Last Saturday my husband and I were driving my college freshman back to his dorm after his first collegiate football game. Talking about classes starting soon I felt the need to impress upon him that college is not high school, that using AI, especially ChatGPT could get him into a lot of trouble. I told him that they now have programs that most universities run to check and see if their students used ChatGPT to write their papers.<\/p>\n
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I think that news knocked the wind out of him more than getting tackled on the football field.<\/p>\n
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I first discovered ChatGPT sometime last year when scrolling through TikTok a video of a high school teacher using AI in her classroom began rolling on my phone screen. This teacher, known by her TikTok handle, @gibsonishere, claimed she \u201ca very good answer for how students can be allowed to use ChatGPT and how we as teachers can still see that they understand how to write essays and that they really get the content.\u201d[1]<\/a>She then goes on to detail how students can use ChatGPT in their essay writing but that by using a graphic organizer and other in class assignments, she can insure ChatGPT is simply one tool out of many a student uses to write her essay.<\/p>\n \n I was intrigued. Since this was the first time I was hearing about ChatGPT I was a little unnerved. Why hadn\u2019t this been around for my high school and college years? What kind of problems will it bring to our current students? Will my own kids get by without ever having to write an essay or think on their own? Will this be the death of education? Will my kids be stupid because they have computers to do all their work? You can see I was clearly spiraling.<\/p>\n \n I asked my own son if he\u2019d ever used ChatGPT for a paper. \u201cUm, yeah, once or twice.\u201d Which any parent knows really means, \u201cAll the time.\u201d<\/p>\n \n But then I was impressed. This teacher realized ChatGPT and other AI is here to stay and educators can either use it as a tool in a student\u2019s education or they can constantly try to fight a losing battle. She chose to get creative and teach her students to use it as a tool.<\/p>\n \n In the video, Assessment AI, David Boud mentions how when Excel first came on the scene it was thought to be \u201ccheating\u201d if students use it to do their calculations.[2]<\/a> Now it is assumed we will all use Excel to do our calculations! Technology is constantly advancing and we would be ostriches with our heads buried in the sand if we didn\u2019t figure out how to use it to further our own education and productivity.<\/p>\n \n In the video, ChatGPT and its impact on education, Michael Webb warns over and over again that the information on ChatGPT is often wrong.[3]<\/a> In the video, \u00a0he tells us that often journals are simply made up! They sound like real journals but they are not. I found this when, as an experiement, I spent some time prompting ChatGPT to give me journal articles on mental health issues and religion. Quickly, ChatGPT shot journal titles and articles back at me. However, when I looked they up they did not exist. To be clear, I could not find one single journal that ChatGPT suggested. I quickly realized this AI tool would be limited in how it could aid in my research.<\/p>\n \n ChatGPT and AI are only getting better and perhaps (hopefully) more accurate as they evolve. Students, especially high school and college students, have moved through the threshold concept of learning AI, even as the rest of us are trying to catch up.[4]<\/a> Academic institutions are going to have to figure out if they can be used to enhance a student\u2019s education or if using them will simply be considered cheating. Yet, according to Lucinda McKnight, in her article, Eight Ways to Engage with AI Writers in Higher Education, \u201cIn higher education, worries about academic integrity have clouded exploration of the potentials of AI writing. Yet for people in many careers already, working effectively with AI writers is an essential part of their everyday responsibilities.[5]<\/a><\/p>\n \n I wonder if those in higher education are more worried about the use of AI because we haven\u2019t figured out the questions: Can we still learn if a computer is doing the work for us? If so, what are we learning? What is important to learn? Is it facts and figures or is it how to find those facts and figures? Will creativity come to halt if we depend on AI to do our work? I\u2019m sure there are many more questions to answer regarding this topic. These are just some that first popped into my head.<\/p>\n \n It\u2019s a fascinating subject to ponder. In the meantime, I am going to hope and pray my son does not rely on ChatGPT to write his college papers while also hoping it will evolve to suggesting real journal articles before my time in this program is done!<\/p>\n \n \n [1]<\/a> @gibsonishere, TikTok, Part 58 Let them use it all<\/em>!<\/p>\n [2]<\/a> David Boud, Assessment AI, https:\/\/drive.google.com\/drive\/folders\/1eMgz1LWSXLOeFrPcAMDf0z5KEwFVhAs7<\/a>, accessed September 6, 2023.<\/p>\n [3]<\/a> Michael Webb, ChatGPT and Its Impact on Edcuation, https:\/\/drive.google.com\/drive\/folders\/1eMgz1LWSXLOeFrPcAMDf0z5KEwFVhAs7<\/a>, accessed September 6, 2023.<\/p>\n [4]<\/a> Jan Meyer and Ray Land, \u00a0Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge: Linkages to ways of thinking and practicing within the disciplines <\/em>(pp. 412-424). Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh, 2003.<\/p>\n [5]<\/a> \u201cEight ways to engage with AI writers in higher education,\u201d by Lucinda McKnight, see:\u00a0https:\/\/www.timeshighereducation.com\/campus\/eight-ways-engage-ai-writers-higher-education<\/a>, accessed on August 25, 2023.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Last Saturday my husband and I were driving my college freshman back to his dorm after his first collegiate football game. Talking about classes starting soon I felt the need to impress upon him that college is not high school, that using AI, especially ChatGPT could get him into a lot of trouble. 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