This past December, I was sitting around a table having lunch with some English teachers when one of them started sharing how she had recently caught a student cheating on an essay using this new form of artificial intelligence called chat GPT. She watched in awe, astonishment, and a bit of mild horror as this program constructed an entire essay for the student with the click of a button. The initial reaction around the table was disbelief.
There's no way that AI can write a quality essay. Naturally curious, I whipped out my laptop to test it out. All of us watched in shock as this AI program constructed a well-written analysis essay right before our eyes in a matter of seconds.
If you've ever wondered how to induce an immediate existential crisis amongst a group of English teachers, yeah, that's how. While there are dozens of text-generative AI programs out there, OpenAI's ChatGPT, which was released to the public this past November, is the most well-known. Since its release, ChatGPT has been featured on almost every major news station and even made it to the cover of Time magazine in February.
This program caught the world by storm because it was 10 times smarter than the version that had come before it. ChatGPT is what is known as a large language model, which is essentially a network of neural pathway connections that allows the program to learn and become more accurate in its responses over time. When I asked ChatGPT what it wanted the world to know about its capabilities, it responded, I can provide information on a wide range of topics and understand and respond to natural language.
I can also generate creative and personalized responses and learn from my interactions to improve my language processing capabilities over time. Oh. Is that all? Right after its public emergence, companies and people around the world began harnessing the immense power of this technology.
Doctors have used it to help diagnose patients. Businesses began using it to create advertisements and blog posts. And Joe Schmo has been using it to help him write all those pesky thank you cards from his wedding 14 months ago. And all of this is being done with the click of a button.
Common applications like Snapchat, Instacart, Duolingo, and Quizlet have also begun to integrate this technology into their platforms. And then, OpenAI released GPT-4 in March, which is the newest version of the system that powers ChatGPT. GPT-4, unlike ChatGPT, can also analyze images and web links.
instead of being restricted to text input only. Microsoft began using GPT-4 to power their search engine Bing. They also have plans to integrate GPT-4 with the Microsoft Office Suite products. Soon, you'll be able to turn your boss's 20-page email into a comprehensive PowerPoint presentation with a single click. A couple of weeks after Microsoft released their new search engine, Google released their AI system, BARD.
And I'm sure it's only a matter of time until we see artificial intelligence incorporated with the Google Suite products as well. The tech world has entered an AI arms race. But with such an explosive advancement in technology, seemingly overnight, educators across the globe have entered a state of panic.
Of course, there are the typical concerns about AI taking over the world. courtesy of too many movies and TV shows like Terminator and Westworld. But for educators, the concern lies more with their students.
Post-pandemic, educators have noticed severe declines in students'ability to think critically and problem-solve at the most basic levels. But now, with AI able to do the thinking for them, educators are awash in worry, not merely for their jobs, but for the development of their students. But as author and writing instructor John Warner points out, the reason the appearance of this tech is so shocking is because it forces us to confront what we value rather than letting the status quo churn along unexamined. There is no doubt that AI is going to transform the landscape of education as we know it. After all, we've seen this type of transformation before, and for most of us, it happened within our lifetimes.
The widespread proliferation of the internet just a few decades ago completely transformed how schools and our global economy functioned. Isn't it safe to assume that a new technological leap might do the same? But the hard work of this leap is going to fall to educators. Generative AI systems will force educators and educational institutions to re-evaluate what they teach and why and how they teach it. Do students really need to know how to write a five-paragraph, rigorously structured essay?
Or do they need to understand how to approach a concept, break it down, and organize it into bite-sized pieces? Since the dawn of time, teachers have been posed the question by students, When will I use this in real life? Well now is the time to come up with a concrete answer to that question.
Because the truth is many of the assignments given in the classroom really don't prepare students for real life. When are students going to need to know how to diagram a compound complex sentence? Unless you end up an English teacher, chances are never. If students feel as though what they are learning in the classroom will benefit them in the long run, they will become invested in the learning and won't be looking for shortcuts to simply get the work done.
But instead of embracing and learning from this new technology, many schools across the country responded to the public release of ChatGPT by immediately blocking it and other AI applications on all school-sanctioned devices. But is it beneficial to restrict student use of a technology that businesses around the world are using? Or should we instead teach our students how to interact with AI safely and productively?
Anyone that has been around teenagers for any length of time understands all too well the implications of reverse psychology. Even adults fall prey to this trap. If I tell you not to think of an elephant, like whatever you do, don't think about an elephant. Yeah, we're all thinking about an elephant right now. If you tell a teenager not to do something, you can bet they'll be itching to try it out as soon as your back is turned.
Blocking chat GPT and similar AI applications won't work. It will only make the programs more intriguing for students. Who wouldn't want to explore the secrets this technology holds that has caused such an adverse reaction amongst their teachers? Plus, we can't control what students do outside of their classrooms and school buildings. It's all too easy for students to pull up this program on their phone when they go to the bathroom, or simply access it on a different device when they're completing their schoolwork at home.
And once Microsoft and Google integrate this technology into their office suite products, unless we want to regress to the pre-internet age of paper and pencil, we won't be able to avoid AI in the classroom. We will never be able to truly and fully block it. Instead, we have to find ways to work with and around it.
In order to implement effective use of AI in the classroom, teachers may need to re-evaluate how they are teaching the material and assessing student learning. What if instead of assigning worksheets and essays, we encouraged more collaboration in the classroom? Project-based and student directive learning have always been my go-to's as an educator.
As an English teacher, my students were constantly creating posters and participating in debates in order to analyze various aspects of literary work. They would work on group projects and presentations as their end of unit assessment, and we would use gameplay to review material. such as participating in an escape room or a competitive game of Jeopardy.
Even if my students were able to access AI in my classroom, it wouldn't have provided them with much help beyond the ability to be a sounding board for their ideas. And what would be so wrong with that? I think most educators would agree that the goal of education is to help our students learn how to think critically and problem solve.
AI technology can be incorporated into the classroom in ways that actually engage students in critical thinking. Math students could create their own math problems and then use AI to test the results. Social studies students could use chat GPT to write alternative realities to history and then discuss the results as a class. Science students could use the chatbot to adopt the voice of a famous scientist and then engage in a stimulating conversation about their discoveries.
Students can also utilize AI to help edit their writing, practice vocabulary terms, provide individualized tutoring, and edit their ideas and research. And these are just a few of the unlimited applications from the student perspective, but it also has abilities that can benefit teachers. Almost immediately after my school blocked AI on all of our student devices, my co-workers began using it to help them do their jobs more effectively. They used ChatGPT to write lesson plans, come up with discussion prompts, and create tests and quizzes.
And I actually used it to help me write a final exam for my students. A process that normally takes me hours took only 30 minutes with the assistance of AI. Not only does AI have the ability to save hours of preparation time for teachers, but it can also take a piece of writing and adapt it in any way the user asks, which can help make learning and reading more accessible to students of all abilities.
For example, we could ask ChatGPT to take a complex text and transform it into something a fourth grader could read. Or we could have it transform Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet into a modern-day telenovela. The possibilities are only as limited as the user's imagination.
We are living in a digitally progressive world. Shouldn't our schools reflect that? As Matt Miller from Ditch That Textbook said, this version of ChatGPT. is the weakest, most rudimentary artificial intelligence of its kind our students will ever use.
If we are blocking technology in our schools that are being used in businesses across the country and around the world, we aren't adequately preparing our students to enter the 21st century workforce. Our students need to be trained how to interact with the world around them via the technology at their disposal, and how to do so safely. And who will teach them these skills if teachers don't? But if we also need to give students the benefit of the doubt, just like educators do with other classroom technology, teachers can establish times to utilize AI and times to not.
When one educator gave the option for his students to use ChatGPT on an assignment, only four actually took him up on the offer. Many students are just as nervous as their adult counterparts are about this new technology. They too worry about the impact that it will have on their ability to problem solve and become functioning adults who are able to make a positive contribution to the world. In fact, there are many students who don't know about this new technology.
Of course, this will change in the coming months and years. But for now, we have time, and we need to use this time to adapt accordingly. Just as the internet did before it, AI is going to weave its way into...
every facet of our lives. The process has already started. We're already carrying around little AI machines in our pockets and purses. And while ChatGPT and GPT-4 are far more advanced than Siri or Alexa, they too will eventually become a staple in our everyday routines. Large language model generative AI is going to change the landscape of the world's economy and launch us into a new era of education.
Schools need to start teaching their students. how to use AI safely and effectively. And teachers need to begin re-evaluating and redesigning their curriculum so that next year, we're not sitting around a table in shock as our coworker shares how they just caught a student cheating using whatever form of AI is coming next.
Thank you.