniffs Out Text Penned by AI | The Daily Beast

Listen

• Did Artificial Intelligence Just Get Too Smart? - The New York Times
• How Artificial Intelligence is Impacting Higher Education, with Cynthia Alby
• Has AI reached the point where a software program can do better work than you? : NPR

Watch

What might ChatGPT mean for higher education?

Ideas for Designing Assignments 

• Create prompts that are narrow and focused on specific course content and rely on the resources you use in the course or ask students to apply course reading/content to their own lives.

• Use course design practices that promote academic integrity (and make cheating feel less necessary) such as instilling self-efficacy, focusing on learning over performance and lowering the stakes of assignments. 

  • For more info, check out CEETL’s Designing for Academic Integrity section from the Online Teaching Lab (if you haven’t visited the OTL before, click here first to “enroll”). 
• Focus on the process, not the product: Build in more drafting, feedback, and revisions
• Engage students in conversation about how and why they write (processing, synthesizing ideas, critical thinking, engaging in conversation with text, etc.)
• Foster intrinsic motivation: Get to know your students and decide what is meaningful and relevant to them so that the work you assign is something they want to do
• Consider alternatives to writing essays such as creating podcasts or presentations
• Try social annotation tools such as Perusall in lieu of reading reflections
• Teach data literacy: Education adapted to search engines by teaching things like how to do an effective google search. Some faculty are taking a similar approach to dealing with AI text generators (e.g. having students examine/critique AI writing; having students use an AI written essay as a jumping-off point for their own work)
• Create an assignment on AI literacy so as to gain a better understanding of the digital tools we use, including the racial and gender biases in algorithms. This gives students opportunities to use GPT and write about its limitations and benefits.
• Use AI as an opportunity to reimagine teaching to help students write prose that differs from what machines can produce: Machines can craft essays. How should writing be taught now?

Providing Ethical Guidance for Students

If we operate from an assumption of trust, we can help guide students through AI literacy and ethical ways of using it. Students might be interested in these conversations, like faculty, they are also wrestling with this.  There are students who genuinely want to work on their writing but also experience difficulties with time. They've been through a pandemic, through trauma and stress, and learning loss, and some might be thinking about how to use AI to fill in those gaps and are looking for guidance. This is a good time to use conversation as a way to build critical thinking skills and clarify misunderstandings about what plagiarism is (the gray area).

Avoiding a Surveillance Environment

Try not to be fearful and conduct all graded assignments in class or under proctored conditions disconnected from the internet because a lot of students, for various reasons, would feel challenged by being put in that high-pressure situation. This practice is not inclusive and very disruptive for students and our own pedagogies because it sends the message that if students can't perform on the spot, they will be getting assistance from AI.