Learning in Tandem
When riding our tandem bicycle (a bicycle built for two), we have had solo riders catch up to us and say that I’m cheating, because I’m “just sitting in the back.” Similarly, some teachers feel that letting their students use Chat GPT (or some other AI writing assistant) is allowing them to cheat. If my experiences as a cyclist are any guide, letting your less confident writers use AI to improve their writing may actually open up a new passion for them.
Growing up, I thought that I rode my bike often. I’d ride to school, to a friend’s house or to the local park. My husband, Keith, growing up over 1000 miles from me, also rode his bike…a lot. He rode out of town and went for miles and miles, even going on overnight bike camping trips. When we first started riding together, each on our separate bikes, I quickly became irritated with him. He was able to go up steep hills without getting off of his bike and walking, he could have conversations when I was gasping for breath. This is what our struggling writers feel when they read other students’ writing that is proficient or advanced.
Even though bicycling together wasn’t working well, I didn’t want to give up cycling with him. We lived in Boulder at the time, where outdoor sports were ubiquitous and I wanted to have the freedom of being able to travel distances without an engine. Keith kept trying to find a way to fully share his love of cycling with me. His solution was a tandem. We learned how to function as partners, to be a captain (the front rider) and a stoker (the back rider). In addition, I gradually put in enough saddle time to be able to ride comfortably for hours. My legs grew stronger as the stoker, becoming a steady source of power for us. In writing, the classroom teacher needs to function as the captain, helping students to use Chat GPT as a scaffold. The teacher can increase the student’s awareness of the writing process by highlighting the ways that Chat GPT amped up the student’s writing. As the student writes better, they will write more (and think more about what they write with the help of their teacher), this will give them more strength and stamina as writers.
Initially, I was just trying to hang on and match my cadence (pedal stroke rhythm) to Keith’s. In the beginning, Keith would point out what he was doing with gearing choices–sharing the techniques to become a better cyclist. The more that we rode, I started noticing the nuances, anticipating when Keith would shift into easier gears when climbing and harder gears when going downhill, allowing us to maintain a steady cadence. This was a vast improvement to the strained, slow grinding pushes uphill and pedal-spinning rides downhill that I used to do. In addition, he would lean into turns, which also was vastly better than slowing down so much to prevent going off-balance when I turned. As the teacher, if you can point out to students the techniques that Chat GPT is using to improve their writing, they can gain an understanding of the craft of writing and start to build competence and confidence.
As we rode more on the tandem, I became more of a cyclist. We met other riders out on the road. Some of the women riders became friends and mentors. I went on solo bike rides with them, having fun cycling under my own direction. These women helped me to gain even more confidence in my abilities and I became an independent cyclist. They showed me how to ride within a group of riders, how to lead and how to draft behind. They even helped me to improve my posture on the bike to maximize my motion and decrease the risk of chronic pain. As your less confident writers gain more skills, provide opportunities for them to be in writing groups with your strong, creative writers. This will help inspire them to venture beyond Chat GPT and develop more skills. Having peer mentors is a powerful way to understand the fun and power of creative expression.
In the blog post “Centaurs and Cyborgs on the Jagged Frontier, ” Ethan Mollick discusses a study focusing on 18 different consulting tasks. The consultants who used Chat GPT-4 outperformed the other consultants in every dimension. In addition, consultants, who performed worst in the pretest of skills, improved the most using Chat GPT-4. All of the consultants’ performances were boosted, but the consultants who needed it the most, got the most help.
Cycling has become one of my favorite activities. I love being able to leave town behind and explore the countryside at a pace that allows me to really see, hear and smell the world around me. I enjoy feeling my body get stronger during the course of each cycling season. There have been many years that I have put more miles on my solo bike than Keith. AI could be a way to help students who arrive in our classrooms with lower skills be able to catch up and get more out of our classes. They might even become writers!
