Teaching in the times of ChatGPT

What is ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is a large language model developed by OpenAI. It is an artificial intelligence program designed to understand and generate human-like language. ChatGPT is capable of answering a wide range of questions, engaging in conversation, and generating text in response to prompts. It has been trained on a vast amount of text data and can understand and respond to text in multiple languages.

In addition to this, it can be asked to regenerate the responses multiple times if the previous response has not been satisfactory. It remembers conversations and you can ask several follow up questions to make the responses specific to your requirements.

Should you be worried?

ChatGPT produces responses that are unique and undetectable for plagiarism. While there are several tools that claim to detect if a certain assignment was AI generated, they are extremely unreliable. If you change just a few words in the output, the percentage of plagiarism detection goes down considerably.?

While we may argue the case for banning ChatGPT on campus, let’s face the hard facts. It’s not just ChatGPT. There are several large language models doing the rounds. We ban one and five others pop up. While we may ban the tool in campus, what’s stopping the students to use it on their home networks? Aside from ChatGPT, there are a plethora of other AI tools which students use extensively.

The right approach would be to integrate ChatGPT and other AI models into our teaching and learning as we have been doing for every technological advancement over the past years.?

How are students using it?

I met with a few students and probed them deeply on their usage of ChatGPT and other language models. Almost everyone admitted to using ChatGPT for University assignments to some extent. Here are a few ways in which students have been using the model.

1.?????Literature review or summarization. The simplest assignments to copy via ChatGPT are the ones that call for a literature review or writing the summary. There is no way for you to cross check the submissions for plagiarism.

2.?????Writing codes or generating algorithms. Assignments that require writing a code or correcting a code can be easily generated via ChatGPT without the need for iterative work.

3.?????Writing emails especially official ones

4.?????Building coherent resumes

5.?????Creating outlines or points for assignments which require extensive research and critical thinking.

6.?????Reviewing completed work. Students are using it for feedback on their assignments or correcting codes they have written themselves.

7.?????Generating ideas for projects with a known problem statement and in some cases generating problem statements as well.

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Can we detect if a student has used ChatGPT for submissions?

While there are softwares now that can check if a given text was AI generated, reliability is very low. Students can also game the softwares by changing a few words or rewriting a sentence. However, if you know the student well you may be able to gauge their language prowess in the class and compare it to their submissions. You may also want to match the quality of in class submissions to take home assignments and see if there is a huge mismatch. But, these are not great solutions and may result in biases.

How can you make your evaluation “ChatGPT proof”?

My suggestion would be to

1.?????Familiarize yourself with the tool. Create your own account on ChatGPT, run the assignments through it before you give them out to students. In fact, use it to create better assignments or teaching plans. A Professor of Writing has asked students to generate an alternative essay using ChatGPT for the first assignment. He then asked the students to assess the writing in line with the course learning objectives and critique it. The second assignment is then an attempt at writing a better essay themselves.

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2.?????Include ChatGPT and other language models in the classroom rather than fearing it.

ChatGPT is an interface that remembers your entire dialogue with the tool. You can ask follow up questions or change your prompt to get better responses or specify exactly what you are looking for and what would you like the tool to “think as”. The students can also be given an assignment on giving the right prompt to ChatGPT. The more coherent and specific the prompt is, the better the responses are. This also helps students articulate their thoughts.

A Professor of Strategy has asked students to create a code for Semantics analysis using ChatGPT. Once the code was generated, students were then asked to upload it on Orange. Once the mistakes are identified, he asked them to correct the code.

In another one of the assignments he asked students to work on AI prompt for ChatGPT and asked them to rationalize it against a well-established report on SDG goals. This makes the students look at the summary and then link it to the appropriate report making them read and analyse the report in the process.

A third project is where the students are creating a Chatbot using ChatGPT prompts for the course queries.

3.?????Build more in-class assignments and projects. Consider short writing assignments during class (these can eventually become incorporated into students’ longer papers or can be standalone assignments).

A Professor of Philosophy asks students to submit the first 200 words of their assignment in class. He gives them detailed feedback on the same. The students then come back with a second draft with the next 300 words where the same exercise is repeated. And then the final step with the last 500 words. This not just ensures a formative assessment for the students who get to incorporate the faculty feedback in their current assignment but also reduces chances of using ChatGPT because much of this happens in class.

4.?????Make the assignment interesting. If it is not just busy work but something that requires students to think and act chances are they will apply their own thought process rather than completely copying off the internet. Asking students to submit a 1500 word book review or “Explain the American Revolution in your own words” or “Describe how motor works” may need to be rethought.

5.?????Incorporate presentations, poster presentations, videos, visual elements, podcasts, etc. in the assessment. ChatGPT could still be used to generate a script, but alternate ways of showing knowledge are more likely to demand significant student input.

6.?????De-risk the assignment. Consider lowering the value of any single homework assignment by offering more frequent, lower-stakes in-class or homework assignments. Students are more likely to consider cheating on higher-stakes assignments.

7.?????Localize/personalize the project. A Professor of Performing & Visual Arts has designed an assignment where students visit a local museum of their choice and then write blog posts around it. Since the subject is so localized copying off ChatGPT is not really an option. A professor in his course Human Computer Interaction asks students to review local websites like the University ERP to study design principles.

8.?????Make assignments reliant on data and contexts the tool cannot have access to—in-class activities and group work, recent publications (ChatGPT’s databases currently stop at September 2021), unique cases and scenarios, and images that must be analyzed.

9.?????Base it around class discussions and lectures. A professor of Indian Philosophy expects students to build from discussions in the class in the essays. Students reference specific texts and class discussions while writing their essays. He also lays down the expectations from the written assignment very clearly.

A Professor of History makes sure his assignments are opinion pieces that require thinking critically. Copying or using ChatGPT becomes unnecessary. He also controls for understanding and critical thinking and trains for reflection by asking students to write 5-10 minutes in class. They identify arguments, questions, and learn to critique what they've read.

?10.?The aim should be to move to higher level learning outcomes. If an assignment relies on “Remember” or “Understand” level outcomes, chances are students will get ChatGPT to do it. Try and move to Analyze, Apply and Create level outcomes via the assignments and projects.

11.?Have a clear honour code for the class. If you don’t want students to use any AI tools, mention so clearly. If you don’t mind them checking these tools but would want them to disclose the use and the extent- do so clearly. There is no way for you to cross check this- (no reliable way for sure) but at least make the expectations clear from the start. Also, always give students the benefit of doubt.

12.?And, the most important, Make the assignments more real life, more ENABLE (proprietary Ahmedabad University pedagogy). If a student can google the solution or copy off a senior maybe the assignment/project needs to be rethought altogether.

?How can faculty use ChatGPT in the class? (I may have asked ChatGPT for some of these suggestions :) )

ChatGPT can be used

·????????As a language assistant or an AI writing tutor to provide students with feedback on their writing, help them to refine their arguments, and offer suggestions for improvement.

·????????To generate quizzes like multiple choice questions, fill-in-the-blank questions, and other types of questions that help students apply what they have learned.

·????????To generate case studies that illustrate how the concepts being taught apply in real-world situations. These case studies can be used to help students develop critical thinking skills and apply their knowledge in practical settings.

·????????To cross check an assignment prompt and see the kind of responses it generates. This will help you tweak the final assignments you give out to students.

·????????To generate examples and scenarios that help students understand how the concepts they are learning about apply in real-world situations.

·????????To generate practice exercises. For example, in a writing course, you can provide a writing prompt to ChatGPT, which can then provide multiple examples of completed essays that students can use as practice exercises.

·????????ChatGPT can answer commonly asked questions related to the course content, assignments, and exams, making it easier for students to get quick answers to their questions.

·????????To generate discussion questions which are relevant and thought-provoking that can spark classroom discussions.

·????????While designing the assignment you can feed a sample response to ChatGPT for feedback and training the model. Now when students try to generate a response to this assignment prompt, this sample will be the first response of the tool with at least 30-40% similarity and you should be able to detect it.

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So is this the end of education as we know it?

Well, I wouldn’t go as far as that yet. AI is learning and evolving every day and where it is going to head eventually is anybody’s guess. Are assessments relevant? The right ones- yes! Look at your learning outcomes again. See how you can achieve them by tweaking your assignments to make them more “action oriented” or moving to a higher level goal.

If you have an interesting way to incorporate ChatGPT in your classroom, please reach out. I would love to know how else ChatGPT can be used to create better assessments and engagement in the class.