Should pupils have access to ChatGPT?

ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot created by OpenAI, has infiltrated practically every industry and sector since its November 2022 release. With a simple prompt, it can draft legal documents, code software, develop marketing material, and yes – even pass exams.

Given its startling versatility, it’s no surprise that ChatGPT has caused alarm among education institutions; in particular, what the tech means for assessment.

Yet rather than trying to firefight ChatGPT and other AI tools, teachers might instead be wise to incorporate the technology that could be shaping the working lives of their students.

·      Our latest What Workers Want survey revealed that half of education employers (50%) are ready to embrace AI technology, followed closely by 44% of education professionals.

·      Four-fifths (81%) of the teaching organisations we surveyed say they are not currently using AI tools like ChatGPT.

·      The emergence of AI language models may require different approaches to teaching and assessment, but the results could prove positive.

Does ChatGPT have a place in education?

Employers are split about AI’s future in education: following the results of our latest What Workers Want survey, exploring the views of almost 9,000 professionals, half (50%) of education organisations think that AI should be embraced. Education professionals share a similar – if slightly more conservative – sentiment, with 44% ready to embrace the technology. Given the far-reaching ramifications AI could have on the sector, this divisiveness is understandable.

When answers to a question can be conjured in an instant, a shift in pedagogical methods may also be required – but this might not be a bad thing. Teachers have long encouraged metacognition – where learners recognise and assess their own thought processes and learning behaviours – to enable better progression. The emergence of AI chatbots could necessitate more regular and explicit self-reflection when completing long-form writing tasks, such as prompting students to consider how and why they reached a certain conclusion.

ChatGPT is widely accessible

Much of ChatGPT’s power lies in its accessibility. Being free to use, ChatGPT democratises advanced AI on a scale never seen before. Over 100 million monthly users are empowered to engage with mediums that would usually be beyond their perceived abilities – whether that be writing lines of code or analysing a Shakespearian play as a non-native English speaker.

Adapting teaching around individual learners’ needs is a vital part of ensuring progress, but it can also be one of teaching’s greatest challenges. However, ChatGPT’s versatility could prove useful. Research conducted by OpenAI demonstrated how an early version of their chatbot could summarise entire books in a human-like way, removing the language barriers present in commonly taught texts, such as Pride and Prejudice and Romeo and Juliet. Equally, ChatGPT could be a way to help foreign language students access lesson content, with less time spent on translation and more on evaluation and synthesis.

Just as transformative is ChatGPT’s potential for academic research. As opposed to simply writing an essay response, the AI chatbot is a time-effective way of collating information that researchers can assess and cross reference as necessary. With the time saved trawling the internet, academics can devote more energy to the higher-level thinking demanded from them.

Educators have always had to contend with technological leaps, from the calculator to the internet, and ChatGPT could be seen as a natural evolution of these tools. Helping students navigate new technology will always be crucial for their development and future prospects. Perhaps rather than asking if ChatGPT has a place in education, a more pertinent question lies in the how.

How can ChatGPT be introduced in education?

While four-fifths (81%) of the teaching organisations we surveyed say they are not currently using AI tools like ChatGPT, more than half (56%) intend to allow their staff to use them.

AI chatbots can be used to augment student learning, but they need to be introduced in the right way. Central to this is maintaining an open discussion regarding the possibilities and limitations of the tech. In particular, it’s worth making students aware that ChatGPT is far from flawless, and its current GPT-3 model is only trained on data up until the end of 2021. In OpenAI’s own words, ChatGPT sometimes writes “plausible-sounding but incorrect or nonsensical answers.” Once students understand these limitations, they can start using AI tools responsibly and take greater ownership over their work.

To leverage AI tools effectively, educators may be required to adopt more student-centred approaches. Take flipped learning, for example: a pedagogical method where pupils learn new content independently and then apply that knowledge in the classroom. Flipping classrooms has existed for years now, but AI tools could increase the model’s viability and effectiveness by aiding students’ independent research and prompting more valuable classroom discussions.

Furthermore, tools such as ChatGPT may require more personalised assignments that are harder to pass off through AI alone. Open-ended questioning, and topics that encourage creative expression, are more likely to provoke original responses. In this respect, it could be seen that the emergence of AI language models simply highlights what makes good teaching to begin with: building learning around students’ needs and interests, while still facilitating higher-order thinking.

ChatGPT is here to stay

AI technology is only gaining momentum. Along with better adapting to a user’s writing style, ChatGPT-4 can generate over 25,000 words of text – more than enough for a thesis or dissertation. And while there’s a host of AI-detection tools available, even the most sophisticated of these are not infallible.

But it's not just a case of simply banning ChatGPT. Microsoft – who has invested billions of dollars behind creators OpenAI – revealed plans to embed the tech into its office apps, including the ubiquitous Word, Excel and PowerPoint. AI chatbots are also being integrated into leading search engines, such as Microsoft’s Bing Chat or Google’s Bard, and new AI products are constantly entering the market.

In other words, the technology has fully crossed the digital Rubicon: it’s now up to educators to react accordingly. Rather than trying to lock ChatGPT and other AI language tools away from students – which some experts claim to be a futile task – increasing awareness of AI tools and their limitations will be a more valuable exercise. Technology doesn’t exist in a bubble, and neither should education.

For students worldwide, the lure of ChatGPT will always be there. Teaching learners how to best use AI tools, along with increasing awareness of their limitations, will only empower their education and future careers.

Sign up here for our webinar on 5 July at 12pm, where our panel of expert speakers will address the potential impacts of AI on the workplace, how it can successfully be adopted and how to best support staff in upskilling.