How to Boost Learning with ChatGPT

ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot that was developed by the OpenAI research laboratory, and released in November 2022. It has truly taken the world by storm! As of April 2023, roughly 1.5 billion people were actively using it.

This post isn't going to go into the ethical debate of the tool, or even the specifics of how it works. I want to look at how best to leverage this new technology for boosting learning.

I work in the field of Learning & Development, and naturally I am passionate about learning and professional up-skilling. Workers are finding themselves in situations where they have less time to devote to learning and training, yet the pressure to learn new skills is growing.

According to the World Economic Forum, 1/3 of core job skills will change in the next 5 years. If workers want to thrive going forward, they will need to become strong learners, and I believe ChatGPT can play an important role in this.

Here are 4 steps to use ChatGPT for your own learning.

Step 1: Use the 80/20 Rule

The 80/20 principle, or the law of the vital few comes from The Pareto principle. In its essence this principle states that roughly 80% of effects or consequences come from 20% of causes. This ratio of 80/20 can be seen throughout so many different fields, including education.

The Pareto principle allows you to drill down and focus on those things that are truly essential for that topic. Let's say you want to learn to play the guitar. One of the first things you might do is write a list of all the things you need to learn. The 80/20 rule states that only 20% of those things are truly vital. Those 20% are the vital few, and since time is limited it's best to focus on those key skills.

Using the example of learning how to play the guitar, you can ask it the following question:

By entering the above question into ChatGPT, I was able to produce the following:

Step 2: Time to Create a Study Plan!

Now that we know what areas and topics we should focus on, it's time to develop a study plan. The secret to a good study plan is making sure that it's realistic. If you know that you won't be able to commit more than 3-4 hours a week for studying, then don't create a plan that has you studying for 7-8 hours. You won't follow the plan, and it'll end up making you feel like you failed. Be realistic and look at what your other commitments you have.

Using ChatGPT, you can enter the following as an example:

And here is what ChatGPT gave me:

I would recommend showing this study plan to a friend who knows how to play the guitar, just to get their input. Based on what they say, you can always tweak the plan before diving in.

Step 3: Resources, Resources, Resources

We know what we need to focus on, and we have a detailed study plan, that means it's time to find some resources. Finding resources isn't difficult, especially with the internet, but finding the right resources can be tricky, and usually takes a lot of time. You can always ask that friend who plays the guitar to point you to good resources, but let's see if we can use ChatGPT to curate some first.

Just enter the following sentence:

And here is what ChatGPT curated for me:

ChatGPT has just saved me hours of time. Of course I can ask it further questions, to focus on specific sorts of resources (free or paid resources for example). For now, I think this is a great list to begin with.

Step 4: Create a Project or Assignment

Learning doesn't stick unless you are applying what you are learning. That's why many people who are learning programing will give themselves a project such as create a website or a video game. The project forces you to be in an active mode, and it will speed up your learning.

For our example, you can ask ChatGPT the following:

And here is the list of project ideas it gave me:

Voila! Using these 4 steps, you can easily leverage ChatGPT in order to help boost your learning.

Let me know in the comments how you are using ChatGPT or any other AI tool to boost your learning and professional development?