Say I have to teach an introductory course on the Principles of Economics to students who are just starting off on their formal study of the subject. How do I go about teaching it now that ChatGPT is widely available?
- Ignore the existence of ChatGPT and teach as if it does not exist.
- I am not, and this is putting it mildly, in favor of this proposal. ChatGPT knows more about this subject (and many others) than I do now, and ever will. It may not be able to judge how to best convey this information to the students, and it may (so far) struggle to understand whether its explanations make sense to its audience, about whether they are enthused about what is being taught to them, and whether it should change tack or not. But when it comes to knowledge about the subject, it’s way better than I am. I would be doing a disservice to the students if I did not tell them how to use ChatGPT to learn the subject better than they could learn it only from me.
So this is a no-go for me – but if you disagree with me, please let me know why!
- I am not, and this is putting it mildly, in favor of this proposal. ChatGPT knows more about this subject (and many others) than I do now, and ever will. It may not be able to judge how to best convey this information to the students, and it may (so far) struggle to understand whether its explanations make sense to its audience, about whether they are enthused about what is being taught to them, and whether it should change tack or not. But when it comes to knowledge about the subject, it’s way better than I am. I would be doing a disservice to the students if I did not tell them how to use ChatGPT to learn the subject better than they could learn it only from me.
- Embrace the existence of ChatGPT, and ask it to teach the whole course
- I do not mean this in a defeatist, I’m-out-of-a-job sense. Far from it. What I mean is that I might walk into class, give the prompt for the day, ask the students to read ChatGPT’s output, and then base the discussion on both ChatGPT’s output and the student’s understanding. (Yes, they could do the ChatGPT bit at home too, but you’d be surprised at the number of students who will not. Better to have all of them do it in class instead.) Over time, I’ll hope to not give the prompt for the day too! But it will be ChatGPT that is teaching – my job is to work as a facilitator, a moderator and a person who challenges students to think harder, argue better – and ask better.
- I do not mean this in a defeatist, I’m-out-of-a-job sense. Far from it. What I mean is that I might walk into class, give the prompt for the day, ask the students to read ChatGPT’s output, and then base the discussion on both ChatGPT’s output and the student’s understanding. (Yes, they could do the ChatGPT bit at home too, but you’d be surprised at the number of students who will not. Better to have all of them do it in class instead.) Over time, I’ll hope to not give the prompt for the day too! But it will be ChatGPT that is teaching – my job is to work as a facilitator, a moderator and a person who challenges students to think harder, argue better – and ask better.
- Alternate between the two (roughly speaking)
- The approach that I am most excited to try. In effect, ChatGPT and I will teach the course together. I end up teaching Principles of Economics, where ChatGPT adds in information/examples/references/points of view that I am not able to. But I also end up helping students understand how to use ChatGPT as a learning tool, both for Principles of Economics, but for everything else that they will learn, both within college and outside of it. This is very much part of the complements-vs-substitutes argument that I have been speaking about this week, of course, but it will also help me (and the students) better understand where ChatGPT is better than me, and (hopefully) vice-versa.
Whether from the perspective of a student (past or present) or that of a teacher (ditto), I would be very interested to hear your thoughts. But as a member of the learning community, how to use ChatGPT inside of classrooms (if at all), is a question I hope to think more about in the coming weeks.