ChatGPT is an artificially intelligent chatbot that has greatly impacted the present education system. With ChatGPT, students can complete their assignments, papers, and homework in a breeze. However, this raises some ethical questions among teachers and institutions, as students are becoming highly dependent on this AI chatbot instead of trying to do their assignments themselves. Teachers and institutions fear that it will dumb down the students, as they will not actually learn if they let AI do the work for them. Teaching in the age of ChatGPT thus requires innovative ways to deal with the problem. We will discuss some of the ways teachers and institutes can address this issue by using ChatGPT themselves and allowing students to use ChatGPT in a way that improves their learning experience in this blog post.

Should ChatGPT be Banned for Education?

Considering the present scenario, anyone would conclude in favor of banning ChatGPT for education. However, different industries are actually utilizing ChatGPT actively for their business needs. They use it to accelerate some works that are repetitive or time-consuming or to refine their present works. Industries are actively seeking more workers who know how to utilize different AI technologies for producing efficient output while significantly reducing time. So, preventing students from using ChatGPT will actually prevent students from learning essential work skills that industries presently require. Therefore, it would be best to teach students how to utilize ChatGPT efficiently and ethically instead of banning it for education.

Why ChatGPT is Driving a Massive Change in Education?

Teachers who treat ChatGPT negatively are not being open to the reality. ChatGPT has made it clear that in modern times, the education system needs a massive change and accordingly teachers need to change their approach to teaching massively as well. Mostly because AI is here, with open access to everyone, people no longer need to memorize any information or process, rather they need to focus on identifying problems and resolving them. However, to work with ChatGPT, students need to know the context and have a basic understanding of the concept of the problem and solution. Only then ChatGPT can help them the best. ChatGPT can be used to engage students with a problem in mind to influence students to go deeper on a topic within a quicker timeline and learn better.

To elaborate further, you may think on how you are functioning in your day to day life or day to day work after the release of ChatGPT. Industries have started adopting the prospects of ChatGPT without much question. Teaching on the other hand is not changing much.

Benefits of Incorporating AI in Education

There are multiple reasons to incorporate AI in education. AI comes with the possibility of enhancing the learning experience by helping teachers personalize their teaching. Teachers can utilize AI to better understand how each student is performing and identify the students who require the most attention or improvement. AI can also be helpful for students. They can utilize AI to break down complex problems and understand the right steps to resolve them. AI can help students by suggesting topics and lessons that are more aligned with their performance. AI can also follow up with students on due assignments, remind them of their progress in their courses, and in some cases, provide them with automatic feedback. To know more about this, read our guide on how to use AI in education. ChatGPT has expanded those possibilities even further. Teachers just need to address this with more creativity.

Facilitating Teaching in the Age of ChatGPT

ChatGPT has already had a huge impact on the industry, whether we like it or not. Therefore, avoiding it in education is not the solution. Rather, we must think of innovative ways to facilitate teaching in the age of ChatGPT. Let’s discuss some of the ways we can use ChatGPT in education below:

Ask Students to Correct Their Works Using ChatGPT

Teachers can ask students to first write on a particular topic, then use ChatGPT to correct or improve their work, and finally ask the students to take separate notes on the differences between their original copy and the one ChatGPT produced. This activity can encourage students to produce their own content and then utilize this AI-powered chatbot to get improvement suggestions. This will improve their learning of the particular topic and help them remember their improved observations better. Teachers can also then review their students’ work to further validate the suggestions they received from ChatGPT and add any further observations that they may have to contribute to their learning.

Use ChatGPT to Generate Examples

Teachers sometimes discuss many different models or theories. They can use ChatGPT to generate examples for those models or theories so that students can better understand them. Suppose you are teaching your students about the AIDA model for marketing content. You can use ChatGPT to generate example copies following the AIDA model to demonstrate to students how the AIDA model works. This way, your students will have a deeper understanding of complex theories or models and understand how to apply them in real life. Once students understand how the theory works, they can even use ChatGPT to produce the expected results even faster with more accuracy, which the industries are doing presently. See the image below to have an idea on how it actually works:

Let Students Experiment with text prompts

ChatGPT is out there, available to the public. People are using it for all sorts of situations and there is nothing we can do to prevent it at the moment. It is just how the game is played right now. With that, a new term is rising on the surface which is prompt engineering. Prompt engineering refers to the process of modifying the text prompts in a way that express the command to the AI the best way possible so that it can produce better output. So, it is gradually becoming a demanding skill now that AI is available to the public. So, instead of banning ChatGPT, let students experiment with the text prompts in ChatGPT for some given scenarios and get better at modifying the prompts to generate better and more refined output. Remember how in the past teachers used to teach students how to search better using Google? It is time to do the same here for ChatGPT.

Let Students Interact with ChatGPT on a Given Topic

Teachers can engage students with ChatGPT on a given topic. This will allow students to question on the topic to ChatGPT within a supervised environment. Through this activity students can become more curious, go deeper into the topic and learn on the topic by themselves within a shorter span of time. Teachers can remain present while students are engaging with ChatGPT and guide them further if they somehow get side tracked or require further guidance or if they get unauthentic information from ChatGPT.

Ask Students to Generate Questions for Self Assessment

Teachers can even assign students to generate some questions on the discussed topic in class using ChatGPT and try to answer them. This can help them to assess their learning from the class lesson or discussion. It can help teachers to reduce some of their loads and give them more time and flexibilities to focus on other areas of teaching.

Ask Students to Use ChatGPT to Summarize Different Concepts or Papers

ChatGPT is good at making summary, a crucial step to research on any topic. With this students now have the option to quickly summarize a number of news, articles, papers or concepts. This will save a lot of time for students to get the most important information in the shortest time. That information can then be utilized to identify problem areas, research prospects, and possible solutions to present problems in a particular area.

Let Students Utilize ChatGPT to Improve Communication

Sometimes students struggle to express their thoughts and ideas which becomes a communication barrier for them. ChatGPT can help students in this regard by giving them necessary communication templates and improve their communication style. Not only that, ChatGPT can be used to change the tone of communication. So, students can use it to write more positive, professional and constructive messages.

Use ChatGPT to Help Students Improve Their Referencing Skills

ChatGPT can also be used to create appropriate references. This can teach students how different reference styles are used and get better at referencing. Check out the following image for an example of the process:

Give Importance on Teaching Ethics to Your Students

Even with all these benefits, there is some possibilities for students to use ChatGPT unethically. Teachers can’t stop students from using ChatGPT as it is now publicly available. The best option for the teachers is to educate students how to effectively utilize ChatGPT while being ethical. Therefore, teach students how to remain ethical while still utilizing technology for their benefits. Also, show students how ChatGPT can still give unauthentic and wrong information from time to time so that students can remain careful about the generated texts and contents. You can have a look at this reddit thread to find some examples of ChatGPT generating unauthentic and wrong information.

Conclusion

Hopefully this article has helped you identify some of the ways you can be teaching in the age of ChatGPT and enhance your students learning experience without neglecting technological advancements that are happening in the industries and real world. However, do not limit yourself with these ideas only. ChatGPT is versatile and so can be the way you can use it to teach in your classroom. So, make sure you keep experimenting with the different ways you can use ChatGPT in your classroom and improve the learning experience of your students. However, if you think that AI is preventing students to learn the basics and you would like to prevent them using AI applications, you might consider checking our article on AI content detection tools. All the best!

Khondker Mohammad Shah – Al – Mamun

Khondker Mohammad Shah-Al-Mamun is an experienced writer, technology integration and automation specialist, and Microsoft Innovative Educator who leads the Blended Learning Center at Daffodil International University in Bangladesh. He was also a Google Certified Educator and a leader of Google Educators Group (GEG) Dhaka South.