Writing Is Thinking

When we ask our students to write, we should be more concerned about the process than the product. Student writing is about asking questions and formulating answers. Chat GPT is good at synthesizing the first page of Google results. It’s very bad at critical thinking.

Education Is not Banking

We teach students experientially. We do not merely ask them to memorize what we put on the board. The key skills we want students to have (innovation, reflection, critical thinking) are the exact things Chat GPT cannot do.

Stay Calm

The first suggestion is to remember that this is not the first new technology that has disrupted our pedagogy. Laptops, calculators, and even writing itself were all greeted with initial panic by educators. They’ve all been integrated into our modern pedagogy. Over the next few decades, we’ll integrate more tools into our pedagogy until we wonder how we taught without them. Time will tell if Chat GPT is one of those tools.

Think About Your Course Design

Center assignments that ask students to answer difficult questions and reward failure. Chat GPT is shiny but shallow. Go the other direction and assign writing that is messy but deep. Questions about systemic oppression (racism, misogyny, homophobia and transphobia, and ableism) are very difficult for Chat GPT to handle (see this Time article on why). Assigning students to investigate those questions virtually guarantees they can’t use Chat GPT.

Make It Part of Your Pedagogy

Try using Chat GPT in class or even assigning it as a tool (see this Times Higher Ed article for examples). Learning about Chat GPT will teach students what it can (and can’t) do, making them less likely to use it to complete assignments. Requiring it for an assignment will make students even more deeply critical of it (and technology more broadly).

Be Intentional in Your Assignment Design

There is an opportunity here to revisit assignments that may not be doing what you want them to do. If a student can complete an assignment with Chat GPT, they probably also could have completed it with Google and a thesaurus button. If you’re concerned about a particular assignment, consider redesigning it to ask students to think more critically.

The most reactive solutions are the most obvious and least effective: use detection software, require students to hand-write assignments, and learn to identify AI-written prose. These each focus on catching plagiarists rather than teaching students to succeed. 

A few pieces of detection software already exist, and they’re about as effective as Chat GPT (not very). As teachers, we should avoid the coming arms race between the various ed tech sectors and chatbots. It’s easier and more effective to focus on pedagogy.

Some have suggested requiring students to handwrite assignments. This introduces issues around accessibility (for students and instructors), and shouldn’t be considered a serious suggestion. 

We can try to learn to identify AI-written prose, but we won’t always get it right and it sets up an adversarial relationship between teacher and student. More to the point, such a step is unnecessary. The same things that mark AI-written prose (improper usage, lack of logical connections, equivocation) also mark poor writing. Chat GPT is a student who didn’t do the work, but is decent at BS-ing. We’re already pretty good at seeing that.

Special thanks to Dr. Beata Jones from the Neeley School of Business and Dr. Joanna Schmidt from the Koehler Center for their tremendous help assembling the following list of sources.

To see how another university is managing the challenges presented by Chat GPT, click the following link for a statement from Montclair State University: https://www.montclair.edu/faculty-excellence/practical-responses-to-chat-gpt/ 

I’m a Student. You Have No Idea How Much We’re Using Chat GPT:
https://www.chronicle.com/article/im-a-student-you-have-no-idea-how-much-were-using-chatgpt?utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=campaign_6822181_nl_Academe-Today_date_20230515&cid=at&source=ams&sourceid=

Will ChatGPT Change How Professors Assess Learning?
https://www.chronicle.com/article/will-chatgpt-change-how-professors-assess-learning?utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=campaign_6822181_nl_Academe-Today_date_20230515&cid=at&source=ams&sourceid=

ChatGPT is Dumber Than You Think
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2022/12/chatgpt-openai-artif…

Could Be Great for College Essays
https://slate.com/technology/2022/12/chatgpt-college-essay-plagiarism.html?…

The End of High-School English
https://apple.news/AyeBKMkl1SaqctflHqv2-Yw

GPT Takes the Bar Exam
https://arxiv.org/abs/2212.14402

Academic Integrity in the Age of AI
https://www.turnitin.com/resources/academic-integrity-in-the-age-of-AI

Alarmed by Chatbots…. 
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/16/technology/chatgpt-artificial-intelligence-universities.html?te=1&nl=from-the-times&emc=edit_ufn_20230213

Generative AI 
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/01/davos23-generative-ai-a-game-changer-industries-and-society-code-developers/

ChatGPT a Threat to Higher Education?
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonwingard/2023/01/10/chatgpt-a-threat-to-higher-education/?sh=72fb0b4b1e76

Will ChatGPT Change the Way you Teach?
https://www.chronicle.com/newsletter/teaching/2023-01-05

ChatGPT and AI text generators: How should Higher Education Respond
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/campus/chatgpt-and-rise-ai-writers-how-should-higher-education-respond

Eight Ways to Engage AI Writers in Higher Education
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/campus/eight-ways-engage-ai-writers-higher-education

Practical Responses to ChatGPT
https://www.montclair.edu/faculty-excellence/practical-responses-to-chat-gpt/

Student Builds ChatGPT Dection App to Fight AI Plagiarism 
https://www.entrepreneur.com/business-news/student-builds-chatgpt-detection-app-to-fight-ai-plagiarism/442253

How to Deal with ChatGPT as a teacher
https://vu.nl/en/employee/didactics/how-to-deal-with-chatgpt-as-a-teacher

Avoiding Cheating by AI: Lessons from Medieval History
https://www.medievalists.net/2023/01/chatgpt-medieval-history/

GPT-2 Output Detector Demo 
https://openai-openai-detector.hf.space/

A College Student Created an app that can tell whether AI wrote an essay
https://www.npr.org/2023/01/09/1147549845/gptzero-ai-chatgpt-edward-tian-plagiarism

AI Writing: The Challenge and opportunity in front of education now
https://www.turnitin.com/blog/ai-writing-the-challenge-and-opportunity-in-front-of-education-now

Anti-Cheating Education Software Braces for AI Chatbots
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2022-12-14/anti-cheating-education-software-braces-for-chatgpt

Teachers are on alert for inevitable cheating after release of ChatGPT
https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/12/28/chatbot-cheating-ai-chatbotgpt-teachers/

Can Anti-Plagiarism Tools Detect When AI Chatbots Write Student Essays?
https://www.edsurge.com/news/2022-12-21-can-anti-plagiarism-tools-detect-when-ai-chatbots-write-student-essays

AI and the Future of Undergraduate Writing 
https://www.chronicle.com/article/ai-and-the-future-of-undergraduate-writing?utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=campaign_5861532_nl_Teaching_date_20230105&cid=te&source=ams&sourceid=

AI Will Augment, Not Replace 
https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/just-visiting/guest-post-ai-will-augment-not-replace?utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=campaign_5861532_nl_Teaching_date_20230105&cid=te&source=ams&sourceid=

Why Meta’s latest large language model survived only three days online 
https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/11/18/1063487/meta-large-language-model-ai-only-survived-three-days-gpt-3-science/?utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=campaign_5861532_nl_Teaching_date_20230105&cid=te&source=ams&sourceid=

How to cheat on your final paper: Assigning AI for student writing 
https://link.springer.com/epdf/10.1007/s00146-022-01397-z?sharing_token=YwKL6HmHeNSxEj6Go63ks_e4RwlQNchNByi7wbcMAY5jYiMNym3xBTAzN52Pp_FuF7Qv_P-Qnug5Ax7FJNWShl1DpAHIbV1fvh8gzqODl_v-dUgF0TEFyk8rlBIfksPNkX2csUNmE3KmnQCA9GDBy9sa4Q9nkg7MfuW4bbwdNNo=&utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=campaign_5861532_nl_Teaching_date_20230105&cid=te&source=ams&sourceid

AI Text Generators and Teaching Writing: Starting Points for Inquiry 
https://link.springer.com/epdf/10.1007/s00146-022-01397-z?sharing_token=YwKL6HmHeNSxEj6Go63ks_e4RwlQNchNByi7wbcMAY5jYiMNym3xBTAzN52Pp_FuF7Qv_P-Qnug5Ax7FJNWShl1DpAHIbV1fvh8gzqODl_v-dUgF0TEFyk8rlBIfksPNkX2csUNmE3KmnQCA9GDBy9sa4Q9nkg7MfuW4bbwdNNo=&utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=campaign_5861532_nl_Teaching_date_20230105&cid=te&source=ams&sourceid

How do we prevent learning loss due to AI text generators? 
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1m4e2VAlWBzXoteYSGvCO1eTf6GQlOsrjltoJvod0h6g/edit?cid=te&source=ams&sourceid=#heading=h.sc09s7ot25zw

AI Text Generators Sources to Stimulate Discussion among Teachers
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1V1drRG1XlWTBrEwgGqd-cCySUB12JrcoamB5i16-Ezw/edit?cid=te&source=ams&sourceid=#heading=h.y7vlxxluoxbv

AI and the Future of the Essay 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oARAaf3ojaE

ChatGPT and higher education: last week and this week 
https://bryanalexander.org/future-trends-forum/chatgpt-and-higher-education-last-week-and-this-week/?fbclid=IwAR0ZlFVqma5pEHTIfwLnxKbPgsWswcMnxIFW3XT8c81c9ouQ4-HrIKSCzhM&utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=campaign_5861532_nl_Teaching_date_20230105&cid=te&source=ams&sourceid=

How to write an academic paper in 10 minutes with GPT-3
https://twitter.com/sharplm/status/1603659898948132865?utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=campaign_5861532_nl_Teaching_date_20230105&cid=te&source=ams&sourceid=

Twitter thread about ChatGPT & college applications
https://twitter.com/terrycrawfordjr/status/1603795368084271104?utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=campaign_5861532_nl_Teaching_date_20230105&cid=te&source=ams&sourceid=

The Mechanical Professor 
https://oneusefulthing.substack.com/p/the-mechanical-professor?utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=campaign_5861532_nl_Teaching_date_20230105&cid=te&source=ams&sourceid=