“Students are just cheating”
“How are we going to assess our students?”
“Students can’t learn anything this way”
Introduction
The last time I heard comments like that from educators was with online learning at the start of the pandemic. Those were some dark days and required us as teachers to think about what it meant to assess our students and what they would like to do virtually. Now, we face our next challenge: ChatGPT.
If you are unfamiliar, ChatGPT is a conversational artificial intelligence language model developed by OpenAI. You can enter any question, and it spits out information that is easy to understand. I first heard of ChatGPT from my brother-in-law, Shaun, who works in IT, over Thanksgiving dinner. I listened but didn’t think much of it at the time, presuming it sounded cool, but I would never use it. Then suddenly, over the last several weeks in my coaching sessions, I started to hear educators saying the comments I used to open this blog post. The parallels between comments about online learning and ChatGPT became increasingly apparent because they were both driven by the same thing - fear.
Even if you do a Google search, all these articles will come up about the fears of students plagiarizing, ending high school English as we know it, and school districts such as New York City Public Schools banning ChatGPT amid fears of AI assisted cheating. The articles are endless, and I am not going to lie, I was suddenly distraught.
Experimenting with ChatGPT
So, I decided to see what ChatGPT was all about for myself. I asked questions about all sorts of topics, from parenting advice to makeup tips, and I was impressed with the answers. One of my first questions? Of course, I had to ask how I could prevent my students from using ChatGPT to cheat. See the response below:
When I looked at the responses, one stood the most out to me, number three: Provide original assignments: Design assignments and tests that are unique and difficult to obtain answers for through external sources, including ChatGPT. I realized this would require a significant shift in teaching for many, and some professors are already responding at the college level. According to the NYT, "some professors are redesigning their courses entirely, making changes that include more oral exams, group work, and handwritten assessments in lieu of typed ones." While I liked that thinking, my mind went a step further. As a firm believer and advocate for human & learner-centered design, I immediately made connections to constructivism and project-based learning to prevent cheating and use ChatGPT as a tool instead.
As a firm believer and advocate for human & learner-centered design, I immediately made connections to constructivism and project-based learning to prevent cheating and use ChatGPT as a tool instead.
Constructivism & PBL to Combat ChatGPT Fears in Classrooms
Constructivism is an approach to learning based on the belief that people actively construct or make their own knowledge through various experiences by the learner. That is something that ChatGPT can not provide--authentic learning experiences that impacts the learner long-term.
Sure, ChatGPT can be used to find specific information and facts, but I already forgot that makeup tip I got earlier because I didn't do anything with that knowledge. ChatGPT will only help students regurgitate facts rather than dig into what they are learning and why.
You might be thinking, is constructivism all that different from what I do now? The answer depends on your starting point. In Simply Psychology, Saul McLeod shared the features of a constructivist classroom compared to a traditional one. Take a moment to reflect on your classroom using the self-assessment table below.
Traditional Classroom | Constructivist Classroom |
Strict adherence to a fixed curriculum is highly valued. | Pursuit of student questions and interests is valued. |
Learning is based on repetition. | Learning is interactive, building on what the student already knows. |
Teacher-centered. | Learner-centered. |
Teachers disseminate information to students; students are recipients of knowledge (passive learning). | Teachers have a dialogue with students, helping students construct their own knowledge (active learning). |
Teacher's role is directive, rooted in authority. | Teacher's role is interactive, rooted in negotiation. |
Students work primarily alone (competitive). | Students work primarily in groups (cooperative). |
Saul McLeod, 2019
As you can see, in a traditional setting, ChatGPT could be a real threat as it is more rooted in a passive classroom. In contrast, in a constructivist classroom, the learner is at the center, and knowledge is co-constructed.
There are lots of strategies that can help establish a constructivist classroom. One way is to implement project-based learning regularly for your students. What is PBL? According to PBLWorks, "Project Based Learning (PBL) is a teaching method in which students learn by actively engaging in real-world and personally meaningful projects." In other words, PBL is a form of constructivism because students can construct their own knowledge through the experiences projects provide.
Many of us have experiences with projects, but is it project-based learning? To ensure it is John Larmer, John Mergendoller, and Suzie Boss created the table below in their book Setting the Standard for Project Based Learning to help distinguish the difference.
Project | Project Based Learning |
Supplemental to a unit | The project is the unit, or a major vehicle for teaching content standards within a unit |
Task is based on following directions from the teacher and is repeated year after year | Task is open-ended and involves student voice and choice; often differs from year to year |
Typically done individually | Done in collaboration with a team |
Done independently, often at home | Done with teacher guidance, much of it during school hours |
Focused on the product; the product may even be called "the project" | The project includes a sustained inquiry process and the creation of a product |
Not authentic to the real world or to the students' lives | Authentic to the real world or the students' lives or both |
(Larmer et al., 2015, p. 70)
If you want more information on project-based learning, check out several of our blogs, PBLWorks, or Defined Learning- where John Larmer has written some recent amazing blog posts on PBL.
ChatGPT as a Tool for Project Ideas
At this point, you might say to me, "That's cool, Alicia. You've made a great case for constructivism and project-based learning to remedy my fears about ChatGPT. But PBL is a little scary to me, and I haven't had much luck with it in the past, partly because it's so hard to come up with ideas." Don't get deflated just yet because, believe it or not, I encourage you to use ChatGPT to generate project ideas.
Before I show you how you can use ChatGPT for project ideas, I want to give you a word of caution. ChatGPT can be a tool but can never replace your expertise or serve as the end-all solution to all the things. During all my research and playing around, I found myself eliminating ideas, needing to personalize ideas I liked, and discovering that sometimes what was generated was not feasible in my context. You will need to rely on your professional expertise and judgment. Nothing can replace you and what you bring to the world of education, but ChatGPT can help get you started. Let me show you some examples.
Nothing can replace you and what you bring to the world of education, but ChatGPT can help get you started.
Using Real-World Examples to Spark Project Ideas
One aspect of PBL is including authenticity in your projects; sometimes, that can be difficult. To minimize that barrier in my coaching session with one of my math teachers, we used ChatGPT. At the start of our coaching session, he stated that he constantly needed help teaching factoring because students got bored with the topic. So, that was our starting point. I asked, "what are some real-world examples of factoring in math." Here is what ChatGPT generated:
From there, we determined that his students might be most interested in Number 3, Resource Allocation. We then personalized it slightly but copied and pasted mostly what was given to us, ensuring we plugged in PBL and a specific location - Rochester, NY. Check out how we framed our new question:
ChatGPT Original Idea: 3. Resource Allocation: In businesses and organizations using factoring is used to allocate resources in the most efficient manner. For example, a company may use factoring to determine the most cost-effective way to produce a product. Our New Question: What is a project-based learning experience students could do in Resource Allocation: In businesses and organizations located in Rochester, NY, using factoring is used to allocate resources in the most efficient manner. For example, a company may use factoring to determine the most cost-effective way to produce a product |
We mainly used the exact words ChatGPT gave us, but we added the location and specifically named project-based learning. Here are the results it gave:
Is this a perfect project? No. Was it enough to help my teacher? Yes! How did we know? We used the HQPBL Rubric and trusted our professional expertise in PBL. The most promising aspect for me was that he immediately asked if we could meet again to connect with local businesses that might be interested. Overall, I liked that it gave us enough to get started without spinning our wheels for hours. The best part? When I plugged in the ChatGPT trying to get an answer, it would only generate a process, nothing more.
Starting with a Standard to Generate Project Ideas
Another route I decided to try was to start with a standard. This process taught me that playing around with wording is essential to generate additional ideas. Check out this example from a third-grade science standard and notice the different responses.
I decided that I liked the simulation software the most and asked for more details of what that could look like. This is what ChatGPT gave me:
Again, this isn't perfect. I had questions about what I could use as simulation software, how to make it authentic to my students, and so on. I was reminded during this inquiry dive that ChatGPT isn't a 100% solution, but it was enough to get me started, and that's all I needed. Too often, we quit before we implement because we need help developing an idea or understanding the process. ChatGPT helped me with both.
Too often, we quit before we implement because we need help developing an idea or understanding the process. ChatGPT helped me with both.
Top Tips for using ChatGPT to Generate Project Ideas
I could show you more examples of what I tried, but that wouldn't be as helpful as some tips. Here are some do's and don'ts that I learned while experimenting. If you already have been using ChatGPT, I would love to hear some of your top tips to add to this list. I hope it helps you generate project ideas using ChatGPT for yourself successfully.
Conclusion
Change is always problematic, but one thing I know about the world of education is how adaptable we can be. ChatGPT is not a change that we need to fear. It will require us to be different in our classrooms, which is okay. As one of the late great founders of progressive education, John Dewey, said, “education is not an affair of ‘telling’ and being told, but an active and constructive process.” ChatGPT could be a tool that we can use to further our journey toward that vision.
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