A message to fellow educators: we don’t have time NOT to learn AI tools

As technology evolves and AI websites like ChatGPT emerge, is it really fair to ask our students not to incorporate them into their learning?

The use of AI-generated material is increasing, and it is projected to account for 60- 90% of content by 2025. As educators, it is our responsibility to provide high-quality education and prepare our students for their future lives and careers, which will undoubtedly put them in contact with AI-generation in terms of the tools they’re using themselves or at least the content they’re interacting with. 
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In order to achieve this, I believe we must incorporate innovative AI writing and creation tools into our curriculum and classrooms, and we can learn how to do that without adding hours to our own workday.

As an avid user of ChatGPT and other writing AIs, I have sometimes shared my experiences about interacting with AI with colleagues and friends in the education field. While some express curiosity or share their own experiences, others are quick to reply that they simply don’t have time to learn yet another platform. While I do understand those with this sentiment and have empathy for the educator who is feeling stretched in endless directions, I would encourage these busy teachers to give it a second thought. I would argue that we can get to know these tools ourselves without dedicating too much extra time, and beyond that, we don’t have time to NOT do so in order to continue fulfilling our responsibility for preparing our students for the future.

Developing a basic familiarity with AI writing tools is actually very easy and requires minimal effort. I started by keeping ChatGPT or Bing chat open in one tab while I work, and organically asking questions to the platform as they arose, whether directly related to work or not - similar to the way one might “google the answer”. For instance, when my daughter asked me what would be for dinner, I asked ChatGPT to suggest something I could cook that would satisfy my vegetarian daughter, her meat-loving brother, and also take into account my elderly parent. Within 30 seconds, ChatGPT suggested a build-your-own taco night or a vegetarian lasagna with soft baked chicken on the side, and 3 more ideas that I thought could work as well.

Another way I incorporate AI into my everyday teaching routine is with lesson planning. In this way, it saves me time and increases the quality and variety of my plans. For instance, in my speaking class, I sometimes assign an article to read and annotate, and then hold academic discussions in the following class. I have been experimenting with providing ChatGPT with the article and then asking for prompts and discussion questions that can help students understand and interact with the article’s key concepts. Within less than 30 seconds, 8 or 10 questions are generated and I typically find one or two that impress me and I’m able to quickly tweak for my own needs. This process does not take additional time and often results in interesting perspectives and angles in our discussions.

Inviting students to use AI tools is also beneficial for their learning and has helped me to gain familiarity with the abilities of the technology, without costing extra time in my life. For instance, in a classroom activity where I typically ask students to brainstorm something with a partner before sharing it with the class, they can do this task with ChatGPT. They can interact with the AI, form, and reform questions, gain new insight, and ask follow-up questions as well. They have at times found helpful responses to difficult concepts or have been able to ask questions that they may not feel comfortable asking in front of the class. 

Additionally, by interacting with the students during the activity, I can see what kinds of responses they are getting from the tool. In this way, the process helps me improve my own proficiency with the tool and better understand how students are interacting with AI-generated texts, which can then inform what needs to be taught in terms of evaluation and critical thinking (more on that in a future blog post).

As we are tasked in education with the responsibility of developing future thinkers who can be successful and useful in tomorrow’s world, I don’t think we have time to NOT Incorporate AI technology like ChatGPT into our processes and our classroom. The pace of AI technology’s development is so rapid that even what it may be capable of next week, let alone next year, surpasses its current capabilities. Therefore, we cannot afford to ignore it and risk falling too far behind. As educators, we need not set aside days or weeks exclusively for learning AI tools. Instead, we can begin to incorporate it into our daily routine outside and inside the classroom, and step by step observe how it can eventually save us and our students valuable time, while potentially improving education as a whole.

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Kellie Tompkins