3 ways in which I incorporated ChatGPT in the classroom
This year I found a unique teaching partner: OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
Coding Courses: A Shared Learning Experience with AI
In my code-related courses, we used Chat-GPT in conjunction with Google and Stack Overflow. It wasn’t just my students who were learning; I was too. One concept that stands out in my memory is “frozen sets” in Python. I didn’t know what they were until we explored them together in the classroom. Of course, AI isn’t perfect, and we’ve encountered our share of challenges. These have sparked insightful discussions in the classroom, including concerns about AI and related legislation, enriching our learning experience. (You can find more of my thoughts on how I incorporated Chat-GPT in my coding courses here.)
Take-Home Assignments: AI and Collaboration in the Modern Classroom
The Covid-19 pandemic has changed many aspects of our lives, including my approach to exams. Before the pandemic, I required final projects for my courses. However, after the pandemic hit, I replaced even the most traditional pen-and-paper tests with take-home assignments. This year, I even encouraged collaboration, although students still needed to submit individual solutions. To me, the idea of restricting collaboration seems at odds with modern workplaces.
For my Causal Inference course, which is the only course that has a take-home exam instead of a final project, three out of four questions were written with the help of ChatGPT. The header of the exam noted: “Please note that questions 1–3 are generated with ChatGPT. You may use all tools available to solve the questions (including ChatGPT and collaborations with your colleagues).
The first and second questions were generated with the help of the AI, similar in spirit to the prompts I provided. The third question was also a familiar one, related to measurement error. (Apparently, I have an obsession with measurement error, as you can see in this article on the topic.) This time, the simulation of the measurement error was done with ChatGPT. I asked it to simulate the code and answers, and students were required to check if the code and answers provided by ChatGPT were correct.
My students loved this assignment. Here is some of the feedback I received on the course’s Slack channel.
Creating Educational Content: AI as a Teaching Assistant
This year, I was asked to teach a Summer School on Introduction to Python and Natural Language Processing for Policy Applications (you can check out the course material here). Due to the nature of this teaching, I had to condense the material from two of my regular courses into a two-day training session.
In the past two iterations of teaching word embeddings, I haven’t “personally” taught the topic. Instead, I’ve had Andrew Ng and Mirsa Turp serve as “guest speakers”. This change was prompted by a voice loss I experienced at the end of my courses two years ago. I decided to use the videos instead, pausing them whenever I needed to interject or clarify something.
However, given the condensed format of the Summer School, I couldn’t use Andrew’s videos. So, I turned to ChatGPT for help. I asked it to create three beamer slides based on Andrew’s Coursera videos, including the famous durian example. After a few iterations, it did a wonderful job.
Overall, I’m more than happy with the invaluable time and effort that the AI has helped me save throughout the academic year. Whether it’s been assisting me in drafting emails, correcting grant applications, generating exam questions, or even creating educational content, ChatGPT has proven to be an indispensable asset in my teaching toolkit. (These final words were AI-generated too. The prompt was: “I’d like to conclude. Here’s the start of such a conclusion: “Overall, I’m very happy with the time ChatGPT has helped me save throughout the academic year, including helping me draft, etc.”)
Your Turn: How Have You Incorporated AI in Your Classroom?
My experiences have shown me the immense potential of AI in education. It’s been rewarding to see how AI can facilitate learning, encourage collaboration, and save time in content creation. But I’m curious about your experiences. How have you incorporated AI, specifically ChatGPT, into your teaching? If you are a student, how would you like to see AI incorporated in the classroom?
Thank you for taking the time to read about my experiences. If you’d like to connect or explore more of my work, feel free to follow me on Twitter and Linkedin or check out my GitHub repository. You can also visit my research-related website. I look forward to hearing your thoughts and experiences.
