Chat GPT - Get Used To It

Greetings friends. This morning I read a collection of opinions in the Wall Street Journal’s Future View - on Chat GPT and education - and I resonated with one in particular. If you recall, when I first learned of generative AI’s ability to “write” essays, I was alarmed. I thought it signaled the end of education. But these days, I have changed my tune. I use it, and I even have my students use it…but in ways that enhance the critical thinking experience.

The opinion piece in question was penned by Yale history PhD Kevin Hoffman, who notes that Chat GPT isn’t gong anywhere, so we need to adapt. As a high school history teacher, I could not agree more. Here’s the thing. Cheaters are going to cheat - and if kids just have ChatGPT write their essays they will be pretty surface level, lacking in qualitative analysis, and likely in supportive evidence as well. It’s will get the basics correct, but little else in terms of depth. In other words…they’ll turn in duds. I quite liked his line, “to call the essays sophomoric would insult sophomores.”

Hoffman and I agree that simply going back to in-class pen and paper tests is not the way forward (and teenage handwriting is also hard to grade so there’s that…). So, it’s really up to educators at all levels to develop essay prompts that have students piece together (in my case) historical sources, themes, and ideas in sophisticated ways, requiring them to draw conclusions based on their reading of the historical record in context. In other words - get them to think, reason, and provide analysis. If ChatGPT can help them situate events in the historical narrative then great, if can provide some perspective - also great.

Students now have at their disposal a useful tool that allows them gather lots and lots of pieces. How they put those pieces together is the real trick, what will require earnest critical thinking. And after all - the last time I checked, that’s what we’re supposed to be teaching them.

With compliments,

Keith