First Pass with ChatGPT and Students: Access and Nuance

There has been a lot of discussion in the last month about the impact of AI on our educational processes. I have blogged about how this might?impact our processes, how it exposes?contradictions in what our systems claim to value, and?how resistant our systems are to change. The next step was trying ChatGPT out on actual students. Therefore, I introduced my government class to chat GPT. It provoked some interesting reactions.

To start the in-class exercise, I had them turn their challenges into questions. The first blog in my design process asks the students to find a problem in our society that they would like to address, define its parameters, and lay out its significance. We spent the last few weeks refining their challenges and trying to understand the underlying problems.

Once we had turned those problems into questions, which took about half the class session, I attempted to get them to submit those questions to ChatGPT. We immediately encountered the problem that none of them could access the platform during class because of the surge of activity on the site in the last few weeks.

Instead, I fed ChatGPT a challenge question of my own and I shared it via screen sharing. My challenge question asked the AI what the impact of voter restrictions were on access to the polls.

The first reaction from any of my students was astonishment as they watched ChatGPT write a response live on their screens. But then, I asked them to critique that response based on the rubric I have established for the blogs.?

That rubric starts with evidence, specifically citations, which are worth 30% of the grade. Another 30% is based on the student’s ability to connect that evidence into a coherent narrative that connects back to the question.

The question for the first blog requires the student to define the problem they’re trying to fix and highlight its significance to society. ChatGPT’s response was essentially an outline with no evidence.

As those of you who have played with the tool know, ChatGPT does not provide sources for its information. This oversight alone would cause any student using the platform to fail the assignment, and this was something that they picked up. They were amused when I asked ChatGPT to justify not revealing its sources:

Why don't you provide sources for your answers?

I apologize for not including sources in my previous answers. As a language model AI, I don't have the capability to provide links, but the information I provided is based on widely accepted facts and data. This information can be easily verified by consulting multiple credible news sources and academic studies.

However, ChatGPT is still a useful tool. It can create a narrative that gives the writer a head start exploring the topic. Storytelling is a central facet of my instructional strategy. I found I could turn the platform into a useful tool instead of a platform for cheating.

At the end of the session, I asked the students to continue to attempt to log onto the platform between class sessions, and on Thursday, we returned to our discussion of the challenges and ChatGPT. Two of the students accessed the platform and asked it a basic question about their challenges.

The first student asked: How is Making College Affordable Beneficial to Texans?

ChatGPT:?Increased Access to Higher Education: Lowering the cost of college makes it more accessible to a larger number of people, particularly those from low-income families who may have otherwise been unable to afford higher education.

Better Preparation for the Workforce: College graduates tend to have better job prospects and higher earning potential than those without a degree. This not only benefits the individual but also helps to improve the overall economy of Texas.

Improved Social Mobility: Higher education is a key factor in upward social mobility, and making college more affordable helps to remove financial barriers that may prevent people from pursuing their dreams and reaching their full potential.

Boost to the Texas Economy: A well-educated workforce is an important factor in attracting new businesses and industries to Texas. Investing in higher education can lead to long-term economic growth and prosperity for the state.

Reduction in Student Loan Debt: When college is more affordable, students are less likely to have to take on large amounts of student loan debt, which can burden them for many years after graduation. This can help to increase financial stability and security for Texas residents.

Another student asked: How do guns increase injuries and deaths?

ChatGPT:?Guns have been a contributing factor to the increase in injuries and death in many countries, including the United States. There are several reasons for this:

Gun violence: The availability of firearms has led to an increase in gun-related violence, including homicides, suicides, and accidental shootings.

Accessibility: In many countries, guns are readily available to individuals, including those who may pose a threat to themselves or others. This makes it easier for individuals to commit acts of violence with firearms.

Lethal capability: Firearms are designed to be lethal weapons, and their ability to quickly and effectively cause harm has led to an increase in fatal outcomes in violent incidents.

Suicide: Guns are a highly lethal means of attempting suicide, and the availability of firearms has been shown to increase the likelihood of successful suicide attempts.

Domestic violence: Firearms are also often used in instances of domestic violence, and the availability of guns has been shown to increase the severity and lethality of such incidents.

It's important to note that not all gun-related injuries and deaths are preventable. However, implementing stricter gun control measures, such as background checks, waiting periods, and restrictions on certain types of firearms, has been shown to reduce the number of firearm-related incidents in some countries.

These responses provoked an interesting discussion. I pointed out that the tone of the question had a significant effect on the responses that ChatGPT gave back. The tone of the first question provoked a positive response, whereas the tone of the second provoked a negative one.

A key goal in my class is to encourage the students to reflect on their own biases and preconceptions. It was clear that the first student wanted to see free college, and the second wanted to get rid of guns. ChatGPT accommodated those biases.

The other thing that became apparent through this exercise is that both the students and ChatGPT were jumping to policy conclusions without researching what those policies were meant to address.

This is a common problem that students run into on the first assignment, which tells them not to critique or propose solutions to a problem they haven’t defined yet. ChatGPT makes the same mistake because it’s scraping the overwhelming narrative on the net. People often propose policies without clearly understanding the underlying challenges (a common feature in partisan discourse).

ChatGPT was a useful teaching aid because it allowed me to confront common problems that occur on the first assignment. It allowed the students to create drafts live in class. If this helps them dive deeper into the subject, that’s a major win for the class.?

Blogs aren’t the goal of the exercise. They’re tools for creating narratives for the topics the students are exploring. ChatGPT made the mistakes for the students before they made them on the scored assignment. Usually, this is impossible on any sort of deep level unless they’ve already written the blog.

I have since assessed the blogs. Small sample size alert, but I noticed a slight uptick in scores. Specifically, the narratives seemed to make more sense in most cases. Fewer students made the “policy before problem definition” mistake than in past semesters. An informal poll of my students showed that 5 out of 23 subsequently used ChatGPT as they were preparing their blogs. If there was an effect, therefore, it probably came from the in-class activity and discussion.

What I did not see, however, was any evidence of cheating or blogs being submitted without sources. On the positive side of the ledger, it may have had a marginal effect on their outcomes. We’ll see how this pans out over the course of the semester-long design project. However, it falls well within my “do no harm” parameter for class experiments.

I know that I just scratched the surface with this initial experiment using ChatGPT. One immediate concern was the inability of most of my students to access the technology in a timely fashion.

On February 10, OpenAI announced a?“Plus” level for ChatGPT at $20 per month, which might fix the access problem, but introduces an equity issue. Most of my students can’t afford such an expenditure. Unless we address this issue, differential access to AI will become the next digital divide.

Being able to think critically with AI will become a gateway skill to higher-level jobs in the coming years. I can see AI developing into a vital critical thinking teaching tool, but only if students can equitably access it.

There is also the digital transformation hurdle. Many of my students struggle when I introduce them to critical skills from the?last?technological disruption, Web 2.0, like creating basic websites. No one has ever taught them the visual communication skills necessary to use those kinds of platforms effectively.

AI introduces whole new levels of complexity to most of our students. We still don’t teach them what it means to thrive in a digital age. AI is just the latest accelerant in this change. Across multiple fronts, this increases digital inequities. This is the genuine challenge of AI.