ChatGPT in a writing class: A start

My semester of experimentation with ChatGPT rounded a corner this week with students turning in their first assignments. I am encouraging them to experiment with the program and be transparent about their experience. My goal is to learn how students want to use the program in a writing class to better inform future practices and educate myself.

Several students were open about experimenting with the program this week, but used it in unexpected ways.

• One student used the program to create a summary of the topic before she started reading. I thought this was an innovative usage because it might improve comprehension and you have the opportunity to check the facts of the program against approved reading. I plan on recommending this to students who might be struggling with material. You could go even further and suggest prompts that might be helpful in building understanding.
• Another student used the program to generate ideas for their quick-write and then build on those ideas. This seems like a straightforward model of program usage. The student also asked the program to regenerate responses repeatedly until it just kept sending the same response. There is probably something interesting here about how the system works that is beyond my technical expertise.

I will be curious to see if additional students take advantage of the tool moving forward naturally. In the coming weeks I will also be requiring usage to help students understand how to check for accuracy and edit for clarity.

I will be writing this sort of log of observations from working with the class throughout the semester here, but my friend Nik Janos and I are also writing about ChatGPT more broadly (I will also cross-post this stuff). We have posted an article about faculty responses to the program (ignore, fight, or embrace) and are working on aggregating research and thoughts about academic honesty in a word with text generators. If you want to follow some of that work in addition to hearing how it is going in my writing class you should check out the website.