Letting ChatGPT do the heavy lifting, leaving more time to focus on teaching

By Tim Watanabe, Catholic Cathedral College

I’m generally interested in IT, and always interested in tools that would improve my pedagogy in efficiency and efficacy. When I saw what ChatGPT was capable of, I’d initially thought that it could be a good tool for providing written materials, especially in areas where information is difficult or time consuming to come by.

I begin by asking it to output information for High School students on particular topics. Once I’d compiled information from this and other sources, I then diversified the output to lesson aims, starter and content questions, overview, list of popular culture analogies, tables, dialogues, relevant quotes, and lesson summary as relevant. I would have to be selective about the information I used, and correct, augment, refine, and/or replace some as appropriate (with or without ChatGPT).

Being a computer program, sometimes the instructions do need to be fairly specific if you’re looking for any particular style or focus in the output. I found I had to refine the prompt with follow up directions (which ChatGPT understands). I have a fairly prescriptive lesson format, so this may differ from what most others would do.

I’m generally happy with it. While the information is not always accurate, it does much of the ‘heavy lifting’ and it also helps with ideation. Things like tables help to visualise the information in a more compact and, hopefully, comprehensible way for students.

For Religious Education, it came up with the analogy of Clark Kent and Superman for Jesus being the person best able to reveal his true identity; I was pleased that it could come up with an example that students could relate to that I had not thought of before.

Improve quality

One of the main benefits for teachers is that it can help to improve the quality of pedagogical materials (and even methods), as it’s able to output things in the time it would previously have taken too long to implement. Students can reap the benefit of more comprehensive lessons that are presented in more accessible ways. It can also help with ideation for content and activities. I’m told that it can even help with marking, although I’ve yet to use it in this way.

The prompt Tim’s saved for use in each lesson

Write out in Markdown for junior High School students providing:

1. Lesson aim(s);

2. Starter question(s) that do not assume much knowledge of lesson content;

3. Prayer in full and its title;

4. Short overview bullet point summaries;

5. Notable relevant quotes (not from lesson content itself);

6. List of relevant terminology;

7. List of 10 analogies to the topic in popular culture or daily life;

8. Set of questions for each section of the content;

9. Comparison table (if relevant);

10. Philosophical explanation for difficult concepts;

11. Q&A section for tricky questions;

12. Catholic Church’s teaching citing the Catechism;

13. lesson summary in short bullet points;

14. A summary table of who, what, where, when, why, and how;

15. Suggestions for best ways to teach the lesson;

16. List of interesting discussion questions.

These are just the tip of the iceberg for the possibilities the tool allows, which are only limited by one’s imagination and creativity.

Students themselves can use it as an instant formative feedback tool, ways to quickly provide information on any topic, assist in ways to improve in any area, etc. Again, only limited by their imagination. Perhaps the greatest benefit lies in the fact that it can be personalised by feeding it your own input according to your specific needs to a level previously not possible.

Nuance and accuracy

It’s important that a tool like this isn’t thought of as a replacement for teacher and ‘human’ expertise.

The most obvious flaw is that it is not always accurate with the information it provides in the output. It also does not always have the level of specialised knowledge that a teacher should have in a subject area, so these would have to be supplied. It also may not have the level of nuance required, especially when it comes to writing dialogues.

I now use ChatGPT on a daily basis. I’ve even started a Facebook group, ChatGPT for Education, to share ideas for ethical use of the tool by both teachers and students. I’ve not used it in the classroom, other than to prepare the lesson material beforehand. There’s a potential to use it for personalised feedback by providing prompts for students to use to receive feedback from ChatGPT on their writing, so I may do this in the future.

Tim Watanabe teaches at Catholic Cathedral College in Christchurch.