Does ChatGPT mean the end of education as we know it? – Mr Neil Smith (CHS Head)
By Mr Neil Smith, CHS Head
On 1 April, after the noon deadline for fools’ tales, The Times reported that Italy had become the first country to place a ban on ChatGPT, an open access AI ‘conversational agent’. I’m sure that many of you will have heard about ChatGPT, perhaps a smaller number about the ban, and perhaps even fewer had heard what all the fuss is about beyond headlines around how AI facilitates cheating, brings about the end of coursework, and will lead to the emergence of sentient robots a la Robocop, Blade Runner and Erling Haaland.
So, what is all the fuss about, and does the emergence of accessible AI, such as ChatGPT really mean the end of education as we know it?
As an AI language model, ChatGPT can be a useful resource for schools in a variety of ways. Here are some examples:
- Homework Help: ChatGPT can provide assistance to students who are struggling with homework or have questions about a particular subject.
- Language Learning: ChatGPT can be used as a language learning tool for students learning a foreign language. Students can practice their speaking, listening, reading, and writing skills by interacting with ChatGPT.
- Research Assistance: ChatGPT can help students with their research by providing them with relevant information on a particular topic.
- Personalized Learning: ChatGPT can provide personalized learning experiences to students based on their individual needs and interests.
However, it’s important to note that ChatGPT is just a tool and should not replace human teachers or educators. It can supplement classroom learning and provide additional resources, but it’s important to maintain a balance between technology and human interaction.
Perhaps one indication that it could be an incredible resource for teachers and pupils lies in its ability to write answers to order. For example, the section above (in italics) was produced by ChatGPT after I asked it, Is ChatGPT a good thing for schools?
Yes, such a resource could render typical homeworks obsolete and reduce the need for pupils to do the hard parts of an academic task, namely researching, processing and decision-making. And yes, there will always be concerns that computer-generated content may either be inaccurate or manipulated to perpetuate particular worldviews or ‘fake news’. And also yes, what a computer might produce as a response to a question might not actually be that good. And finally, yes, isn’t it a big step towards the removal of teachers from the education process, therefore a big step towards the end of teaching as a profession?
These are all genuine concerns. But what if we reframed the debate and instead considered how the emergence of AI could actually enhance learning?
Alongside the suggestions which ChatGPT presented, in the short term there are multiple other opportunities which its use could present for teachers and pupils. Ask ChatGPT to write you a multiple-choice quiz on any topic, and it will do so in seconds. Certain types of AI will also then give you the right answers and explain why the other answers are incorrect.
Ask it to write you a question in the style of a particular exam board and paper (e.g. write a 6 mark question on the Vietnam War for IGCSE History Cambridge 0470) and it gives you not only a question to attempt but an answer which a pupil can then evaluate for its suitability as an answer to this question, and then improve to bring it up to a better standard.
It is, of course, a much smarter means of searching the internet for relevant content. Search engines such as Bing have already integrated AI into their capabilities, enabling researchers to gain more targeted and, hopefully, more helpful content provided.
More fundamentally, the growing capability of AI as an educational tool illustrates that we are now in the early stages of the fourth industrial revolution, in which digital technologies will facilitate upheavals in the ways we live, work, and study. Whilst it may not yet be possible to fully understand what the consequences of these upheavals may be, what seems reasonably certain is that humans will need to develop a multitude of intelligent behaviours to respond to these upheavals and harness the potential of machine technology.
And this has a profound implication for educators and learners.
Schools will need to shift from a model ostensibly structured on the acquisition of knowledge to one which teaches young people how to assess, evaluate and use the content available at the click of a button. To fully utilise time outside the classroom and in lessons, the oft-mooted flipped learning model will likely become the norm: pupils research outside the classroom, identifying content which they can assess to be accurate, and are then assessed in class on their understanding and ability to assess and verify the content they researched for their homework. Coursework will be impossible to assess without some form of viva.
Additionally, whilst schools structuring a curriculum around academic subjects perhaps provides as good an approach as any given the training devoted to developing teachers’ subject expertise, we also need to look carefully at what we are trying to develop within subjects and what we are looking to assess. The way that young people will be expected to study at university or perform in the workplace requires us to place much greater emphasis on developing skills which go beyond those required for a particular subject, skills such as collaboration, self-efficacy, the range of meta-intelligences, and interdisciplinary thinking.
Schools therefore need to be looking beyond the standard range of subjects and facilitating explicit links between subjects either through in school tasks (at CHS, new CHS Big Questions have been introduced into the Lower School curriculum), or by developing their own subjects which have a strong emphasis on interdisciplinary thinking.
Equally, the traditional focus of assessment needs to be reviewed, with schools looking to adopt a much more holistic view of what children have proved capable of doing. The implementation of CHS’s own Waconian Diploma in the Lower School is the first step which we have taken in this direction, and we are actively working with different external providers to explore a model and platform to introduce a more sophisticated model for pupils in the Upper School and Sixth Form.
Simply put, we will not be providing a sufficiently broad education for our pupils unless we pay more attention to developing and assessing a greater range of skills than schools currently do.
As I write, warnings from those within the tech industry suggest that we should slow our research and development into AI. Whilst this is something for politicians, tech gurus and ethics professors to grapple with, the potential of AI is all too clear for students and schools to see.
We have a choice whether to be fearful of its potential, but we do not have a choice whether to exploit its ability to enhance the educational experiences of young people and better prepare them for the world in which they will live, work and study after leaving school.
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A graduate in History and Politics, Mr Neil Smith (CHS Head) has taught History and Politics at several leading independent day schools in the north of England, where he has been a Head of Year, Head of Politics, Head of History and Deputy Head (Academic).
Neil has published a number of books, on topics as diverse as The Vietnam War, the UK political system, the current Cambridge IGCSE course and how to be an outstanding History teacher. He has also been a senior examiner for A Level History, is a Governor at a local Infant school and a Trustee of the Blackden Trust.