ChatGPT provides me with a starting point from where I can add my own style and ‘humanness’

By Linda Chong

Digital technologies have always been a passion of mine and in my current role I have the privilege to disrupt classes with technology and innovative thinking. My personal view on the use of AI in my teaching and learning is … I love it!

For example, ChatGPT is a real game changer in terms of enabling me to use my time better. It has improved my productivity. It provides me with a starting point from where I can add my own style and ‘humanness’ to it. ChatGPT provides the draft from which I can create what I need for.

If we, as adults, are using artificial intelligence to help us, then I reckon we should be teaching our students how to best utilise this tool, too. It’s a bit like the feeling of when we first experienced the internet. AI has opened up many possibilities of potential uses in education. Just like anything, there are lots of positive benefits but this also comes with some negative uses, as well. I like to focus on the positive. AI is not going away. I see it as the way of the future and that it is my responsibility as an educator to open the minds of many people who see this technology as a threat.

The impact of assessment tasks with the use of access to AI was an immediate negative reaction that many seem to have jumped to. Students already have access to the internet – why is AI so much different? I believe it’s a tool with so much potential.

Help not hindrance

As you can probably guess, I am an early adopter, and love to rethink ways in which this tool can be embraced and work for our gain. AI used smartly can help teachers rather than be a hindrance. This innovative technology can provide students with feedback almost instantly and because it responds to common language, then it’s almost like having a conversation with your teacher. Just like BossGPT, I’m hoping that a TeacherGPT might be created, so that responses are made from a specific curriculum area expertise. AI can definitely be a time saving tool for teachers, which can lessen time pressured tasks and free up teachers to a degree.

To ensure that students are submitting their own original work, teachers already use strategies such as making projects and tasks personal. Assessments where students need to respond to their own feelings, reflections or opinion, helps to reduce the practice of simply copying and pasting from other sources. Putting the human factor into assessments can make it more valid and connected to what has been individually experienced and learned in class.

Authentic work

Although time consuming, monitoring student progress can ensure that the work from students is authentic and generated by the individual. Most teachers have a handle on what their students are doing within class and how far along they are progressing with a learning task. It has been interesting to see what ChatGPT highlighted when I completed a model answer for a task I had set for my students. The tool highlighted a number of sentences that were not taken from AI and were purely generated as my own thoughts. The accuracy of AI continues to evolve and similarly all sources need to be checked.

When I asked AI how it can enhance the learning experience of students at high school, it responded “Overall, AI has the potential to transform the way students learn, providing more personalised, engaging, and effective learning experiences that can help them to achieve better academic outcomes.”

Just like remote learning has been an adaptive method of teaching, AI brings us another tool that can be used to support existing teaching and learning.

I’ve been teaching for more than 30 years and I continue to adapt with the everchanging environment of education. Rethinking what’s possible allows me to build pathways for tomorrow’s students.

Linda Chong is Head of the Centre for Innovation at St Margaret’s College in Otautahi Christchurch.

Detecting AI-generated content

Having unleashed ChatGPT on the world, OpenAI has quickly created AI Text Classifier (platform.openai.com/ ai-text-classifier), a tool that will distinguish between AI-generated and human-generated text.

It’s also released GPT-2 Output Detector Demo (openai-openaidetector.hf.space).

Copyleaks has developed its own AI Content Detector (copyleaks.com/ ai-content-detector), as has Grammarly with its GrammarlyGO ( grammarly.com/grammarlygo).

Another is GPTZero ( gptzero.me). Enter the text and it provides an overall assessment, highlight the likeliest AI-written content, and offer scores for ‘Perplexity’ (a measurement of the randomness of the text) and ‘Burstiness’ (a measurement of the variation in perplexity).

Or you could try AI Detector (contentatscale.ai/ai-contentdetector/ ) and AI Content Detector (writer.com/ai-content-detector/ ).