New to ChatGPT? Start with Small Steps

By: Amanda Maher

A State of Denial. If someone a year ago had predicted  that I would be writing a blog about using ChatGPT in the classroom, I would have guffawed. Four months ago, I was enjoying a comfortable state of denial about all things Artificial Intelligence (A.I.). One would have thought that the New York Times’s A.I. Poses 'Risk of Extinction,' Industry Warns would have jolted the ostrich from her hole, but once I read the quote from industry leaders who compared A.I. to “societal-scale risks, such as pandemics and nuclear war,” I moved on to the crossword. Tackling ChatGPT would mean more online learning, and l was not sure if my brain could absorb any more tech or “societal-scale risks.” 

Facing Fears. Now I am writing this blog sharing my experience using ChatGPT in one of my courses, and perhaps you are wondering what happened. Was it my neighbors at our block party who were all describing how they use ChatGPT in their professional roles? Nope but the conversation did perk up my ears. Was it my colleagues sharing their struggles with students turning in work that was written by an A.I. bot? A little but only because it made me realize that my head-in-the-sand approach had an expiration date. What changed my stance was when my middle school-aged son told me how he was using Chat GPT for a project. As I made an indictment about cheating, my son rolled his eyes at me and explained that they were using A.I. to assess the effectiveness of it as a tool. Fortunately, my child did not have an ostrich teacher, and if middle school students are tackling the big, scary ChatGPT, I can do it too. 

For my entrée into ChatGPT, I attended the Faculty Development Center’s summer session and was relieved to learn that I was not alone in my trepidation. I was also reassured that there is no one right way to craft syllabus language, use ChatGPT, or adopt methods.  My next move was to sign up for a ChatGPT account and to see what it could do. 

Begin by Asking. Once I had done some playing around with ChatGPT,  I decided to prepare a class discussion that simply started by asking students in my secondary methods course what they knew and thought about ChatGPT. These are students who will be teaching secondary social studies, and like our EMU colleagues, their knowledge and engagement with ChatGPT varied. The focus of our conversation touched on school district policies dictating ChatGPT use. One student reported that a district where he works has issued a total ban. Others did not know enough about the topic and had lots of questions, “What does it do? Why is there a ban?” We agreed we should do some work together over the semester learning how to use ChatGPT and evaluate the potential value and harm to our classrooms. Is it friend or foe? 

A Learning Activity: Using ChatGPT to Improve Writing. A few weeks later, when my students had a major paper due, I told them I would provide them with a former student’s essay to review. There was no ‘former student’ because what I did not tell them was that I pasted the assignment into ChatGPT. The result was mediocre at best, and I looked forward to students’ evaluations of it. Would they figure it out? Before we read the paper in class, students created rubrics because I wanted to use this task to push them into thinking like teachers and assessors as well as writers. 

They felt that the “author” completed the task and seemed to know the content, but one student spoke for them all when he asked, “Is this supposed to be good?” I pushed them to return to their rubric criterion and posed, “how could the author seem to know the content, follow the instructions, employ correct grammar, yet write a poor paper?” Another commented, “I never knew what teachers meant by voice, but this paper definitely does not have it.” They brought up the paper’s weak transitions, lack of citations, and overall lack of development of ideas. I finally told them that I had used ChatGPT to write the paper to a chorus of “ah, yeah, of course.” 

Overall, the rubrics they created were sound and captured elements of writing that would separate just ticking-the-boxes paper from a solid, well-supported piece of writing. By using ChatGPT in this way, I pushed them to assess like a teacher, consider the implications of A.I. in their future classrooms, and to reflect about improving their writing. I can attest that they submitted  higher quality pieces with voice and critical thinking. I have used ChatGPT to write discussion questions, and not only do we engage in the discussion; we also critique the use of A.I. as professional tools. In a few weeks, we will be using ChatGPT in class to write lesson plans, test other recommendations being used by PK-12 educators, and evaluate levels of accuracy and effectiveness. 

Start with Small Steps. If you are like I was a few months ago, I urge you to commit to taking small steps to learn more about ChatGPT and what it means in your discipline and the future professions of your students. I suggest beginning by talking to your students. Mine appreciated a space to think about A.I. as professionals and citizens who are also grappling with what A.I. means to our work and world. If you are struggling where to start, check out these ChatGPT discussion questions – written by ChatGPT. 

We are all figuring this thing out, and you are not alone.