How should artificial intelligence be used in the classroom? Ask 10 professors, get 10 very different answers. A new survey indicates that most support the use of ChatGPT and other bots and AI aids.
In a new survey from Intelligent.com, six out of 10 educators believe ChatGPT, which stands for Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer, can help students learn. But many say the tool is a double-edged sword.
Launched 10 months go, ChatGPT continues to be a hot topic of conversation, compelling educators in business schools and everywhere else to rethink its impact on their classrooms.
INTELLIGENT.COM REPORT: WRITTEN TESTS TO COMBAT CHATGPT
Intelligent.com released a study with responses from 228 current high school teachers and college professors, and it looks like 66% of educators have made or plan to incorporate written in-class assignments as a way to deter students from using ChatGPT.
Of that group, 76% currently require or will require handwritten essays, 65% currently have or will have students type assignments in class without Wifi, and 87% currently have or will incorporate oral assessments as well.
What about policies against the tool? About 66% of respondents said their schools have policies in place concerning student use of ChatGPT, 29% said their school doesn’t have policies, and 5% don’t know if their schools had a policy against it.
Most educators have mixed feelings about the use of ChatGPT, and although many want to deter the use of it, many of them, a whole 63%, think ChatGPT ‘somewhat’ or ‘greatly helps’ students’ ability to learn. Just 24% say it ‘somewhat’ or ‘greatly hurts’ students’ ability to learn, and 13% say it ‘does not affect’ students’ ability to learn.
AI USED IN BUSINESS SCHOOL CLASSROOMS
Stella Pachidi, assistant professor of information systems at Judge Business School: ChatGPT is “not much of a threat” but more of “an additional tool, a more advanced Google search, and we are already trying to think about how to integrate it”
Poets&Quants interviewed three professors from Judge Business School on their thoughts about the use of AI in the business school setting. All of them had useful insight – both praise and warnings – about the use of AI tech.
Jaideep Prabhu, professor of marketing at Judge Business School says, “I think it’s a plus for educators and it’s complementary to what we are already using. For business students, it is an amazing tool. You can’t rely on it but it can be a huge aid to a business you are running. We have to get our students to use it with caution and to sharpen their judgment about it. It is relatively easy to check if it is feeding you BS but more difficult to go behind generic concepts and answers. That’s why the prompts and interrogation you use for ChatGPT are just as important as what it tells you. And if it tells you something you are unhappy with, you can ask in a different way and see how that impacts the answer.”
His praise comes with warnings as well.
“I want our students to know that there is this capability and that they can use it but to use their judgment as well because sometimes it totally creates BS. One time I had this idea for a series of podcasts on the Indian Institutes of Technology in India. Then, I thought maybe there are podcasts on this topic already and so I asked ChatGPT. It came up with a list of podcasts but none of them existed. There was no trace of any of them on the Internet. It was a total hallucination. So if you are not careful in using ChatGPT it can be embarrassing or cost you your career.”
A QUESTION OF INTEGRATION
In a second interview, Poets&Quants spoke with Thomas Roulet, professor in organization theory and deputy director of the MBA program at Judge Business School, who said, “I teach leadership in the MBA program and it’s all about trusting yourself and your ability to manage complex situations. It would be a mistake to ban AI because it is with us now. People will have access to it in organizations all over the world, and it will be integrated with their approach to work. So we have to teach our students how to use AI as a resource for knowledge and decision-making.”
Roulet has been asking students to use the AI tech.
“We are thinking about asking students to actively use ChatGPT,” he says. “We used to ask them to tell us about a situation you have faced in the workplace that is related to the leadership issues we have discussed and use the concepts learned in class to inform how you would approach it. Now we will ask them to use ChatGPT to give them some answers on what you could do and then assess the answers with the knowledge and the critical skills they have developed during the course. This way, they don’t only apply the knowledge to their own situation; they apply the knowledge to either criticize or complement what ChatGPT tells them to do. They need to assess and criticize the information they are getting from AI because a lot of what they will get from ChatGPT is bull crap.”
Stella Pachidi, assistant professor in information systems at Judge Business School is also incorporating AI tech in her classroom with students.
“Can they use ChatGPT for brainstorming? Yes and they are encouraged to do so,” she says. “But that doesn’t detract from their ability to think critically. So I see this as not much of a threat but more as an additional tool, a more advanced Google search, and we are already trying to think about how to integrate it. For example, we want students to write a reflection and if they have used it, give us the search file with all the prompts put in an appendix. And write a reflection of how it was useful to you and how you cross-checked the information to make sure it was accurate. You have to embrace it. You cannot ignore it.”
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