{"id":17243,"date":"2023-01-20T01:12:25","date_gmt":"2023-01-19T14:12:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/educational-innovation.sydney.edu.au\/teaching@sydney\/?p=17243"},"modified":"2023-02-15T20:27:56","modified_gmt":"2023-02-15T09:27:56","slug":"how-ai-can-be-used-meaningfully-by-teachers-and-students-in-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/educational-innovation.sydney.edu.au\/teaching@sydney\/how-ai-can-be-used-meaningfully-by-teachers-and-students-in-2023\/","title":{"rendered":"How AI can be used meaningfully by teachers and students in 2023"},"content":{"rendered":"

There has been <\/span>a<\/span><\/a> lot<\/span><\/a> of<\/span><\/a> hype<\/span><\/a> over the last few weeks about students using ChatGPT, a conversational artificial intelligence (AI) that can write human-sounding responses to prompts<\/span>. Some of the main concerns are that students might use ChatGPT to answer assignment or exam questions, without developing their own writing or critical thinking skills, or disciplinary knowledge. In a previous article<\/a>, we covered how GPT works, and some important concepts that help us appreciate what this AI does and doesn’t do. Importantly, we emphasised that ChatGPT is not a knowledge model but a <\/span>language<\/span><\/i> model, albeit a powerful one. Here, we share some ideas about how we might productively engage with ChatGPT, a form of ‘generative’ AI, to make higher education learning, teaching, and assessment better in many ways – for both teachers and students.<\/span><\/p>\n

Check out the other resources in our AI and Education at Sydney collection<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

For teachers<\/b><\/h2>\n

We’re all thinking the same thing – not <\/span>another<\/span><\/i> disruption that we need to deal with. First emergency remote teaching because of COVID, then myriad systems changes, and now artificial intelligence? But let us share a few ways that AI can actually make your teaching easier and improve students’ learning.<\/span><\/p>\n

Writing quiz questions and feedback<\/h3>\n
\"ChatGPT<\/a>
ChatGPT prompt and response for writing MCQs.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A perennial challenge is providing students with meaningful formative questions on which they can practise, and with accompanying feedback that helps them learn from mistakes. We’ve <\/span>promoted Peerwise before<\/span><\/a> for its ability to engage students in deeper understanding by generating their own questions and feedback, whilst creating a question bank for practice. But if there’s little space in your curriculum for that, consider using ChatGPT to generate practice quiz questions with feedback, and load these into a Canvas quiz. Given the inaccuracies and tendency for verbosity we highlighted in the earlier article<\/a>, <\/span>ensure that you check the accuracy and difficulty of the questions and feedback that ChatGPT generates<\/b>, and the alignment to your learning outcomes. Your students will thank you for the extra practice.<\/span><\/p>\n

Example prompt for ChatGPT: Write three college-level multiple choice questions that target key student misconceptions around how natural selection works. Include feedback for students.<\/span><\/p>\n

Designing a draft marking rubric<\/h3>\n
\"ChatGPT<\/a>
ChatGPT prompt and response around generating a marking rubric.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A marking rubric is a powerful table that helps you, your markers, and your students better understand what is expected against marking criteria at different standards of performance. A good rubric will reduce the workload associated with marking and engage your students with the feedback they receive. Each marking criterion is a row in the table, and standards (high distinction to fail) are presented as columns, with a descriptor for each criterion\/standard. Rubrics, however, can be difficult to write from scratch. If you provide ChatGPT with a short description of your assessment, and what you’d like students to be assessed on, <\/span>it can generate a draft rubric that you can then finesse<\/b>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Example prompt for ChatGPT: Design a marking rubric for a postgraduate assessment that asks students to apply their knowledge of the global financial crisis to a more contemporary economic challenge. The rubric needs to assess students on their use of literature, their analysis of the underlying causes of the GFC, and apply it creatively to a contemporary challenge. Please provide standards for each criterion from high distinction, distinction, credit, pass, and fail.<\/span><\/p>\n

Composing exemplars for critique<\/h3>\n
\"ChatGPT<\/a>
ChatGPT prompt and response to generate a short assessment exemplar.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In addition to rubrics, another powerful tool for helping students better understand expected standards is to provide exemplars. Exemplars are samples of work, often presented with commentary at different levels of performance, to demonstrate and explain the expectations. Exemplars can be hard to come by, especially for a new assessment. Instead of composing an exemplar from scratch, consider asking ChatGPT to generate a few for you, and then amend these drafts based on your expectations and standards. <\/span>You might want to be up front that the exemplars were produced by ChatGPT<\/b> to highlight its current linguistic and conceptual limitations, and to model the transparency we expect of students when they use it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Example prompt for ChatGPT: Create a sample student paper that analyses the underlying causes of the GFC. This paper should achieve a credit standard, demonstrating only a basic understanding and identifying only one or two key causes.<\/span><\/p>\n

(It’s worth noting that when ChatGPT responded to the above text, it also commented that “It’s worth to notice [sic] that this sample student paper demonstrates a basic understanding of the causes of GFC, it identifies only one or two key causes and lacks a critical evaluation of them, it also doesn’t connect the causes to the consequences of the crisis.”).<\/span><\/p>\n

Generating discussion prompts for use in class<\/h3>\n
\"ChatGPT<\/a>
ChatGPT prompt and response to generate some discussion ideas.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Because ChatGPT is trained on a huge diet of written content available on the internet, it has linguistic coverage of a vast array of topic areas, opinions, and other text. Based on the examples it \u2018learned\u2019 during training, it can give statistically-likely responses to any textual prompt.<\/span>\u00a0Although this can sometimes mean that the AI generates inaccurate or biased content, it can provide text that represents human-like opinions and perspectives fairly well. You can leverage this to spark discussion in class, without spending too much time racking your brain for these. Depending on your discipline, you might ask ChatGPT to generate some discussion prompts, edit them based on your expertise and experience, and use them in class. Again, you should consider being up front about the source of the prompts, to illustrate that ChatGPT reflects the biases present in the human-written sources upon which it was trained<\/b>.<\/p>\n

Example prompt for ChatGPT: Bill is a 21 year old football player with an active social life and busy study calendar. He lives on campus in student accommodation. What are five reasons that Bill may give to their physiotherapist for not following a treatment plan for a tendon injury?<\/span><\/p>\n

Writing lesson plans<\/h3>\n
\"ChatGPT<\/a>
ChatGPT prompt and response for composing a lesson plan.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

If you’ve inherited a new class and haven’t been given a plan for the lessons, or perhaps you’d like some ideas on how you might include more active learning in your classes, consider using ChatGPT to draft a lesson plan for you. Because ChatGPT was trained on dialogue so that <\/span>it can answer follow-up questions in a conversational way, once it generates an initial lesson plan, you could ask it to refine it<\/b>, such as by explaining how a particular activity may work, or suggesting how you might make an activity more motivating for students. Importantly, remember to apply your own pedagogical and content knowledge to evaluate and finesse the AI-generated suggestions.<\/span><\/p>\n

Example prompt for ChatGPT: Write a lesson plan for a 50 minute college tutorial on the implications of artificial intelligence for future work. Include activities where students work in groups to critique different perspectives. Student groups should also investigate different industries that might be impacted by AI.<\/span><\/p>\n

For students<\/b><\/h2>\n

Most of the <\/span>hysteria<\/span><\/a> around ChatGPT has been focused around its potential for misuse by students to complete <\/span>written assignments<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>exams<\/span><\/a>. This has led many academics and universities to <\/span>refocus on good assessment design<\/span><\/a> and consider how to productively engage their students with AI to help them prepare for <\/span>the inevitable future where AI augments human intelligence<\/span><\/a>. There may also be important roles for ChatGPT to <\/span>support students living with communication disabilities<\/span><\/a>. Here are a few ideas about how you might use AI in your units to help students learn.<\/span><\/p>\n

Learning by teaching<\/h3>\n
\"ChatGPT<\/a>
After ChatGPT was told that its solution is incorrect, it invited the user to teach it how to solve the equation correctly<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

One of the strengths of language models is their ability to respond to prompts given by users in natural language and generate human-like text in response. As both the prompt (input from users) and response (output from AI) are in natural language, the user interface is friendly and models trained on dialogue such as ChatGPT can be potentially used as conversational agents that enable students to <\/span>act as a tutor and learn by teaching<\/span><\/a>. When learning a new concept, students can explain the concept to ChatGPT like explaining to another student. And ChatGPT is likely to be a friendly peer because it is fine-tuned to behave in a kind and gentle way. Although sometimes it may still provide less-helpful outputs, the AI has been improving and adapting its behaviour through learning from human feedback.<\/span><\/p>\n

Students can also ask ChatGPT questions and the potentially inaccurate answers generated by the AI may offer opportunities for students\u2019 learning. When interacting with ChatGPT, students should be reminded to <\/span>always critically review its answers and explain why they think the answers provided by the AI are correct, inaccurate, or incorrect<\/b>. Critical thinking is an ever-important skill in today’s knowledge society and in the face of misinformation and fake news on the Internet. Through reviewing the AI\u2019s answers, challenging its answers via follow-up prompts, judging the correctness by looking for supporting evidence or explanations, and experiencing the incorrect or inaccurate answers presented in a confident and persuasive way (like the simple mathematical problem demonstrated in the earlier article), students may gain a deeper understanding of the importance of critical thinking and be more sensitive when viewing plausible information.<\/span><\/p>\n

In addition, since ChatGPT is able to admit its mistakes, students can inform and teach the AI after noticing its incorrect or inaccurate responses (as demonstrated in the screenshot to the right). Using ChatGPT could be seen as an interactive way of learning, and the processes of identifying and explaining the errors (similar to <\/span>studying erroneous examples<\/span><\/a>) and providing correct answers with explanations could facilitate learning.<\/span><\/p>\n

Overcoming writer’s block<\/h3>\n

Like us, students might struggle to start a written submission because they are not used to a particular style of writing, or are uncertain about expectations, or are anxious about their knowledge and abilities. You might <\/span>consider explicitly encouraging your students to use ChatGPT to draft some introductory lines, topic sentences, or other parts<\/b> of the written work to get them started whilst explicitly highlighting its limitations. (Because, let’s face it, your students will probably be doing this anyway).\u00a0In this way, and where appropriate, the AI may also be used to address language inequality and help those who are equally creative but with less-developed writing or language skills (e.g. non-native speakers) to express their ideas. It’s important to set boundaries and expectations, and perhaps spend some class time demonstrating how they can engage with AI to help catalyse writing – more on this a bit later.<\/span><\/p>\n

Discussing with a co-programmer<\/h3>\n

ChatGPT is also able to take in and generate computer code. Professional programmers <\/span>have suggested that the AI can be a great companion<\/span><\/a> and explains snippets of code, suggests improvements to code, and helps to explore alternative approaches. In and out of the classroom, you might consider suggesting to students to use ChatGPT to suggest explanations for unknown code snippets or generate a boilerplate function for performing a given task. <\/span>Again, it’s important to remind students that GPT is a large <\/a><\/b>language<\/i><\/b> model, not a knowledge model<\/b>, so the explanations and code that it generates <\/span>may contain inaccuracies or other issues<\/span><\/a>. AI won’t replace programmers or programming classes (yet), so it’s important that students understand that they still need to develop their own coding knowledge and skills in order to check ChatGPT’s output including its biases.<\/span><\/p>\n

Exploring diverse perspectives<\/h3>\n

In a similar approach to the suggestion to teachers above about generating discussion prompts for class, you could consider asking students to use ChatGPT to generate a set of different opinions or perspectives on a topic. Because ChatGPT has been trained on so much human text, it is likely able to generate text that closely mimics real human perspectives on a range of topics. Students <\/span>could then use this as stimulus material for discussion, critique, and analysis<\/b> – and every student could generate and use their own unique set of perspectives, which has benefits for individualising assessments.<\/span><\/p>\n

For assessments<\/h2>\n

A discussion of ChatGPT in higher education wouldn’t be complete without directly considering its impacts on assessment. We have covered some uses above where AI could support assessments, such as drafting rubrics, creating exemplars, and individualising assessments. It’s clear that some students could, and indeed <\/span>probably already are<\/span><\/a>, use it to complete assignments and exams. There are already examples of where this has been detected by markers mostly due to the poor quality of the answers (we’d <\/span>advise against AI-based detection of AI writing<\/span><\/a>). As teachers, our role is to consider how assessment processes may motivate students to learn, instead of focusing on blocking and subversion and detection of AI. As the inimitable Maha Bali expressed on Twitter:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

So what are the characteristics of an assignment that AI cannot fully succeed in writing?<\/p>\n

Is that the right question? Or is the question we should be asking:<\/p>\n

How do I design an assessment that makes my students want to truly learn? That motivates inquiry and expression?<\/p>\n

\u2014 Maha Bali, PhD \u0645\u0647\u0627 \u0628\u0627\u0644\u064a \ud83c\udf35 (@Bali_Maha) January 15, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n