How can we make ChatGPT a healthy part of our school?

By Mia Chitishvili 

ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence chatbot that was developed by the artificial intelligence research laboratory OpenAI. The project was launched in November 2022. It is now one of the widely used chatbots - receiving around 10 million requests per day, has been used extensively by students, and has also outperformed Google. The chatbot has received an overwhelmingly positive response from the public, however - not from many educators.

Because of ChatGPT’s powerful capabilities to generate detailed, human answers, many students have been using it to write their assignments and answer questions in a heartbeat. They are able to ask the tool anything they want, from simple questions to requesting a full essay, and this has led educators to raise concerns about the usage of ChatGPT within schools, and whether we should ban it from schools.

How is ChatGPT challenging the contemporary testing system in schools, and if it is, how can we overcome it? What can be done?

The problems it poses

In schools, educators use three main criterions for assessing a student’s grade - understanding of the subject, ability to analyse that information and apply it to real-life situations, and their presentation of that information (be it in a presentation, essay, test, etc). These criterions are easily completed with ChatGPT - students can ask simple questions, give examples to compare two substances, and most importantly - prompt the bot to write essays about the materials.

The main problem that has been mentioned by many teachers is plagiarism, which is very easy to do with ChatGPT. Students have been found, and also admitted, to using ChatGPT as a source to generate essays or use it for home tests. Plagiarism is a direct breach of academic integrity, and can result in consequences. Relying on ChatGPT as a source to produce essays, which can be modified (e.g. word limits, expanding on certain paragraphs…) based on the student’s prompt, encourages academic dishonesty.

In January 2023, not long after ChatGPT’s release, a survey published on Intelligent.com was conducted online to measure how many students have used the AI tool. It was found that 30% of college students have used ChatGPT to write a written assignment, and 60% of students have used it for more than half of their assignments. These are alarming numbers, and shows how easy it is to breach academic honesty.

Alongside plagiarism and academic misconduct, there’s another concern surrounding the intellectual development of students. Relying solely on ChatGPT for answering questions and writing out their assignments, students miss to develop. theirown research approaches as well as failing to develop a much needed skill of constructing their own original lines of argument. 

But ChatGPT wasn’t created to undermine academic integrity. What can we do in order to integrate ChatGPT in schools through academically healthy techniques?

There has been a growing concern regarding the usage of ChatGPT within schools. With the banning of the chatbot,some people in academic communities believe that they would decrease the risks of academic dishonesty. However, despite the concerns regarding ChatGPT in the academic environment, it is important to note that the tool was developed precisely for learning and knowledge advancement purposes. What can be done to mitigate the impact of the tool’s rivalry against academic integrity?

It would not be logical to outright ban it from schools. ChatGPT is an incredibly useful tool that, when used properly, will only contribute to the learning process.

Before focusing on alleviation strategies, a refreshingly sober advice from this VOA (Voice of America) article reminds us that calculators were once also banned in schools, but eventually became well-integrated into academia, and without causing any risk to academic integrity. So will some uses of AI in the classroom.

On rooting out its negative impact, educators and everyone else who cares about academic integrity could consider the following: 

Firstly, schools and teachers should educate students on how to use ChatGPT for enriching and enhancing their studies - this is nothing new but adds to the old-standing need to fight plagiarism and cheating first through awareness-raising and cultivation of academic honesty amongst students. Here, they should also be made aware of emerging AI detection tools, to deter such behaviour.

But it also challenges the teachers to come up with ways for in-class and take-home assignments and testing that do take note of the ChatGPT’s existence and try to overcome it:   

“You know, if ChatGPT can make us throw up our hands and say, ‘No longer can I ask a student to regurgitate a process, but now I'm going to have to actually dig in and watch them think, to know if they're learning’ — that's fantastic,” said Steven Wright - a computer science teacher based in the US (voanews.com). This could simply mean more in-class testing of knowledge through conversations, debates and reflective discussions where students will be required to demonstrate their understanding of relevant subjects. More group-based assignments, where students are required to collaborate with each other and therefore, may be less tempted to cheat, whilst others are watching. 

There is already a long list of ideas that teachers have implemented in class with the help of ChatGPT, to make the learning more fun and effective for students: gamification, quizzes, practice exercises, language translation, writing prompts, vocabulary lists, and much more.

At the end of the day, ChatGPT is another revolutionary tool, like Google was in the early 2000’s. When used properly, it will only improve our education and overall quality of life.

Bibliography

“Nearly 1 in 3 college students have used ChatGPT on written assignments”, Intelligent, Jan. 23, 2023, <https://www.intelligent.com/nearly-1-in-3-college-students-have-used-chatgpt-on-written-assignments/> (accessed: May. 28, 2023)

“ChatGPT”, Wikipedia, (No date), <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ChatGPT#Ethical_concerns> (accessed: May. 28, 2023)

Dibble, M. “Schools ban ChatGPT amid fears of Artificial Intelligence-Assisted Cheating”, Voice of America, Feb. 10, 2023, <https://www.voanews.com/a/schools-ban-chatgpt-amid-fears-of-artificial-intelligence-assisted-cheating-/6958125.html> (accessed: May. 29, 2023)

Pichai, S, “Unleashing the Power of Chat GPT in Education”, Nexus Education, Jan. 11, 2023,

<https://nexus-education.com/blog/unleashing-the-power-of-chat-gpt-in-education/#> (accessed: May 29, 2023)