Ep. 13 | Empowering Educators: Using Chat GPT
ChatGPT is Everywhere
Everywhere I go, online or in conferences in the education community, educators are talking about ChatGPT and other AI platforms. Some leaders embrace it while others have shut the door on this tool immediately. My guests, the extraordinary Katie McNamara and Dr. Alec Couros have quite a bit to share on using ChatGPT that may surprise you (or not).
Recently, I sat in a very informative session at Spring CUE led by Katie McNamara. Katie is a media specialist, teacher librarian, speaker, curriculum designer, leader and wears many hats in education and life. My knowledge of ChatGPT was pretty limited as it is not a tool I would naturally use, but she showed us that this tool can actually help educators reclaim time and I was hooked. When talking about the title for this episode, she encouraged me to use ChatGPT for help, so I did and it worked. (It gave me ideas and I tweaked them until I was satisfied.)
Dr. Alec Couros is a leader whom I have been learning from for years. Alec is a researcher, professor, speaker, and consultant. Using his social media platforms he has been asking educators questions about using Cha GPT for planning, instruction, and assessment and even training on it. He cares so much about strengthening education that I knew he had to be on this episode.
ChatGPT and AI is Scary for Some Educators
While our community has mostly embraced this new technology, many districts have blocked ChatGPT outright. Cheating is the most obvious reason why, but Katie and Alec take it even deeper. With this new AI, change must happen. How will it affect literacy? How can we change our lessons to use it in a productive way? Katie says if students can use it to cheat, we need to be changing our “asks” in lesson design. Both talk about personalizing our AI. Alec suggests using it like a teacher in how we train it.
How can we train our ChatGpt? Every time we interact with it, we are training it, so what we tell it, truth or not, is how it will “learn” to interact with us. Alec brings up “prompt engineering” which is crafting prompts to help generate various outputs, and this is a learning process! Katie encourages us to rethink to recraft!
AI Can Help Reclaim Time
In this powerful conversation, both guests talk about using this new tool to do administrative tasks which frees us up to do more in life and work. We also talk about different platforms where AI is already being used.
So…how can we ban ChatGPT or AI when it already exists everywhere?
Katie shares, “AI is not replacing us.” She says we know what our students need and that’s how we will know how to use it and where we need to change it up. AI is not perfect. However, AI helps us reclaim our time because we no longer have to “start from scratch.” Both guests suggested using AI as a partner who can help generate questions and get us started on tasks when our brains are tired or we feel overwhelmed with starting something new.
AI in Assessment & Entry Points into New Tools
We also discussed how AI can help in assessment when it comes to rubrics, student feedback, and English language learning. Used well, students can receive feedback immediately. For ELLs, AI could be a translation tool, so students are spending less time in confusion and more time learning.
For those who don’t consider themselves tech-savvy, Katie suggests diving in with whatever you are thinking about at the moment, even if it’s thinking up plans for gifts or recipes. Alec says his son, who is eight years old, started using it to write stories about himself.
When we dive into these tools and explore it with our students, we are beginning to model how they can use it for whatever role or topic they are currently working in. The point is to not be afraid. This is a learning curve for all of us and the only mistake is denying it exists or has no place in our classrooms or world.
We can’t stop the AI train whether it’s being driven by ChatGPT or other platforms. Banning it out of fear of cheating helps no one. We can adapt so it becomes a tool that partners with us and even saves us time. We may not be sure how to harness its power, yet, but we will learn. Our students will learn right along with us. The power we see today is nothing compared to what AI will be capable of in their future.
Follows & Show Notes
Harnessing the Power of Generative AI in Teaching & Learning
Find out more about Katie McNamara's Work https://linktr.ee/KatieJMcNamara
