AI ChatGPT writes a new chapter for education
ChatGPT’s homepage encourages viewers to join them in shaping the future of technology
February 16, 2023
ChatGPT, a Chatbot launched by the artificial intelligence research laboratory, OpenAI, in November 2022, has become a prominent discussion between teachers and students.
OpenAI states on its website that ChatGPT is a model which interacts conversationally. The primary use of ChatGPT is to create human-like interactions, answer questions, and assist with tasks such as emails and essays.
The main discussions between educators has regarded potential academic dishonesty from students. With a free essay writer at their fingertips, plagiarism may occur.
Stacy Ruffer, an English teacher at Fossil Ridge High School, is not worried about his students using ChatGPT for plagiarism.
“I’m hoping that kids will use it more as a way to push their learning as opposed to just a plagiarism source,” Ruffer says. “I’m not too concerned about it for plagiarism because I think what will happen is a couple kids will do it and most teachers use some sort of plagiarism checker anyway.”
Ruffer believes that the way students will use online essay writers like ChatGPT will be similar to the way Wikipedia is used.
“I am worried about kids being lazy and just saying, ‘What’s the plot of Hamlet?’ and it just spits it out. But that’s not really any different from what we already have with Wikipedia or something,” Ruffer says.
Educators have also noted that the relationship between teachers and their students could impact a student’s willingness to cheat on essay assignments.
Dan Rypma, a social studies teacher at Fossil Ridge High School, thinks that one solution to AI plagiarism is to educate students on the purpose of writing.
“I[Preventing plagarism] starts with basic education about what the purpose of writing is in the class. It starts with basic respect for the work the teacher is doing, and the work that the class is doing,” Rypma says.
Rypma is not worried about AI affecting his classroom. Some teachers are even excited about new advancements in AI technology.
“The issue is basically: Do teachers know their students?” Rympa adds.
Fossil Ridge Television production and former English teacher Brendon Gallagher is intrigued by ChatGPT.
“It is both phenomenal and how good it is, but also not as good as people are scared that it is,” Gallagher says. “The best metaphor I’ve heard is basically: When the calculator was invented, math teachers wanted to ban it from their classrooms because kids wouldn’t be computing things, but now we’re in a world where calculators are everywhere.”
To Gallagher, writing is about how students can develop their thinking skills.
“A lot of times in an English class, when I ask students to write an essay about something, what I’m really asking is for them to articulate their thinking around a topic,” says Gallagher.
Todd Forkner, a Fossil Ridge English teacher, believes students may see a shortcut in ChatGPT.
When talking about plagiarism, Forkner has strong feelings.
“It’s unethical,” Forkner says. “But it also denies students an opportunity to practice and improve their writing and their communication skills.”
Forkner also agrees that writing is about developing students’ critical thinking skills.
“We select subject matter like Language Arts, Math, History, and there’s a certain amount of knowledge that society has decided it’s important for students to know,” Forkner says. “I think the most important thing that we do in schools is to give [students] problems to solve and then for you to activate your critical thinking skill, your higher order thinking, in order to try to solve those different problems.”
Poudre School District Teaching and learning facilitator Jennifer Putnam believes ChatGPT could be used as a learning tool inside the classroom.
“I’m inspired by how [educators think] about it based on some articles they’re posting online,” says Putnam. “Like how will it be used as a tool? What are the disadvantages it brings to teaching and learning? How does it change the way we teach and think about writing?”
Putnam also values teacher and student relationships when it comes to writing.
“It’s another reminder of knowing your students, their writing voice, and feedback that you’re giving them,” Putnam says.
ChatGPT can change how writing classes function for the better or worse. Discussions between educators and students will continue as AI writing technology progresses.
Dmitri • Mar 6, 2023 at 12:06 pm
Some topics are very difficult for AI to write about, maybe English teachers can write questions in certain ways that make it difficult to use AI, as AI gets better, my guess is english classes will change alot.
Anna Henning • Feb 18, 2023 at 4:34 pm
This is some solid reporting! Great job using so many sources to localize this story. It would be cool to see some student perspectives in the future, I’m sure this will be an ongoing story to cover.
Richard Marshall • Feb 17, 2023 at 1:38 pm
I appreciate your enthusiasm on reporting on a recent topic like this one. I think you demonstrated journalistic neutrality perfectly. I personally haven’t used ChatGPT for homework but I bet I could ask any student and they would probably say yes. I might be endangering the student race by stating this but whatever
Jen Lammey • Feb 17, 2023 at 9:33 am
Excellent article, Sydney. Anytime new technology comes out there is an initial panic as to how it will ruin the world, but I am always interested in how people can use it in a positive way. I know some teachers at my school are using ChatGPT to help them write warm-ups for class, but they also use that warm-up to discuss the pros and cons of ChatGPT with their students. As to cheating, kids used to write notes for the test on their hands, right? Cheating will always be an issue no matter what tech tool comes out.
Todd Forkner • Feb 17, 2023 at 8:50 am
Nice article Sydney (assuming you wrote it and not some AI robot–just kidding). I like the sidebar where you asked ChatGPT questions about itself. It demonstrates both your own creativity as a writer and ChatGPT’s amazing capabilities. You showed us one way to use the tool in an interesting and ethical way. Thanks for your excellent reporting.
Brendan Gallagher • Feb 16, 2023 at 7:59 pm
Thanks for writing about such a relevant topic! Since you interviewed me on AI in the classroom, I’ve had several great conversations with my students in Film Studies about the value of ChatGPT and its limitations. I even had ChatGPT write a rubric for our last assignment, and then we discussed that rubric as a class. We had to rewrite a major portion of the rubric to make it relevant to our class, but it still gave us a starting point for some of our thinking. I hope this models the ways that students can use it as a resource, rather than a replacement for thinking.