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Annette Vee's avatar

Thanks so much for this take on the guide! I am glad to see it, but it really feels too little, too late. Maybe intentionally so, from the vibe of that tweet from Sam A....

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Stephen Fitzpatrick's avatar

This is a reasonable critique. The truth is I don't think OpenAI has any real interest in helping teachers navigate the landscape they have created. What's curious about the suggestions / prompts they've created is they assume that students will use them in the way intended. My experience with student use of AI (albeit at the HS level) is that they have no idea how to write a prompt and the students that do understand how it works to get the best results are not the ones who we are really that worried about. Students who could really use the assistance to help with their writing / work habits are the ones who are least helped by AI because they are the ones who are most likely to use it poorly and for all the wrong reasons. At the moment, I think LLM's are just widening the achievement gap - strong students will perform better with targeted AI assistance and weaker students will bypass the learning process entirely and not get the skills. The bottom line is that, even with AI (perhaps especially with AI) teacher oversight and instruction is critical. I have used AI in an Independent Research class that I teach with some decent results but it's all while working directly with the kids, having them use GPT's I've specifically created for certain tasks, and as mentioned in this piece, helping it rewrite or draft prompts to use for other databases. There are useful ways to use AI with students but it is critical to preserve the human relationship. Honestly, I feel sorry for all sides of the equation - teachers who are thrown into the deep end when they have more than enough to do and students as well who are given this incredible temptation that they don't know how to use. This issue will not be going away anytime soon.

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