AI in the Classroom: Exploring Chat GPT in Education - E114

Rachel: 0:40

In this episode we are talking about our initial thoughts and reactions to chat G B T.

Katie: 0:47

Mm-hmm. We're gonna talk a little bit about what this might mean for education and how we can start to think about using it in our own classrooms.

Rachel: 0:56

Let's get started. This week Katie and I are chatting about chat, G p T. So this is like such a hot topic right now in education on Twitter. Like everywhere I look, that's all I see.

Katie: 1:16

Yes. And even in schools right now, like I know a lot of my colleagues are, it's a very heated debate with respect to chat G B T. So um, it's interesting how it's going to affect education and even the way we teach, so, We thought we'd tackle this topic today.

Rachel: 1:31

At least start to tackle it because I Oh, wow. I'm, I'm actually really impressed and, and we'll get into some of the reasons later about why I'm impressed with it, but I can see lots of applications for this particular tool, especially for teacher.

Katie: 1:48

Yeah. No, I think that. It's fascinating how you can put in such a simple prompt or, or detailed prompt and what Chappy Chat G p t can do with it.

Rachel: 1:57

So if for some reason you don't know what chat G B T is, essentially it's an AI chat bot, and so you can have a conversation with it and it will give you response. Kind of like a human, and you can, you can create new chats and you can talk about specific topics and get information back from it. So it's like talking to another human being.

Katie: 2:22

Yes. Another human being with access to a whole heck of a lot of knowledge and more than humans can actually carry

Rachel: 2:32

a very smart human being. Then, sorry,

Katie: 2:35

go. Yeah. Highly intelligent But yeah. So let's start talking about what we're hearing because there's loss between Twitter colleagues everywhere. What are you hearing about chat G P T and AI in education?

Rachel: 2:49

I think the first place that I'm sort of hearing, and a lot of educators are immediately going to is, oh my goodness, this tool is here. The kids are gonna.

Katie: 2:59

Yeah, I like that. It's true. It's, it's all about cheating and it has, I, I kind of laugh because, well, I think that we're looking at the final product versus the process, and, and it makes me wonder why we're valuing the final product more than how they got there, if that makes.

Rachel: 3:16

now one of our colleagues uh, Jamie Mitchell, was on cbc, I wanna say morning show. I forget exactly what, what it's called. I did listen to his bit though, and really enjoyed the discussion cuz they did talk about that question of, well, why do. students actually feel the need to cheat, and I think we need to get down to that root cause, right? Of why are they cheating in the first place? And so some of the things that came up was like, pressure, pressure from parents, from peers. Grades is another big one. Getting into post-secondary programs. So, you know, our, our students are under, I think, a lot of pressure and that's where some of. I don't know, desire to, to cheat comes from.

Katie: 4:00

Yeah. it's this pressure to perform, right? We're a performance-based culture where it's all about getting the highest grades, emphasis on grades, not necessarily building of skills. It, it is that grade-based focus in education that is putting that, that. Pressure to cheat and, and to use this type of a tool to create for them.

Rachel: 4:21

So I, I also hear my colleagues in hallways, like whenever they're huddled around and they're talking about chat, g p t, like that's the hot

Katie: 4:29

One of my colleagues in a staff meeting said if they can write an essay using ai, why are we assigning essays?

Rachel: 4:38

I love that.

Katie: 4:39

So your laugh is quite indicative of how controversial that statement was, and the range of, of reactions that resulted But I mean, it's a good question. Like if, if that's, if, they can use a tool to create an essay, why is that our focus?

Rachel: 4:57

yeah, that's so.

Katie: 4:58

And so I think there's ways that I, I think AI is going to have a big impact on education and, and I'm hoping it will shift the way we look at education and the way we look at the skills we are trying to develop and what outcomes will look like in our classrooms.

Rachel: 5:16

I think you hit the nail on the head earlier, Katie, when you. We need to shift that focus from final product onto process.

Katie: 5:24

We need to know that they know how to find the evidence and analyze. works. It's not about do you know how to build an essay? Like I think back to when I was in high school and undergrad and do you remember all those writing guides on how to properly reference and cite sources and creating those bibliographies? Like we don't do that anymore. But for the longest time, like I remember doing assignments in high school just on sighting. like we need to move with the times, like utilize. The technology and recognize that it's not really about that memorization and that end product. It, it's about using the tools we have, but building like that analysis and those skills to be able to think through.

Rachel: 6:04

Now one thing to keep in mind with chat g p t is it doesn't always spit out the right information. It is based on a database from 2021 and be before, at least currently, as we're recording this podcast. So that's what it's based on. And so the, the big issue is it could spit out something that sounds great, but that the answers are not always right. So you could ask it to write you a 1000 word essay, but unless you go through and take that critical lens and retwe it and re sort of write it and add in your, your own background knowledge into there. it's uh, it's a good starting place. Maybe it's an idea maker. It's not necessarily the final product. Like you wouldn't just take something from chat g p T and just use it. I, I guess, is where I'm trying to get to, and I think this links back really nicely to what we've been talking about with why don't students like school and Daniel will income's book in that, yeah, you got this, but you still need your background knowledge to be able to take that critical lens to whatever it's spitting out for.

Katie: 7:10

now one thing, so I don't have an account and we'll get into that in a moment as to why I don't. But um, one thing that um, a lot of teachers are talking about is the more specific you get in your prompt, like you can tell them word count. You can tell them to integrate quotes from certain sources, like you can do a whole bunch of different things. So the more specific and detailed you are, the more specific and detailed the output is, which, in a lot of ways scary. But um, it, it is interesting that if you keep it general, it will shoot out something very general, but it can get more detailed.

Rachel: 7:43

Yeah, I came across a Twitter thread. I'm just gonna pull it up here so that um, so that I can talk about it. And it, it did talk about the specificity of what you actually put in, in terms of asking chat g p T for. it, it is a Twitter thread about side hustles for, for teachers. So like, like the context of of the thread itself is kind of not really relevant here, but the, the second tweet of the thread says you gotta prep the machine to become your personal coach. So you prep it, it's an acronym. to help us remember what we need to do. So you prompt. you tell it it's role, you be explicit, and then the parameters. Um, So you prompt it with like the scenario. You then tell it what role it's going to take you. Then add in your specific criteria and details along with any specific parameters, like a 100 word counts or something like that. So the more specific you can get with your prompts, the better stuff you get back.

Katie: 8:41

but in some ways, having students use this as a way to see how those general prompts start and how to get more specific, like that's, that's a skill in and of itself, like to be able to provide specific communication for a, for a specific purpose.

Rachel: 8:57

Oh yeah. I mean that, that's an amazing skill. I'm learning a lot. Now I do have an account and we'll get into why I do have an account in a, in a little bit, but I've been learning a lot about how to really hone my skills about what I'm asking it, and I started off with some very sort of like generic kind of questions and now I'm realizing. If I, if I add these things in and get even more specific, I'm getting better stuff back from it.

Katie: 9:26

And so then that, to me, that's a transferable skill because then when you're communicating with other people for a purpose, you know the language, you know how to ask those questions to get the details you need. So I actually think that in some ways this is an excellent tool that we can help students use and actually see results. to their thinking and how it improves as they go.

Rachel: 9:49

And I think we're kidding ourselves if we don't think that any like industry is not using this tool. For example, I have come across so many posts and different things on Twitter threads, stuff like that about how to use chat, G B T. to do search engine optimization for your websites, for blogging, for like so many pieces. And you know, a lot of, a lot of the best advice. It does start with, you know, prompting and getting your ideas from it, but then taking that and then making it your own. Especially because one of the things in their policies somewhere is you can't take it word for word and use it to make money from it. You have to use it maybe as an idea. You have to give credit to chat g p t for creating the ideas for you. Like it's, it's another source essentially that you do need to re.

Katie: 10:42

Yeah. And I've heard that uh, YouTuber, so you can put in prompts and stuff for ideas on, on creating a YouTube video, but apparently there are some. some sort of like, there's an AI program where it does look at YouTube videos to see if it's being created by ai and so you can't get profits from those as well. and that to me is also fascinating cuz that's, that's pretty intense that it can notice that it's something that AI created.

Rachel: 11:08

I think over the next five years, like we're gonna see a massive explosion of ai and it, it is going to shift the landscape in education.

Katie: 11:16

So the question becomes how should that shift education in our own classrooms? And it's an excellent question that I don't have necessarily answers to because I have no idea how it's going to affect my classroom. I mean, I think in some ways, I teach language, which is a skill-based course, and you, you can't really hide the fact that you can't speak or read or write. So in some ways I think it will affect me less, but it will certainly affect my English language learners in mainstream courses where they're tired of getting poor marks because they're being marked unfairly for grammar and spelling and things that aren't being explicitly taught. So in many ways, I.

Rachel: 11:57

I think.

Katie: 11:57

my, my English language learners can greatly benefit from knowing how to use AI such as chat. Chat, G B T.

Rachel: 12:05

So I think we need to come back and answer the question. Katie, why do you not have an account

Katie: 12:10

I blame my school board um, It's actually not a bad thing. It's actually a good thing, and I'm glad that it's making me question things. So instead of skirting around it, I'm just gonna explain. So. in my school board, they started this whole like software catalog and, and looking at data that programs and apps and tools that are online based collect and, and what they require require in order to have an account. And so, I know it probably sounds silly, but I don't like the idea of providing my phone number. to chat g p t in order to make an account and when reading through their privacy policy, because I am one of those people now, apparently I didn't like that it collected so much data, like it does collect my phone number, my IP address, the name of my device geographically where I'm located, like the, there's a lot of data that it, I just didn't feel comfortable.

Rachel: 13:07

It's funny because we were, we were on recording a previous podcast episode. I don't know, a couple weeks ago, and we were talking about Chappy, G P T and both of us were very hesitant about signing up because of the phone number. And then we started digging into the privacy policy and, uh, It, it did give me pause for quite a while as well. Now that being said, I have decided to to just jump in anyway because I had heard that instead of clicking on the signup button, you could click on the login button and log in with your Google account. So my thinking was, okay, well maybe I'll use my work account because then it's only got like work information there and it's, it's helping hide some of. Hopefully my, my personal information. So that was sort of one piece of reasoning that I used, but then when I did click on that, it still asks me for a phone number. But by that point I had just gone too far that I'm like, whatever. It can have my phone number. It does text you for a verification code. I, I figure. If I'm not, if I'm still not comfortable after a while, I can always delete my account and hopefully, I, I guess you could probably email them and ask you to de them to delete your information from the server if you were really, really uh, concerned about it. But I, yeah, I gave in

Katie: 14:27

Yeah, I still haven't. And I know that probably sounds crazy in a world of technology, but I'm becoming more wary, especially with two-step authentication where requires a phone number. Um, I try to avoid that because like if my computer gets stolen and it's linked to my account and my phone number in general, cause I'm, I'm an Apple user, it just

Rachel: 14:47

Just makes me a little bit

Katie: 14:48

uncomfortable.

Rachel: 14:49

I'm just waiting for the next flurry of whatever scamming phone calls that I get to my te my, my cell phone. Like I'm just waiting for more of them because I feel like they are gonna sell that off to third party data. I don't, I don't know if they do, I don't think they mentioned that in their privacy policy, but like, I don't know. Sometimes I feel like there's a correlation.

Katie: 15:10

Yeah. I unfortunately agree. I do worry about that, but so yes, so I still haven't caved. I don't know if that's good or bad, but um, I'm following a lot of the discussion online and with colleagues. And so I think that actually also helps me think more about whether I want it or not. And we'll kind of see how that goes. And, and I'm not ready yet.

Rachel: 15:30

now I like, I, like I said, I've been playing around with chat G P T and I can see this as a really awesome tool for teachers for sure. because I think this is a great place to generate ideas or get a first draft of something and getting something done quickly. So for example, one of the prompts I gave it, this was one of the first ones I did, is I'm like, oh, I wonder, so I'm like, write a 10 question worksheet on story geometry problems. And I kept it generic. Like I, I should have had more specific parameters. spits out 10 questions for me. Then I ask it, provide an answer key to all the questions, and it spits out all the answers. So you know, something like that. If you just need to make a really quick worksheet, practice set, whatever on the fly, it's such a great starting place. Like you don't have to start from scratch. And I think that's, that's what I'm starting to realize about chat. G B T is. this is the idea maker. This is the the place you can go where you're like, oh, I'm stuck and I just need something to start from.

Katie: 16:34

Yeah, I think it's a good place for idea generation. and, you know, giving it some prompts I know that a few educators have put in, like, create a lesson plan. based on this, this, this with an assessment and stuff like that. And it's hit or miss because I think the way we teach and the lessons we deliver are, are not automated. They're not artificial. They're based on us as human beings and, and, and our personality and what we put into them. It's a good way to get some I ideas going, but I would never actually, I think, execute something that was created by ai because I like, from the feedback I've been seeing, you still need that human component.

Rachel: 17:13

I agree. I've put in some prompts like that too, and sometimes, yeah, you do, you do get some really generic kinds of things back from it, but if you're asking the right questions and you're prompting it with the right sort of things, it can be great to generate ideas. So, for example, I've done some stuff with the podcast for this and I, I thought this was really neat. One thing that Katie and I really struggle with sometimes, and we'll sit here on our call like for half an hour afterwards, going, okay, what do we call this episode? And uh, sometimes it's pretty agonizing, but I just kind of put in for one of our past ones, like, you know, write a podcast episode title for an episode about, Mastery learning and what we're changing for semester two. So I think that was, that was a couple of episodes ago, and so it gave me one and I'm like, okay, that only wrote me one, so I'm like, write a few more for me. And we didn't use any of those, but like, just the fact that it's seeing all of those different options has sparked ideas for me and it's like, oh, I never thought of it that way. So then I write my own based off of it.

Katie: 18:20

Yeah. It's one of those things where you struggle to get ideas and you don't know where to start, and so you need some examples or some sort of inspiration to get you going and, and so we kind of struggle because we always gear towards. The same words are the same terminology, and we're trying to avoid that. And we've done so many episodes now that we're like, no, it's too similar to that one. And so it, it's kind of neat to have that prompt and that inspiration to change it up a bit and to see what other language we could use that perhaps we may not think about.

Rachel: 18:49

I think it could be fun for generating activities where you also create something in the AI and then you have your students analyzing it in class. So I'm thinking, for example, we have a lab we normally do towards the beginning of the year for any of our grade nine students, where we give them a really bad procedure, like poorly written procedure and get them to do the lab and then. You know, it doesn't go as as great. Everyone gets different results. It's just for like making Play-Doh or, or slime or something like that. And it all turns out different. And then we have the discussion around, why the procedures poorly written, but you could use chat G B T to generate a few poorly written procedures. Right? And then it's that challenge. And you could add the challenge in there of like, Hey, let's let's beat the AI. and make it better,

Katie: 19:38

Yeah. I like that. And so some of the ways that I think it may affect classrooms is I think some teachers are going to be seeing a return to pen and paper, Because of that fear, right? And, and using planners for projects and actually looking at those plans and those rough ideas and, and what kind of built into that final product more. And I think that's a great thing.

Rachel: 20:00

I do fear though, that then it will become, and, and I've seen this in past practice, where everything has to be done in the classroom under teacher supervision and very like scrutinized and timed, and so that kind of worries me because thinking requires. time, it requires creativity. Sometimes it requires a tool like this to spark ideas for you. So I worry that it's going to go back to a place that's, I don't know, a little bit too structured.

Katie: 20:32

yes and no. So I never let my students do homework because I know not everybody can, and it's an equity piece for me. And so for them to do work in class to me is a win because I don't want them to feel the pressure to go home and do it. But you can still say you can use AI to help you generate idea. and then you can use that in your analysis of the ideas. So did this make sense for the assignment we're doing? Or how can you build off of that to make it your own? Like, I think there's ways to incorporate the AI and, and the technology to let them improve a, and make it better and make it their own. I don't think it has to be like crazy structured and, and taking away that creativity component and that brainstorming component.

Rachel: 21:13

No. And that, that would be my hope, right? Is that it doesn't go to that place. But I have seen that in practice where it becomes almost like if you're working on a project, it's like a test and you walk into the room and you could hear a pin drop because they're not allowed to talk to each other. It has to all be timed under, you know, specific constraints and you can't do your best thinking that way.

Katie: 21:37

No. And if you require accommodations and you're doing timed activities and timed brainstorming, like, what about, what about the students that require a bit more time to process? Like, what are we, what are we doing here? So I, I think that there's some education that needs to be done for educators to help them know how. Embrace it because guess what? We're not going backwards. We're only moving forwards. But also how to really use it. How can you get your students to effectively use it if you, if they want to use it, can't be required because you could never make a student put in their phone number. To me, that's very terrible. But if students want to try it of their own volition by all.

Rachel: 22:15

I think another uh, sort of big area that's gonna really come to for forefront is media. and being able to take information, look at it, understand those, the sources, understand is is this true or not? And so there's gonna be, those shifts towards, I guess, more of an analysis lens than it really is about just generating that factual kind of knowledge. And it's, it's gonna be something that we are going to have to continuously talk about with our students and talk about the use of these tools and how we can use these tools wisely and how we shouldn't be using these.

Katie: 22:56

I almost see a neat activity depending on the course. Being like asking a question, like I could see even for a grade 11 or 12 law class in Ontario, can you do this? Is it legal? And then, you know, finding the answer, but then going back and checking. So learning how to do proper internet searches and looking for sources that can be verified and, And finding credible sources. So I, I think that there are some really neat things we can do with it to incorporate into our lessons. I don't know, like even if we just project an AI window and do the search, if, if teachers want to create an account, I, I think that there could be some. neat conversations and research skills that that are resulting from that?

Rachel: 23:39

I guess one other thing to note then is under 13 they should not be creating accounts. It is allowed for students over 13, but again, it's gonna depend on your board policy. And I cannot see our board saying yes to this

Katie: 23:54

no. Not based on what they're collecting. Absolutely not.

Rachel: 23:57

yeah. I wouldn't say yes to it,

Katie: 23:58

No. And, and if a student doesn't have a cell phone, that's the other thing, right? Because you need that verification method. So I, I think we have to be wary in how we use it in classrooms and, and asking students to use it. Like, I don't, I don't, feel comfortable with that. But if a teacher wants to project and show a question in that process I think that's a good way to use.

Rachel: 24:17

I think so too. Or challenges for beat the bot.

Katie: 24:21

Yeah. Yeah. I like that.

Rachel: 24:23

Too bad there's not a weekday that starts with a bee cuz it can be beat the bot birthday

Katie: 24:28

birthday. That's awesome.

Rachel: 24:32

Beat the Pop Friday.

Katie: 24:33

Yeah. Oh yeah. That's awesome. I like that. Or Boder day, Boder day instead of Saturday. Come on. But that's the, that's not a weekday, but no, lots of fun. So I think there's some great things we can do. Healthy dose of skepticism and making sure we protect our identities and information online. And, and yeah, it's, it's going to change the shape of education. So, buckle up, get ready.

Rachel: 24:55

And I think we've only scratched the surface today, so we are gonna revisit chat g p t in future episodes. So uh, yeah, if you've got ideas, questions, about chat, g p t, make sure you reach out to us. So on that note, we are gonna wrap up our chat g PT conversation here for today. And so any of the links or resources we talked about here today, you can find it in our show slash one 14. That's edu G A l s.com/one 14.

Katie: 25:27

And if you like what you heard today, then feel free to share it with a colleague or a friend. And don't forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast app so that you don't miss out on any future content.

Rachel: 25:35

And if you've tried chat j PT yet, or you have thoughts, ideas, questions, anything, you can go on to our flip at edge gals.com/flipgrid and leave us a video message there. Or you can go onto our website@edugals.com and leave us a written.

Katie: 25:53

Thanks for listening and see you next week.