From Fear to Fascination: Adapting to ChatGPT in Education

When tech-startup OpenAI released ChatGPT to the public in November 2022 school and university educators were instantly alarmed. The Washington Post reported that educators were “in a near-panic” as they confronted a technology that could allow for cheating en masse. In an article in The Atlantic, a high school English teacher concluded that ChatGPT “may signal the end of writing assignments altogether—and maybe even the end of writing as a gatekeeper, a metric for intelligence, a teachable skill.” A journalism professor at Arizona State University told The Guardian that he asked AI to complete one of his assignments and that he would have given the paper a “good grade.” “Academia has some very serious issues to confront,” he concluded. Turnitin, the popular anti-plagiarism service used by educators, reported receiving “a huge influx” of calls from customers saying, “We need help, we’re not sure what to do.” One shook-up Washington Post-reader exclaimed, “I am a teacher. This threat is not being overstated.”

Fast forward to March 2023 and the first national survey of teachers and students about ChatGPT and technology in schools. The study, led by the Watson Foundation, indicates that teachers are using ChatGPT more than students and that teachers are leveraging it for lesson plans and for generating ideas for use in the classroom. According to the report, three in ten teachers have used it for lesson planning (30%), coming up with creative ideas for classes (30%), and building background knowledge for lessons and classes (27%). Furthermore, teachers are allowing—”or actively encouraging”—their students to use ChatGPT. The study reports that teachers are nearly four times more likely to have allowed students to use ChatGPT (38%) than caught them using it without their permission (10%). The study goes on to say that “more teachers say ‘ChatGPT will likely have legitimate educational uses that we cannot ignore’ (59%) than say ‘ChatGPT will likely only be useful for students to cheat’ (24%).” Within two months of GPT’s introduction, according to the study, a 51% majority of teachers reported using it, with 40% using it at least once a week, and 53% expecting to use it more this year. Just 22% of students said they use the technology on a weekly basis or more.

Teachers are also flocking to resources offering practical ways to use ChatGPT in the classroom. For instance, EdTechTeacher is experiencing a huge demand for its courses and webinars on ChatGPT and AI and is now offering a series of articles on various ways that educators to use ChatGPT with students.

So, it appears that teachers’ initial fear of ChatGPT has at least partly turned to curiosity as they explore various ways that ChatGPT might help them become more productive and creative teachers.

Such exploration is important, because educators are highly exposed to the impact of ChatGPT and similar AI “Large Language Models” (LLMs). A recent study conducted by researchers from Princeton University, University of Pennsylvania, and New York University, concludes that education occupations are likely to be more impacted by advances in LLMs than most other occupations. The researchers systematically assessed the extent to which occupations are exposed to advances in AI language modeling capabilities and found that the top occupations exposed to language modeling include telemarketers and “a variety of post-secondary teachers such as English language and literature, foreign language and literature, and history teachers.” The study also found that Middle School and Secondary School teachers are highly exposed to the impact of AI as well.

Out of a total of 774 listed occupations, the following education occupations were ranked in the top 20% of the most exposed to AI:

• No. 21 - Education Teachers, Postsecondary.

• No. 53 - Adult Basic and Secondary Education and Literacy Teachers and Instructors.

• No. 84 - Special Education Teachers, Middle School.

• No. 97 - Middle School Teachers, Except Special and Career/Technical Education.

• No. 114 - Secondary School Teachers, Except Special and Career/Technical.

• No. 133 - Education Administrators, Elementary and Secondary School.

• No. 134 - Educational, Guidance, School, and Vocational Counselors.

Yet, however exposed education occupations are to LLMs, it does not mean that AI is going to replace teachers any time soon — or at all. As the researchers explain, “exposure to AI” is used as an agnostic phrase in their study, which means it could result in “substitution” of an occupation or “augmentation” of it, depending on various factors. So, exposure to AI could ultimately result in aiding teachers do their work better.

The researchers also commented that their findings regarding education occupations are consistent with recent articles “around how ChatGPT and other language modeling tools affect the way teachers assign work and detect cheating or could use language modeling tools to develop teaching materials.” In other words, teachers appear to be actively trying to mitigate ChatGPT’s impact on cheating while at the same time exploring its potential for “augmentation" — such as creating lesson ideas.

For most educators, ChatGPT is their first direct encounter with a powerful artificial intelligence system. Until ChatGPT, AI systems in education had largely been on the periphery, ensconced in tutoring programs, and teachers were barely aware of their presence. Now, facing AI directly, many educators are being forced to assess their teaching practices and recalibrate them accordingly.

Fortunately, if leveraged effectively, AI can be of huge assistance to teachers. AI and LLMs can support educators by providing personalized learning recommendations, analyzing student performance data, and offering insights into optimal teaching strategies. Teachers can then leverage this information to tailor their lessons and better address individual student needs, while still maintaining the human connection crucial for fostering a supportive learning environment.

In an EdSurge article, Dr. Justin Reich, an assistant professor at MIT and director of the Teaching Systems Lab, remarked, "The most effective use of AI in education will be to help teachers teach. The best AI tools will be those that allow teachers to make better decisions, provide better feedback and create more engaging learning environments" (EdSurge, 2019). Reich's perspective suggests that AI could serve as a powerful system to support and enhance educators' work.

And educators using ChatGPT tend to agree. According to the Watson report, three-quarters of teachers say ChatGPT could help them grow as teachers (77%). Furthermore, two-thirds of teachers would rather people spend more time developing solutions for how to incorporate ChatGPT into teaching and learning (65%).

By combining the analytical capabilities of AI with the relational skills of human teachers, we can indeed create a more effective and engaging educational experience for students. AI excels at processing and analyzing vast quantities of data, identifying patterns, and providing insights that may be difficult for us humans to discern. We, on the other hand, possess qualities like social and emotional understanding, ethics, creativity, and problem-solving abilities that allow us to make responsible and informed decisions based on the information provided by The challenge is to boldly embrace the analytical prowess of ChatGPT and other AI technologies, while simultaneously championing the irreplaceable human qualities of empathy, creativity, and moral judgment.