A Teacher’s Guide to Using ChatGPT: Essential Tips Every Teacher Should Know
Since its debut in late 2022, ChatGPT has generated a flurry of emotions in the education world. While some are excited about the possibilities it brings, others are feeling much more apprehensive about its widespread implications and challenges. And for many, of course. it’s a hearty mixture of both!
But regardless of where you might fall on the spectrum, I stand by the fact that we should take the time to understand ChatGPT and what it’s capable of. And of course, there’s no better way to truly understand something than to dive in and give it a try yourself!
So whether you’re team-AI-all-the-way or trying to ignore the fact that a chatbot can now write a Shakespearean-style sonnet in under five seconds, I encourage you to spend some time exploring the ins and outs of this clever little chatbot.
Below, I’ve compiled some key tips below to help you use ChatGPT more efficiently and responsibly. Here we go!
Tip 1: Understand how it works ⚙️
ChatGPT is an example of generative AI, a type of artificial intelligence designed to create new content rather than just analyze existing data. It's been trained on a massive dataset of text from the internet, allowing it to generate impressively human-like responses in a matter of seconds.
By recognizing patterns and context from its training data, ChatGPT predicts and produces answers to your prompts. However, it's important to remember that it doesn't truly understand the content it creates, and its knowledge is restricted to the information in its training data.
Knowing these fundamental concepts will help you create more effective prompts and better understand ChatGPT's capabilities and limitations.
Tip 2: Write clear and specific prompts 📝
Think about what you want ChatGPT to do — maybe answer a question, generate some ideas, or create content for your students to analyze. Whatever it is, you’ll need a clear prompt. The more specific you are in your prompts, the better results you're likely to get.
Use concise language and phrase your prompts as questions or statements that directly address the desired information, content, or output. For best results, provide detailed instructions that include a specific topic and purpose, relevant context and background information, the target audience, and your desired response length. You can also specify the format and tone of the response you're seeking or provide examples for ChatGPT to emulate.
Tip 3: Experiment and follow up 🔎
ChatGPT is a powerful tool, but it may take more than one prompt to get the best response. You may need to ask follow up questions, provide additional information, or regenerate a response.
If you stay in the same chat window, the AI will remember its prior input (meaning everything you’ve just typed into it). This makes it easy for the AI to build off the context and information you’ve already shared. It will also save your chat history so you can refer back or continue the conversation later.
Tip 4: Treat ChatGPT as a starting point 📍
Keep in mind that AI-generated content should not be viewed as a final product. Instead, it's most effective when used as the beginning of a creative process, similar to a brainstorming session or a rough draft.
Use the AI's suggestions as a foundation to build upon and spark your own ideas. To ensure the content meets your specific needs and style, be prepared to revise and edit as necessary.
Tip 5: Use ChatGPT to save time ⏰
ChatGPT can help teachers save time on tasks such as lesson planning, grading, and providing feedback. Keep this in mind when using the tool and focus on prompts that can help you streamline your workload.
For a little inspiration, check out this mega-list of 50 time-saving prompts for teachers.
Tip 6: Use your professional judgment 🗒️
While ChatGPT can provide helpful insights and suggestions, remember that it’s only a tool. It can’t fully replicate the professional judgment and expertise of a human.
Use your professional judgment to review and assess the generated content with a critical eye. You’ll need to apply your own knowledge and experience to ensure its accuracy, relevance, and usefulness.
Tip 7: Protect student privacy 🔐
When using ChatGPT, be mindful of student privacy. ChatGPT processes the input it receives, so it’s important to avoid sharing any personally identifiable information (PII) or sensitive data. This might include names, birthdates, academic records, or disciplinary history.
Basically, avoid sharing any information that could uniquely identify a student or reveal sensitive aspects of their personal or academic life.
Tip 8: Protect student intellectual property ✏️
You may have seen some tips floating around on social media suggesting that ChatGPT can be used to generate feedback on student writing. While ChatGPT can absolutely be used to support the feedback process, I don’t recommend submitting student writing samples directly into ChatGPT without first obtaining student consent.
Remember that ChatGPT processes and stores input data, which can include the writing samples you provide. It’s important to consider the implications of this data storage when utilizing student work in the platform. If you’re set on inputting a sample of student writing, be sure to involve that student in that decision-making process.
Tip 9: Practice ethical use of AI 🤖
Like any AI-powered tool, ChatGPT has the potential to produce responses that perpetuate bias or misinformation. This is due to the training data used (text from the internet), which may contain inherent biases, inaccuracies, or outdated information.
It’s important to be aware of these potential issues and take steps to mitigate them, such as using diverse sources of information and critically evaluating the responses generated by ChatGPT.
What do you think? Are there any other essential tips you would add? Let me know!