With the potential to transform the way we approach education and provide unparalleled learning experiences for students, choosing to integrate ChatGPT into a school’s curriculum is a wise decision for educators; it can be a powerful tool to help students write and research.
As the debate of using ChatGPT in schools continues, everyone should think through the knee-jerk of banning the tool in educational institutions. The truth is that students can easily find ways to access the software without getting caught. While some may argue that tools like GPTZero, OpenAI GPT2, and Hello-SimpleAI can help catch AI-generated writing, they are often unreliable, and some can be easily fooled into believing AI written text as human writing. Even if it were possible to block ChatGPT entirely, we need to keep in mind that it wouldn’t be worth it for teachers to constantly go through that time and effort to police student’s writing, spending hours pasting sections of text into the AI detector websites. Kevin Roose, a technology columnist for The New York Times thinks that the proper solution would be to treat ChatGPT like a calculator. For instance, in math a calculator can be used for students who might have a harder time with some ‘lower level’ equations or functions; although, it is usually unused at higher levels of math in order to help the students learn. If the GPT was treated so, it might be easier to manage how the students use it. “Here’s a suggestion: for the rest of the academic year, schools should treat ChatGPT the way they treat calculators — allowing it for some assignments, but not others, and assuming that unless students are being supervised in person with their devices stashed away, they’re probably using one.”
-Kevin Roose.
Concerning the use of ChatGPT in general, I believe we should be noticing that using the software to help teach could lighten the workload on teachers, while also helping students. According to Sean Robinson, a science teacher at Riverside Secondary School– ChatGPT can be a valuable tool for teachers to help their students understand complex topics in a simplified way. Instead of the chatbot to plagiarize information, students can use the software to generate original explanations that are easy to comprehend. “Some of the great uses that I see for this new tool are putting things in simplistic terms – so let’s say I don’t understand what an ion is – I can go to ChatGPT and just type in something like: ‘Explain to me what an ion is in simple terms that a child would understand.’ So, there’s learning involved, it’s not about plagiarism,” said Robinson. By using ChatGPT in this way, there is potential that students can engage in active learning and gain a deeper understanding of the material.
Overall, people need to come to terms with the fact that integrating ChatGPT into a school’s curriculum can provide numerous benefits for both teachers and students. While the debate surrounding its use continues, banning the tool entirely is not a feasible solution, and treating it like a calculator, or another teaching tool may be a more practical approach. Keeping ChatGPT is the right approach and should be taken.
