A Practical Guide to Using ChatGPT in the Classroom
Like many of my colleagues, I’ve been grappling with how ChatGPT and other Large Language Models (LLMs) are impacting teaching and education — especially at the undergraduate level.
Since ChatGPT’s public launch last November, there’s been a flurry of articles predicting educational chaos as students use it to complete assignments and pass AI-generated work off as their own. But there’s also a growing awareness that LLMs have a remarkable capacity to positively transform learning if used creatively.
Over the coming months and years we’re likely to see profound changes in how AI-based technologies like LLMs are used in formal education. Yet navigating the transition to a future where LLMs are used effectively and responsibly in education is not going to be straight forward.
We’re already seeing signs of the challenges here as a growing divide emerges between LLM-savvy students who are experimenting with novel ways of using (and abusing) tools like ChatGPT, and educators who are desperately trying to catch up. As a result, educators are increasingly finding themselves unprepared and poorly equipped to navigate near-real-time innovations in how students are using these tools. And this is only exacerbated where their knowledge of what is emerging is several steps behind that of their students.
