Over the past few months, several open artificial intelligence (AI) tools such as ChatGPT and Microsoft’s Bing have become hot topics of conversation in K-12 schools and higher education. ChatGPT is a word predictor technology application that can be used to generate human-like responses to prompts. From summarizing an article to enhancing classroom lessons, ChatGPT has the potential to disrupt education—which has some educators concerned, while others adapt strategies to embrace its use in classrooms. To learn more about this tool and practical strategies that can be applied to advanced academics, I interviewed Spencer Burrows. Spencer has been a podcast guest and authored several recent commentaries on ChatGPT. He is a history teacher and the 11th-grade dean at Pacific Ridge School, an independent middle and high school in Carlsbad, CA.

KG:  For those who are new to ChatGPT, can you briefly explain how it works?

SB: ChatGPT is a large language model word predictor technology. When you ask it a question it will give you an answer that is an approximation based on information it collects from readily available sources. The quality of the answer depends on the scope of its sources, which need to be current to give an accurate answer. For example, I made queries regarding the Ukraine conflict a few months ago when ChatGPT was released, and the responses were quite vague, because there were not many sources for ChatGPT to draw upon. However, when I input the same queries a few weeks later, the answers were much more accurate, because that information was now more readily available. I should note that this seems to give the impression that ChatGPT is “learning,” but I don’t think that is a fair statement. ChatGPT is not producing or evolving its own “knowledge,” but rather, its answers become more refined as the sources it can draw upon increase.

KG: You have written and spoken about possibilities that tools like ChatGPT offer to promote skills such as civic education, literacy, and critical thinking. ChatGPT results are sometimes inaccurate. What are some tips to help students think critically about results generated from AI software like ChatGPT?

SB: A ChatGPT answer essentially gives you what seems like a collection of the top Google hits in one particular area. Hence, the answer is often moving in the right direction, but is sometimes not entirely correct. For example, as a demonstration to my colleagues, I asked ChatGPT “What is Pacific Ridge School?” (my school). The answer it produced had most of our facts and demographics correct but indicated that we were a 7th through 12th grade school, when we had in fact added a 6th grade this year. That shows that the information ChatGPT was drawing from had not been fully updated to include our current profile.

Herein lies the issue for students. When ChatGPT gives an answer, it appears to be valid and trustworthy, but is oftentimes not completely correct. This provides a prime opportunity for students to practice and develop their critical analysis skills. A classroom activity I have been using with ChatGPT is to give the app a prompt, have it produce an answer, and then allow students to conduct independent research to fact check that answer. For example, I had my U.S. History 11th and 12th graders fact check a ChatGPT prompt about Reconstruction. Most of the response ChatGPT produced was correct, but students were able to identify points where the dates were slightly off, time period characterizations were out of context, and some important facts were simply left out. This exercise is excellent practice for students to examine sources and content on the Internet to determine which are credible, or not, trustworthy, or not. That is a critical skill going forward into the real world that I hope they carry with them.

KG: As a high school teacher of history, economics, and speech and debate, you have discovered ways to incorporate ChatGPT to make your courses more engaging. Can you give a few examples of how ChatGPT might be used in gifted and talented or Advanced Placement (AP) classes to extend students’ thinking and increase engagement?

SB: I previously served as Academic Dean for gifted and talented summer programs, including Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth (CTY) and Summer Institute for the Gifted (SIG). There, I had the opportunity to work with gifted and twice-exceptional elementary and middle school students. One of the greatest needs for these students in their typical classroom environment is extension activities. They often work at a faster rate than other similar-age peers and need to be challenged more in each lesson. I think this is a great opportunity to employ ChatGPT for extension activities. For example, the Bill of Rights Institute hosts an essay contest each year, oftentimes around such concepts as federalism, freedom of speech, and what it means to be a citizen. A possible extension activity for an elementary or middle school American history lesson would be to give gifted and advanced students the Bill of Rights essay prompt, have them use the chatbot to brainstorm ideas of how the concepts apply to American history past and present, and then have students evaluate those different analyses to determine what are the most salient connections to the modern day and the strongest arguments for how the Bill of Rights connects to those concepts.

For high school AP classes, there's a great opportunity to employ ChatGPT to help prepare students for AP tests. AP U.S. History classes spend much time practicing document-based questions and short answers, preparing for what they will see on the AP test. The newly released ChatGPT-4 appears especially adept at producing thorough sample answers for AP tests. Bill Gates recently announced that he had challenged programmers to create a chatbot that could pass the AP Biology test, and ChatGPT-4 succeeded! Hence, I think honors and AP students will find the chatbot particularly useful as a study partner to prepare them for their more rigorous exams. Honors classes could also use the chatbot for extension activities like I mentioned above.

This is similar to how I engaged ChatGPT with my high school speech and debate team as we were preparing for a tournament. Certain high school debate tournament categories like Parliamentary debate require students to think fast on their feet and deliver arguments and rebuttals on the spot. To practice that exercise, I had the students prepare questions based on possible tournament prompts, feed those prompts to ChatGPT, and display the ChatGPT response developing in real time. Then, students delivered their rebuttals straight to ChatGPT, and I had ChatGPT produce its response in turn. The students reported this exercise was great practice and preparation because they were challenged to develop answers in real time, something that is very difficult to simulate outside of actual tournament debates.

KG: University faculty have begun to discuss policies and ethical considerations of ChatGPT use in undergraduate and graduate courses. Rather than ban it altogether, what suggestions do you have for institutions of higher education as they prepare educators who work with K-12 students to utilize this tool wisely? For faculty who worry that students will use ChatGPT to plagiarize assignments, what are some tips to prevent misuse?

SB: First off, I don’t know any realistic way a university can ban the app. What would they do, block it on the Wi-Fi? I believe the University of Texas system tried blocking TikTok on their school Wi-Fi, so the students just accessed it on their phones . . . Not very effective!

Universities and professors should realize that everything ChatGPT can do is already available on the Internet, albeit the app might make it more accessible. All of the information ChatGPT is drawing from is already in existence. So, if a student wants to cheat with information on the Internet, they can. That is not new.

The better action for teachers and professors right now is to truly examine how we are assessing students. If you are concerned that a student is going to cheat or plagiarize using ChatGPT, what assessment are you giving that allows them to cheat? To reference the notion “control what you can control, and don't worry about the rest,” for all the things that teachers and professors cannot control, like ChatGPT use in or outside of school, we can control what assessments we deliver. Hence, my big push for teachers and professors right now is to take a close look at what assessments they are giving and try to determine the most effective way to structure those assessments. I was told as a student teacher (and I tell my student teachers now) to be very intentional in determining what skills you were actually trying to assess. Why is a teacher or professor assigning a 10-20-page term paper? What are you actually assessing? Stamina? I think there are more effective ways to assess those skills. I have my high school students write essay assessments by hand in class, instead of drafting a 10-page paper on their computer that could very well be doctored with ChatGPT. The handwritten assessment often demands more effort and deliberation than the typed response, and therefore gives me a better indication of what they actually understand.

As for designing assessment questions, as I explained in my Education Week article, here are some tips. In your question, ask for text references because ChatGPT most likely will not have access to the reading that you want referenced (and don’t name that source in the question). Also, ask for modern-day connections. ChatGPT has limited access to events that are new or developing and is thus harder to plagiarize.

The bottom line is that we, as educators, need to be more careful and intentional in the assessments we give, which is best practice in the first place. A common refrain during the COVID-19 pandemic was change that would have taken 10 years in the education system took a matter of a few weeks, because we all had to pivot given the changing circumstances. Maybe the introduction of ChatGPT and other large language models is a good shock to the education system because we have to rethink many of our practices and refine them for the modern day. I hope educators see the silver lining!

Resources

Burrows, S. (2023, March 7). Three steps to prevent ChatGPT misuse: Original or AI? How teachers can prevent plagiarism. Education Week. https://www.edweek.org/technology/opinion-three-steps-to-prevent-chatgpt-misuse/2023/03

Burrows, S. (2023, February 16). How ChatGPT made my lessons more engaging. Chalkbeat. https://www.chalkbeat.org/2023/2/16/23600187/chatgpt-lessons-speech-debate-class-history

ChatGPT tool: https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt

Ferlazzo, L. (2023, January 18). 19 ways to use ChatGPT in your classroom. Education Week. https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/opinion-19-ways-to-use-chatgpt-in-your-classroom/2023/01

Lopez, D. (Host). (2023, March 20). Spencer Burrows: Dean – Pacific Ridge High School & Professor (No. 9) [Audio podcast episode]. In The AI Conversation. IVOOX. https://www.ivoox.com/en/episode-9-spencer-burrows-dean-pacific-ridge-audios-mp3_rf_104835815_1.html

Spencer Burrows, J.D., is a history teacher and the 11^th-grade dean at Pacific Ridge School, an independent middle and high school in Carlsbad, CA. He serves as an education adjunct faculty at National University and on the Board of Directors of TEACH Public Schools, a K-12 charter network in South Los Angeles. He is a 2018-2019 Teach Plus California Policy Fellow. Follow Spencer @burrows_spencer.

Keri M. Guilbault, Ed.D., is an assistant professor and coordinator of the online graduate programs in gifted education at Johns Hopkins University. She is a former district coordinator of advanced learning programs and 2019 NAGC Early Leader award recipient. Keri recently served on the NAGC board of directors as treasurer. Follow her @drkerig.