3 Ways Teachers Can Use ChatGPT in the Classroom, According to ChatGPT
If you’ve spent time in any teacher social media spaces lately, you may have seen the buzz (and panic) surrounding ChatGPT.
What is ChatGPT?
ChatGPT is a type of artificial intelligence by OpenAI that engages with users in a naturally conversational way.
I asked ChatGPT to explain itself kid-friendly language. Here’s what it said:
What else can ChatGPT do?
Simply put, ChatGPT can do a lot. It can give advice, answer questions, fix coding errors, and even write essays and poetry!
To illustrate this, I asked ChatGPT to write me a poem about digital citizenship. Here’s what it came up with in less than a minute:
The Implications
Not surprisingly, many teachers are worried about the implications this clever little chatbot has for students in the classroom. If students can have ChatGPT write them a 5-paragraph essay on symbolism in The Giver, for example, then how are teachers ever going to keep up?
This post won’t be able to answer that question, but it’s always a good idea to periodically evaluate and reconsider how we assess student learning in the classroom. The emergence of ChatGPT is a great reminder of that.
How teachers can use ChatGPT in the Classroom
Rather than dwelling on the potential misuses of ChatGPT (admittedly, there are many), let’s take a minute to talk about some possible benefits. Are there ways ChatGPT could actually help teachers or students in the classroom?
To answer that question, I asked—you guessed it—ChatGPT. Here’s what it said:
Teachers can use ChatGPT, a large language model trained by OpenAI, in the classroom to engage and educate students in a variety of ways. Here are a few ideas:
As a writing prompt generator: ChatGPT can help teachers generate engaging writing prompts for students to respond to. For example, a teacher could ask ChatGPT to generate a story starter or a creative writing prompt, and then have students use the prompt as the basis for their own writing. This can be a fun and interactive way to get students excited about writing.
As a reading comprehension tool: ChatGPT can be used to help students improve their reading comprehension skills. Teachers can ask ChatGPT to generate a passage on a topic that students are studying, and then have students read the passage and answer questions about it. This can be a helpful way to assess students' understanding of the material and to identify areas where they may need additional support.
As a vocabulary builder: ChatGPT can help students expand their vocabulary by generating sentences using words that students may not be familiar with. Teachers can ask ChatGPT to generate sentences using a particular word, and then have students guess the meaning of the word based on the context of the sentence. This can be a fun and interactive way to help students learn new words and improve their vocabulary.
Overall, ChatGPT can be a valuable tool for teachers looking to engage and educate their students in new and exciting ways. By using ChatGPT in the classroom, teachers can help students develop important skills such as writing, reading comprehension, and vocabulary building.
The text above was written entirely by ChatGPT in under a minute. And I’m not mad at those suggestions, either. As a language arts teacher, I’ve spent countless hours searching for engaging writing prompts or reading comprehension passages to share with students. To think that I could now ask an AI to do that in mere seconds is pretty mind-blowing stuff.
So while I can’t tell you how to prevent students from using ChatGPT (or some other AI in the future) for nefarious purposes, I can assure you that AI is a valuable tool that is here to stay. Might as well use its powers for good, right?
What do you think? Could you see yourself using ChatGPT in the classroom?