The 2023-24 school year brings new and exciting challenges for educators – managing the impact of AI tools like ChatGPT and using these technologies constructively in the classroom. ChatGPT, which stands for Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer, is a large natural language processing platform that allows users to refine and guide conversations toward a preferred language, length, format, style, and level of detail.
Being among the world’s most sophisticated machine learning and language processing models, ChatGPT can answer follow-up questions, admit its own errors, and participate in meaningful conversations with humans. The tool can generate human-like text and be used in various applications involving written material, such as chatbots and content-creation work. ChatGPT synthesizes online data and conveys it in a conversational style. Unlike a search engine, ChatGPT can write poetry in the style of Edgar Allan Poe, dispense online teaching advice – and what’s especially worrying for educators – answer test questions and compose essays.
Due to its power to produce human-like writing, cheating with ChatGPT has led some college and university instructors to redesign their curricula to prevent dishonesty. Some schools are even blocking the use of the platform altogether. However, many educators see ChatGPT as a great learning opportunity instead of a menace. In fact, psychologist Dr. Angela Duckworth of the University of Pennsylvania is against proscribing the bot, arguing that it and similar technologies are here to stay and that instructors should learn to incorporate them into their classrooms.
ChatGPT can be a revolutionary instructional tool for educators
Instead of undermining students’ effort and desire to learn, artificial intelligence tools such as ChatGPT can help prepare young learners for life in the real world by encouraging critical thinking and improving their speaking, listening, and writing skills. Leveraging ChatGPT for learning in various fields is arguably the most important high-tech strategy currently available for teachers and students.
When it comes to integrating any new teaching tool into classroom instruction, the process should be approached with care, and incorporating ChatGPT is no exception. Just as when assimilating any other technology into their teaching method, educators need to consider, for example, how much ChatGPT’s excellent capabilities may be misused by students through deception on essays and exams. But with the right approach, ChatGPT can be a highly practical and even groundbreaking instrument in preparing students for their future vocations, where critical thinking will take precedence over rote memorization.
Dry erase paint can be an equally groundbreaking device for teachers
Another innovative, exciting, and mind-expanding tool for enhancing learning is dry erase paint. When applied to the large flat surfaces of classroom walls, it provides a broad, open-ended canvas to write, draw, solve math problems, and express creativity and critical thinking through art work, problem solving, and more. Although ChatGPT is a highly stimulating and helpful learning tool, adding the educational and cognitive benefits of writing by hand on a dry erase wall can add greatly to the platform’s usefulness and excitement.
Combine ChatGPT with handwriting in your classroom activities
In recent years, the importance of handwriting for learning has become better understood, and dry erase paint applied to your classroom walls is an ideal tool for writing in class. Handwriting greatly enhances the learning process. Many recent studies reveal the cognitive advantages of writing by hand. It’s been shown that handwriting, as opposed to typing on a computer keyboard, boosts memory and assists in grasping complex ideas. Besides, writing reinforces the information being studied and improves recall of facts and procedures, like the steps involved in solving a math problem or interpreting a poem.
Research shows that handwriting has many unique benefits for language development. In several studies, students who wrote by hand performed better in reading comprehension and spelling skills. What’s the reason for this result? Some experts believe that creating letters by hand while at the same time learning their sounds stimulates reading centers in the brain that support literacy enhancement.
For these reasons, it’s essential not to ignore handwriting when using ChatGPT in the classroom. Students learn most effectively when information is communicated in a variety of ways. This process, called multisensory learning, is particularly beneficial for students with differences in learning and thinking abilities.
Writing by hand is a multisensory act. Information is conveyed to the brain’s language-processing centers as the hand forms letters. And as the eyes follow what’s being written, these centers are activated. The same holds true if the sounds of the words being written are spoken out loud while a person writes.
Combining ChatGPT with dry erase walls has transformative power
This multisensory quality is infinitely heightened when you combine handwriting on a dry erase wall with ChatGPT during lessons. You can start a lesson by dividing your class into small groups and then have them write down as many prompts as they can think of on the wall. The prompts can then be input into ChatGPT to get large quantities of data connected with the prompts.
You can thus use ChatGPT to teach your students about critical thinking. Just help the students deduce which of the AI answers in response to their prompts are credible, and teach them how to confirm the credibility by researching supporting data sources on the web.
When students write prompts on a wall coated in dry erase paint, they engage in the abovementioned process of activating the brain’s language-processing centers. They develop and refine their critical thinking skills when they use these prompts to interact with ChatGPT. In this way, they enhance their reading comprehension level, spelling, and academic reasoning ability simultaneously.
Encourage more critical thinking through refinement of ChatGPT essays
In addition, you might use entire GPT-generated essays to work with the class and have them think about improving the essays by refining the style and adding deeper, more complex levels of analysis and detail. Using situations and analyses based on genuine personal and local contexts helps to keep students from misusing ChatGPT. Students can employ the platform to inform their work, just as they do with the internet. Still, they need to accurately work out the concepts in the GPT-generated essays and extrapolate them to their ideas, lives, and circumstances.
For this reason, it’s best to help students think about topics they’re already familiar with. Just like a fellow student in a study group, ChatGPT can be an interactive discussion partner that helps consider areas students already know a great deal about. In this way, learners can use their knowledge base to critically evaluate and refine GPT’s suggestions and essays without simply copying them verbatim.
This is an activity where dry erase walls also come in handy. Having your students use the dry erase wall and their knowledge base to jot down refinements of GPT-generated essays and suggestions will ensure that they’re honestly thinking on their feet.
A brighter future for education is dawning through AI tools
ChatGPT provides quick, easy access to information, a capacity that may be unsuitable for use in certain learning tasks. But discovering ways to incorporate AI tools such as ChatGPT into your curriculum will help you prepare students for real-life scenarios where they’ll need to use original concepts instead of simply recalling facts. It’s essential to train students in how to think like a professional rather than how to know what a professional knows simply.
The advantages of integrating AI technologies into educational settings are limitless. And adding the extra teaching device of a dry erase wall takes the process to a new level of sophistication. If you explore these tools to enhance your teaching, you and your students will reap great rewards.
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