This week’s update focuses on artificial intelligence.  Artificial intelligence and specifically the products from the company Open AI – ChatGPT (free), GPT-4 (subscription based), and the image generator DALL-E – all have the potential to disrupt education.  There are, of course, many more models out there, and there are bound to be more innovations and inventions in the future.  In other words, artificial intelligence here to stay, and educators will have to reckon with this development. 

Over the course of the next six months, under the heading “Artificial Intelligence in Education,” we will be developing resources to help you address artificial intelligence in your classroom.

The first two pages we are publishing are more informational in nature.  The IB has come out with some position statements and comments about artificial intelligence.  It’s important for you to know what the IB has to say.  The next page details how to cite AI in an essay.  Creating this page reminded me of the early days of Wikipedia and teacher fears about it (myself included!).  I still don’t know how I feel about it – using AI in an essay – but the major referencing systems – MLA, APA, Chicago style – have been updated to reflect this development.

The third page starts the actual investigative process into AI.  Students will learn about prompts and how to ask the right question of AI to get the desired response.  There are four key take-aways from this lesson and after working through the materials, the goal is for students to be more aware of how to use AI more effectively.      

In the future, we will publish lessons, materials, and resources about using AI to revise for Paper 2; how to identify bias and incorrect information in AI responses; how to use AI in the research process; and more “light” activities such as a debate and quiz asking students to detect AI generated responses versus a human (student) response.

We here at InThinking want to support you and your students in relation to AI, especially as it concerns the teaching and learning that happens in an English A: Language and Literature course.  Please do reach out to us via the comments section if there is something else you want to help you out!

Best,

Tim and David