Five ways to teach and assess learning in the age of AI

Key points:

There is a lot of excitement around ChatGPT, the cutting-edge chatbot powered by OpenAI. Some experts believe this new technology can have a positive impact on teaching and learning, while others worry that it could weaken the teaching of critical thinking and increase prejudice by spreading misinformation about different groups and cultures.

While both may be true, it is up to educators to create classroom conditions for students to use ChatGPT and other ai tools responsibly. Educators can draw on their long practice of fostering agency and authentic engagement in students, as they always have. This approach goes even further when combined with teaching global competencies such as diversity appreciation, perspective taking, and global engagement, empowering students to take ownership of their learning. Educators can even take advantage of students' enthusiasm for new technologies by assigning (and assessing student learning using) multimedia projects.

Does all this sound crazy? He Global Academics The virtual exchange program has reached more than 105,000 students, in total. Over the last decade, we have seen students engage productively in multiple ways (with each other, with the subject, with their peers around the world). Working with more than 500 teachers annually and with the Harvard Graduate School of Education's Project Zero to analyze our e-classroom discussion forums, we have qualitative data about what works to keep students engaged in learning.

Behind the following five steps are two “secrets” that will not surprise today's educators.

Secret 1: Multimedia tasks. Multimedia projects such as podcasts, interviews, news articles, infographics, 3D spaces and videos awaken students' enthusiasm for new technologies, but for creative purposes. These types of tasks are also more difficult to assign to ai! Additionally, multimedia projects offer educators alternative ways to view evidence of students' thinking. A student's role in creating a collaborative website, video, or even a community garden may not be as easy to evaluate as a five-paragraph essay (which ChatGPT could handle more easily), but it offers educators a window to key elements of critical thinking skills such as creativity, problem solving, decision making, strategic planning and verbal communication as they develop.

Secret 2: student experience. Students ages 10 to 13 are rarely seen as experts or asked to share their perspectives and lived experiences. Asking students about their personal experiences and their ideas about their own communities is inspiring and, again, hard to fake. Educators can go a step further by emphasizing the diversity of local cultures in any community or classroom and training students to listen to and value different perspectives.

To promote engagement and support the development of critical thinking skills in your classroom, here are five ways to teach and assess student learning in the age of ai that we learned from the Global Scholars international virtual exchange program:

1. Action! Motivate students to act by incorporating action planning into assignments. This involves breaking down tasks into smaller steps. Encourage students to create goals and list action steps themselves. Bonus: Have them measure and record the impact of each action. Students can measure impact by collecting survey data or documenting testimonials.

2. Community. Encourage students to look beyond the classroom for deeper learning. For any topic, they can conduct interviews with local experts.

3. Own it. To promote student agency in group activities, offer students the opportunity to select their preferred roles and responsibilities. By giving students the freedom to choose, they can feel more involved in the project and take ownership of their contributions. This approach also fosters a sense of collaboration as each member of the group contributes to a shared goal.

4. Invite new perspectives. To limit bias and bias, establish authentic, structured encounters with peers from different backgrounds. This allows students to talk about their own lived experience and listen carefully to that of others. A virtual exchange program like Global Scholars, Open Canopy, or a resource like iEarn makes these authentic encounters easier to organize. If this is not available, draw on diverse experiences in your own classroom to encourage reflection and respectful exchange.

5. We can solve it. Develop tasks that promote inclusive problem solving and multiperspective. Have students design a community survey to gather opinions from family and community members on any topic. Bonus: Ask them to display survey responses in pie or bar graphs or edit a video of an interview.

An authentic assignment or candid exchange teaches students not only to avoid reliance on received responses like those on ChatGPT; It also launches them on an adventure of lifelong learning.

References

ai-writing-tools-and-their-uses-teaching-and-learning-uc-berkeley” target=”_blank” rel=”noreferrer noopener”>Understanding ai writing tools and their uses for teaching and learning at UC Berkeley | Center for Teaching and Learning. (North Dakota).

US Department of Education, Office of Educational technology, artificial intelligence, and the Future of Teaching and Learning: Perspectives and Recommendations, Washington, DC, 2023.

Young, JR (2023, July 27). Instructors rush to do “assignment renewals” to respond to CHATGPT – Edsurge News. EdSurge.