Zak's Weekly Musings (February 8, 2023)
Who is Scared of Chat GPT? Not Us! (Part IV)
As a 24-year-old first-year teacher, I was thrilled when my school announced its new 1-to-1 program. Not only was it a welcome transition from traditional paper-based learning, but it also meant that I would be relieved from my daily tussles with the copy machine. However, my excitement was short-lived.
At our first faculty meeting after the email announcement, the discussion proved singularly perfunctory and technical in nature. Our principal focused on the logistics of distribution and firewall restrictions, but 45 minutes into the meeting, he had yet to explain our plan for teaching students to use their new devices effectively, appropriately, and ethically.
I held back for as long as I could, but eventually I raised my hand and asked, "How will we teach our middle schoolers to use these devices appropriately?" To my surprise, my principal was dismissive, glibly replying, "Oh, the kids will be fine. In fact, they’ll be the ones to teach us what to do.” I was left stunned. But, the truth is, I shouldn’t have been. This sentiment is an unfortunately pervasive one.
According to Albena Spasova, CEE Multi-Country Education Lead at Microsoft, “Students today don‘t need to learn how to use technology; they’re already using technology to learn.” Psychologist Dr. Jean Twenge similarly notes that “Generation Z is not just comfortable with technology, they are experts in it, having been born into a world where screens are as much a part of their lives as breathing." My principal’s perspective wasn’t extreme. In fact, his thinking was mainstream and conventional. My challenge to it was what was radical. But, this notion that Generation Z (or Generation Alpha for some students) has some inborn propensity for how to use technology is a hazardous fallacy with real consequences.
An MIT study conducted two years ago found that "many schools are no longer teaching typing because they figure students already are proficient at using keyboards." As a result, the study concluded that the average typing speed and accuracy among secondary students have decreased in the past 20 years.
As educators, it is imperative that we resist being spellbound by the illusion of “digital natives.”. Rather, it’s up to us to teach students how to use technology.
When it comes to ChatGPT – and related generative AI applications – our duty of care is to provide students with opportunities for experimentation within a clearly defined framework, thus fostering a learning environment that balances play with structure. On the heels of last week’s presentation to students, let’s consider how each of us is finding ways to incorporate ChatGPT in our lessons in a formative, low-stakes manner that highlights its benefits and makes clear its limitations.
Rather than just telling our students that they “can use ChatGPT” on a specific assignment, let’s create deliberate and well defined opportunities for them to use this tech.
Here are a few suggestions:
In art class, have students use ChatGPT to create a detailed description of an imaginary person. Then, ask students to take this description and plug it into Midjourney. Next, have the student draw a portrait of the imaginary person based on the ChatGPT description. Students can then compare and contrast what they produced vs what Midjourney produced.
In language arts, have students create lyrics to rap songs as part of Black History Month. Then, in music class, input the lyrics into ChatGPT and ask it to revise the lyrics to be suitable for other genres, like country, pop, etc. From there, use Ableton to have students produce and record their songs in multiple genres.
In language arts, science, or social studies, you can use ChatGPT for vocabulary lessons. Hand students a list of new vocabulary words, but don’t tell them the definitions. Then, have students use ChatGPT to generate developmentally-appropriate sentences for each of the vocabulary words. Based on the sentences ChatGPT generates, students can make predictions about what each word means. These predictions should be followed by a period of corrective, direct instruction. In this way, ChatGPT is allowing you to create moments of incongruence in learning, which we know leads to more deeply encoded learning.