To AI or not to AI?

‍The controversy of using Artificial Intelligence in producing texts in Education

Social media and professional platforms are currently flooded with extensive discussions and multiple published articles on the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to generate content. One such AI tool, ChatGPT is a language processing tool which works like a chat box: a human asks questions and a virtual assistant generates answers in a few seconds. And this is where the controversy starts. ChatGPT can produce a piece of homework, a solution to a mathematical equation or a research essay in a few seconds. Is this the end of homework? Does this mark the beginning of a new educational landscape where students retrieve answers to any question, submit work they have not themselves produced and teaching becomes obsolete?

The value of education, notably within the IB framework, lies in the three-fold of conceptual knowledge, contextual application and skill development. We understand the big ideas, as we apply them in appropriate contexts through the development of life-long skills. The use of any tool that generates an answer for instant consumption cannot - and should not - substitute the valuable process of training students for critical and creative thinking, deductive reasoning and reflective self-assessment. Teaching and learning goes beyond answering questions. As Megel R. Barker suggests “this is the time for teaching and learning to shift from training students to “answer the question” to inviting students to “question the answers” they receive”(Barker, 2023).

ChatGPT, like any other tool, is just that: a tool which can help or harm, depending on how it is handled. It can be used as an educational tool to train students how to ask the questions and how to question the answers. After all, our students - your children- will need to provide answers to unknown and unfamiliar problems in the future.

References

Barker, M. R. (2023, January 18). ChatGPT: A Partner in the Future of Learning in Schools | The International Educator (TIE Online). Www.tieonline.com.

ChatGPT. (n.d.). Chat.openai.com

Daccord, T. (2023, January 20). Making Sense of AI & ChatGPT in Education. EdTechTeacher.

Kirby, A. (2023, January 18). Chat-GPT- is this an alert for changes in the way we deliver education? FE News.

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