Teaching: Will ChatGPT Change the Way You Teach?

‘The Future is here’ - that’s how Beth McMurtrie, Senior Writer for The Chronicle of Higher Education, starts her article. AI has been around for a while but It’s only been two months since OpenAI made ChatGPT available to the public. Even celebrities are now checking it out. This is the most recent video posted by Ryan Reynolds, showing how he used it for his ad campaign. Its ability to understand requests and reply in clear, well-organized prose that reads like it was written by a human already makes its introduction feel like an epoch-shifting moment for the tech industry, if not humanity itself.

That is also very true for educators, with students having a full, unlimited access to this technology and using it to write essays, writing assignments etc. It’s a clear disruption of the reality we have inherited and it’s not going away. Yes, at present it’s still in its early stages, what you get back after you prompt the AI is mostly coherent but maybe not captivating, and it still doesn’t get all the facts right. That said, its current version is just a taste before the next generation, the already announced GPT4, makes its debut.

Hence, what Beth is exploring, is how educators will have to adapt to this new landscape, how to adjust the assessment of learning and judge the outcomes authentically. She gives few, very poignant ideas on how to alter your approach now, before it’s too late. The approach that most intrigued me is one that has to do with engaging students in a conversation about why and how they write, sometimes using these AI tools. Please read a full article here, with many more links to resources about AI and its impact on education.

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