2023-11-27 21:34:22
Is there a risk that students will use content-generating artificial intelligence (AI) to cheat or plagiarize?
Oui.
Can a tool like ChatGPT mislead teachers and classes with false information or fabricated results?
Oui.
But once we are aware of these risks and exercise caution, the use of content-generative AI proves to be very useful in different spheres of teaching and education. And its usefulness will grow.
This is the opinion of professors Alexandre Beaupré-Lavallée, Neerusha Baurhoo Gokool, Bruno Poellhuber and Hugo G. Lapierre, from the Faculty of Educational Sciences of the University of Montreal. According to these experts, technologies similar to ChatGPT will above all change the ways of teaching and learning.
Optimizing AI learning and culture
Alexandre Beaupré-Lavallée, Neerusha Baurhoo Gokool and Bruno Poellhuber
Credit: Alexandre Beaupré-Lavallée and Neerusha Baurhoo Gokool (courtesy), Bruno Poellhuber (Amélie Philibert, University of Montreal)
For Alexandre Beaupré-Lavallée, the debate around the role and risks of content-generative AI is similar to that which, in 2007, arose with the appearance of Wikipedia.
“To the extent that ChatGPT manages to provide the references it uses when explaining a concept, its use might allow people to learn asynchronously,” indicates the professor of the Department of Administration and Foundations of Education.
“ChatGPT also has the potential to adapt to those who consult it, which allows you to have a personal assistant to learn according to your learning challenges,” underlines Professor Bruno Poellhuber, from the Department of Educational Psychology and of andragogy.
According to him, the great strength of ChatGPT lies in its ability to give appropriate feedback to users. “The scientific literature in the field of education is clear: it is the feedback that allows the best learning and ChatGPT as well as conversational robots can play this role,” affirms the man who is also director of the University Pedagogy Center of the ‘UdeM.
This is also what Neerusha Baurhoo Gokool believes, according to whom these new tools can allow graduate students to improve their scientific writing skills. “In the reading circles that I lead, I perceive that the difficulties linked to scientific writing cause anxiety among people at master’s and doctorate levels – especially those who come from abroad – and ChatGPT can help them to improve thanks to the feedback he can give without them feeling judged!” mentions the professor from the Department of Educational Psychology and Andragogy.
In this regard, Bruno Poellhuber emphasizes the need to develop and expand an AI culture so that more people better understand how the tools equipped with it work and take a critical look at this. that they suggest to us.
“There are many techniques for ensuring better response accuracy, and knowledge of these techniques – such as prompt command engineering – is part of AI culture,” says the professor.
Better access to teaching literature
At the other end of the educational spectrum, teaching staff are also able to benefit from the advantages that ChatGPT can provide, always provided they know what they are looking for.
“In administration and foundations of teaching, the material in French identified by ChatGPT is relatively recent, which gives access to the original works as well as the summaries and secondary interpretations of researchers and students which enrich the content delivered by the tool,” maintains Alexandre Beaupré-Lavallée.
However, he has reservations regarding “the very variable quality of the interpretations that ChatGPT can offer, although several scientific journals published in open access can counterbalance this risk,” he explains.
Generative content AI can also make it possible to identify scientific literature on a particular subject “or to design improved educational planning by formulating ideas for lesson plans and related learning objectives, methods teaching methods as well as summative evaluations and the corresponding evaluation criteria,” illustrates Bruno Poellhuber.
According to him, it is especially important that teaching staff remain on the lookout for the possibilities offered by tools such as ChatGPT in order to update and improve their practices.
“For quite some time now, the Center for University Pedagogy has been monitoring content-generative AI and this is what has allowed us to be able to quickly offer training to better equip the teaching staff,” adds the director of the Center. We now have a network for exchanging practices made up of educational advisors and professors who are continuing to reflect on the practices to adopt.”
Improving Teaching Practices in the Era of ChatGPT
In order to fuel this reflection, Bruno Poellhuber is currently carrying out a research project with teaching staff, students and various professionals from the CEGEPs of Saint-Jérôme and Lanaudière in Terrebonne as well as UdeM.
“Our project aims, among other things, to measure their level of knowledge and use of ChatGPT both quantitatively and qualitatively,” explains Mr. Poellhuber.
“Our results should be known in March 2024, but we are already observing that students are somewhat worried regarding using them, for fear of being punished: the risks of plagiarism have monopolized the debate around the use of ChatGPT so much that they obliterate the potential advantages,” he laments.
In this regard, Bruno Poellhuber emphasizes that the University of Montreal has taken a position on good practices relating to the use of ChatGPT.
“The University has published a document which outlines the use of generative AI in teaching activities and which opens up various possibilities for educational uses of tools such as ChatGPT while supervising them,” he concludes.
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