When college administrator Lance Eaton created a worksheet on the generative artificial intelligence (AI) policies adopted by universities last semester, he basically just compiled tips on how to ban tools like ChatGPT.
But now the list is quite different: schools began to encourage and even teach students how to better use these tools.
“Before, we had a knee-jerk reaction to AI and would ban it for the semester, but then we thought about why students need it,” said Eaton, who works at the College Unbound organization in Rhode Island.
Likewise, he said his list is still the subject of discussion and is often shared on popular AI-focused Facebook groups such as the Higher Ed Discussions of Writing and AI and the Google AI in Education (AI in Education).
Adaptation
“The work has helped educators see how peers are adapting and embracing AI in the classroom,” said Eaton. “AI is still going to sound uncomfortable, but now professionals can look and see how a university or a range of different courses, from coding to sociology, are working with it.”
Since its public availability in late November 2022, ChatGPT has been used to generate essays, articles, stories, and song lyrics in response to user requests.
The tool “elaborated” summaries of research papers that misled some scientists and “passed” exams at renowned universities. ChatGPT and similar tools like Google’s Bard are trained on large amounts of online data in order to generate responses to user prompts.
Despite their great popularity, the tools have also raised some concerns about inaccuracies, cheating, dissemination of misinformation, and the potential to perpetuate biases and prejudices.
Students already use ChatGPT
In a study by the higher education research group Intelligent.com, about 30% of US college students used ChatGPT for school work in the last school year.
Jules White, associate professor of computer science at Vanderbilt University, believes that professors should be explicit in the first few days of class about the course’s stance on the use of artificial intelligence and that this point should be built into the curriculum.
“It cannot be ignored,” he said. “I think it’s tremendously important for students, faculty and alumni to become experts in AI, because it will be very transformative in every industry in demand. So we need to provide the right training.”
Vanderbilt is among the first top universities to take a strong stand in support of generative AI, offering university-wide training and workshops for faculty and students.
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Challenges
An online course by White, which lasts for three weeks and 18 hours/class, has recently been attended by over 90,000 students. His article on “prompt engineering” best practices is a source of research among academics.
“The biggest challenge is with how you frame the instructions, or ‘prompts,’” he said. “There is a profound impact on response quality and asking the same thing in multiple ways can yield wildly different results. We want to make sure our community knows how to leverage this effectively.”
Prompt engineering jobs, which typically require basic programming experience, can pay up to $300,000 a year.
While Professor White says concerns about cheating still exist, he believes that students who want to plagiarize can still look to other methods such as Wikipedia or Google searches. What they must ultimately learn is that if they use AI intelligently, they will deliver better results.
Artificial intelligence in the classroom
Communication professor Diane Gayeski said she plans to incorporate ChatGPT and other tools into her curriculum next semester.
She asked students to collaborate with the tool to come up with interview questions for assignments. Among them, writing posts on social networks and criticizing the result based on the prompts provided.
“My job is to prepare students for public relations and communication and social media management. People in these fields are already using AI tools as part of their daily work to be more efficient,” she said. “I need to make sure they understand how the technology works, and that they always cite when ChatGPT is being used.”
Gayeski added that with transparency, no one should be shy about adopting the technology.
Hiring specialists
Some schools are hiring outside experts to teach teachers and students how to use artificial intelligence tools.
Tyler Tarver, a former high school principal who now teaches educators about technology strategies, said he has given more than 50 talks on the topic in recent months. It also offers a three-hour online training for educators.
“Teachers need to learn to use AI, even if they never use it, their students will use it,” he explained.
Tarver said he teaches students, for example, how the tools can detect grammatical errors. He also showed how teachers can use them to grade. “That way we can reduce teacher bias,” Tarver said.
He argues that teachers can always classify students in a certain way. Even if they show evolution over time.
When running a task through ChatGPT and asking the tool to rate the sentence structure on a scale of one to ten, the response could “serve as a second glance to make sure the teacher is not missing anything,” explained the teacher and speaker.
“The tool, therefore, should not give the final grade. Teachers also cannot use it to cheat or cut corners, but rather to help inform grading,” she said.
“In summary, we live in a moment like that of the invention of the automobile. No one wants to be the last person to ride a horse or cart.”
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Source: CNN Brasil
Charles Grill is a tech-savvy writer with over 3 years of experience in the field. He writes on a variety of technology-related topics and has a strong focus on the latest advancements in the industry. He is connected with several online news websites and is currently contributing to a technology-focused platform.
