Experiential Learning Research - Experiential and Applied Learning

Three Pedagogical Foci for spring 2023 regarding AI Chatbots

12/28/2022

Reflections on syllabus development taking Artificial Intelligence (AI) chatbots, such as ChatGPT, into account.

The article at this link motivated me to share these thoughts:
https://medium.com/@rwatkins_7167/updating-your-course-syllabus-for-chatgpt-965f4b57b003

ChatGPT is here. It is real. Students will know about it. As educators, we can't hide from this, and sadly, plagiarism checkers will not help us find content submitted by students that was written by ChatGPT.

I believe we need to focus on three areas this coming semester:

1. Helping the student to understand the roles that AI and chatbots will play in their lives and careers. There is more to chatbots than cheating. These tools will be important to organizations. We can help the students discover where the tools can be beneficial.

2. Exploring with the students how the chatbots like ChatGPT can help them. There are faults, such as lack of reference citations, and the chatbots can be wrong. Students can learn how to use chatbot content as thought-provocation, or to help them determine if they are missing something in the essays. We can teach them how to literally fact-check the chatbots.

3. Developing assessment methods to ensure that the students are learning and applying what they are learning, rather than the students submitting material written by a chatbot.

This shoud be a fascinating semester.

#ArtificialIntelligence #AI #Chatbot #ChatGPT #Assessment #Scaffolding #AppliedLearning

Writing a Spring 2023 MBA Syllabus - What about chatbots?

12/22/2022

Graduation Cap

Image source: https://www.istockphoto.com/photos/graduation-cap

I am writing the syllabus for the capstone MBA Strategic Management course during the coming spring 2023 semester at Daemen University. The academic integrity section of the syllabus states that students may not use chatbots to write their assignments. To see what might happen, I entered one question from an end-of-semester assignment I give to my undergraduate capstone Strategic Management students at the University at Buffalo in Singapore.

I had to remove some of the course-specific detail from the question to get ChatGPT to create an answer. In particular, I told the students to identify a company about which they would write.
Here is the original student assignment question. I removed the parts that are italicized to get ChatGPT to create a response.

Based on the articles from The Economist, and the World Economic Foundation, your understanding of strategic management processes from the course and your textbook, complete the following:

(400 words / at least two citations) Describe the company you are analyzing.
1. Explain its industry and what information you can find about its strategy.
2. Describe the company’s largest or most important competitor and explain how the competitor is doing in the current economic situation.
3. Cite at least two sources, with links to any articles you are using.

And here is the response from ChatGPT. I tried this in Moonbeam and received a similar quality response.

"The company I am analyzing is Amazon, a multinational technology company that is known for its e-commerce platform and various other products and services. Amazon operates in the technology and retail industries, with its main focus being on online retail sales.
According to Forbes, Amazon has consistently ranked as one of the world's most valuable companies, with a current market value of over $1 trillion. The company's success can be attributed to its aggressive expansion strategy, which includes acquisitions of other companies and expansion into new markets. For example, Amazon has recently made headlines with its acquisition of Whole Foods Market and its foray into the healthcare industry.

"One of Amazon's main competitors is Walmart, a multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets, discount department stores, and grocery stores. Walmart is currently facing challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic, as many of its stores have had to close or operate at reduced capacity. However, the company has been able to adapt to the changing market conditions by increasing its focus on e-commerce and utilizing its vast distribution network to provide essential products to customers during the pandemic.

"According to a report by MarketWatch, Amazon has seen a surge in demand for its products and services during the pandemic, leading to an increase in its market value. On the other hand, Walmart has struggled to keep up with the demand for online orders and has had to rely on its brick-and-mortar stores to meet customer needs. This has led to a shift in market share in favor of Amazon, with the company's share of the e-commerce market increasing from 38% in 2019 to 44% in 2020.

"In conclusion, Amazon is a leading player in the technology and retail industries, with a focus on online retail sales and a successful expansion strategy. Its main competitor, Walmart, is facing challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to a shift in market share in favor of Amazon."

"Sources:
"Forbes. (2021). Amazon.com, Inc. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/companies/amazon/?sh=6fd0b3f93d96
"MarketWatch. (2020). Amazon's share of the US e-commerce market has grown to 44% during the pandemic. Retrieved from https://www.marketwatch.com/story/amazons-share-of-the-us-e-commerce-market-has-grown-to-44-during-the-pandemic-2020-09-09"

Even the New York Times!

12/21/2022

From today's The New York Times:

How to Use ChatGPT and Still Be a Good Person
It’s a turning point for artificial intelligence, and we need to take advantage of these tools without causing harm to ourselves or others.

I've written enough about Artifical Intelligence (AI) and Chatbots -- particularly ChatGPT -- this week. You can see what The New York Times had to say today at this link:

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/21/technology/personaltech/how-to-use-chatgpt-ethically.html

#ChatGPT #ChatBot #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #AcademicIntegrity #AssessmentOfLearning #CriticalThinking

Image source: The New York Times, 12/21/22.

Wall Street Journal tests chatgpt in high school

12/21/2022

Image source: The Wall Street Journal, downloaded 12/12/21 from https://www.wsj.com/video/series/joanna-stern-personal-technology/cheating-with-chatgpt-can-an-ai-chatbot-pass-ap-lit/38FAA06E-076E-4959-8A5B-311913E450F9

The Wall Street Journal goes to 12th grade to see if it can pass an AP Literature class using the Artificial Intelligence (AI) tool ChatGPT to write an essay.

https://www.wsj.com/video/series/joanna-stern-personal-technology/cheating-with-chatgpt-can-an-ai-chatbot-pass-ap-lit/38FAA06E-076E-4959-8A5B-311913E450F9

#Chatbot #ChatGPT #ArtificialIntelligence #AI #APLiterature #HighSchool

Let me know how you feel about this blog post - please read to the end

12/20/2022

[Hint - I did not write what follows.]

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has the potential to revolutionize the way we assess students and evaluate their academic progress. In recent years, AI-powered tools have been developed that can grade essays, analyze student learning patterns, and provide personalized feedback to help students improve their skills. In this blog post, we will explore some of the ways in which AI is being used in the field of academic assessment and how it could shape the future of education.

One of the most promising applications of AI in academic assessment is automated essay grading. This technology uses natural language processing algorithms to analyze the content, structure, and grammar of a student's essay, and assigns a score based on predefined criteria. Automated essay grading can save teachers time and effort by reducing the need for manual grading, and it can also provide students with immediate feedback on their writing.

Another way in which AI is being used in academic assessment is through the analysis of student learning patterns. By tracking how students interact with educational materials and assessments, AI algorithms can identify areas where they are struggling and suggest interventions to help them improve. This can be particularly useful for identifying students who are at risk of falling behind, as well as for identifying those who may need extra support or challenge to reach their full potential.

AI can also be used to provide personalized feedback to students. For example, some AI-powered learning platforms use machine learning algorithms to analyze a student's strengths and weaknesses and recommend personalized study materials or activities based on their needs. This can help students stay motivated and engaged, and can also help them progress more quickly through their coursework.

Despite these potential benefits, the use of AI in academic assessment is not without its critics. Some argue that automated grading systems may not be able to fully capture the nuances of a student's writing or the depth of their understanding of a subject. Others worry that AI-powered tools could be biased, either intentionally or unintentionally, leading to unfairly low grades for some students.

It is important to address these concerns as we move forward with the development and implementation of AI in academic assessment. Ensuring that AI-powered tools are transparent, fair, and accurately reflect student learning is crucial for building trust in these technologies and for realizing their full potential in education.

Overall, AI has the potential to greatly enhance the way we assess students and evaluate their academic progress. By automating certain tasks, providing personalized feedback, and helping to identify areas where students may need extra support, AI-powered tools can help teachers and students alike to achieve their goals and succeed in their studies.

Source: 100% generated by ChatGPT using the prompt "Write a blog post about ai and academic assessment."

#ChatGPT #ChatBot #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #AcademicIntegrity

Sources of information about AI and Academic integrity

12/20/2022

Artifical Intelligence (AI) has reached a tipping point for educators. A friend who teaches shared three resources with me after seeing my previous post.

These are the three resources:

We Are Teachers:
1. https://www.weareteachers.com/ai-writing-tools-teachers
Inside Higher Ed:
1. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2022/10/26/machines-can-craft-essays-how-should-writing-be-taught-now
turnitin (which is a plagiarism checking tool):
1. www.turnitin.com/blog/how-teachers-can-prepare-for-ai-based-writing

Most articles suggest that trying to chase the tiger's tail -- that is, trying to catch students "cheating" using AI -- is a fool's game. The technology, not to mention the students' creativity, will stay ahead instructors' efforts.

Some articles suggest changing assessment methods. For example, having students give oral responses to questions. Last semester, I had 103 undergraduate students. I used summative assessments (evaluating whether they read the material) regularly, although the majority of grading was with formative assessments -- assignments used to scaffold learning -- that is, to give feedback to help the students' progress.

Do the math. If I took 10 minutes with each student having them each respond to a question orally, I would need 1,030 minutes = 17 hours each week for oral evaluations.

Another recommendation from the articles I've shared here was to move from online or computer-based assessments to in-class written assessments. This makes more sense to me, and this is what I will try for summative assessments on occassion when I return to Singapore to teach for the University at Buffalo School of Management.

Fortunately, during the coming spring semester, the capstone MBA Strategic Management course I will teach for Daemen University will have fewer students. I will meet with each student weekly online for a combined summative and formative assessment of their learning and progress.

#UnderstandingAI #UnderstandingAcademicIntegrity #AcademicIntegrity #ChatGPT #Moonbeam #StudentAssessment #UBSOM #UBSchoolOfManagement #Daemen #DaemenUniversity #MBA

More thoughts on AI chatbots & Chatgpt

12/20/2022

The conversations about AI chatbots, such as #ChatGPT, continue in academic circles. What effect will these applications have on academic integrity? How will educators spot plagiarism arising from AI chatbot use?

The writing tasks I assign to students have the objectives of encouraging my students to improve their critical thinking competencies. But what if the students simply find content for their essays in AI chatbots?

As an experiment, I entered "importance of critical thinking" into ChatGPT. The response is below. If you were an educator - or an individual's manager - could you tell if this were something the student or employee wrote, rather than content automatically created by ChatGPT?

"Critical thinking is an important skill because it allows people to analyze and evaluate ideas, arguments, and evidence in a logical and systematic way. It helps individuals to make informed decisions, solve problems effectively, and think creatively. In today's rapidly changing world, the ability to think critically is more important than ever, as it allows people to carefully consider the consequences of their actions and make choices that are based on sound reasoning and evidence. Critical thinking is a key component of a well-rounded education, and it is a skill that can be developed and improved with practice."

This is not me being a Luddite. There is value in these new tools. However, as an educator, I want to learn how to detect work submitted by students that is not the result of their individual and original thinking.

https://lnkd.in/gsismuCU

#AIChatbot #AcademicIntegrity #HigherEducation #CriticalThinking #Cheating #OriginalThinking #AI

ChatGPT AI Tool and Academic Integrity

12/16/2022

"ChatGPT is a prototype artificial intelligence chatbot developed by OpenAI which specializes in dialogue. The chatbot is a large language model fine-tuned with both supervised and reinforcement learning techniques."
There is increasing coverage of a relatively new AI tool called ChatGPT. It will generate intelligible (if not always entirely accurate) answers to questions. The concern among academics is that ChatGPT and other AI tools could - and most likely will - be used by students to write content for their essay assignments. So I asked ChatGPT how to spot a student's use of ChatGPT in an assignment. We could discuss the ChatGPT reponse, in particular the first item, because plagiarism software is unlikely to write something that has been newly written by an AI bot. This issue needs discussion among educators. I'm going to write about this in my education blog at about education research at: https://www.paulmcafee.com/experiential_learning_research.

Here is my conversation with ChatGPT.
Me: "How do we spot students who use ChatGPT to complete their writing assignments?"

ChatGPT: "There are a few ways you might be able to spot students who are using ChatGPT or other automated tools to complete their writing assignments:
"1. Look for signs of plagiarism: If a student's writing assignment is heavily copied from another source, it may be a sign that they are using ChatGPT or another tool to generate their writing. You can use plagiarism detection software to check for copied content.
"2. Check for unusual writing style or language use: ChatGPT and other automated writing tools often generate text that is not as sophisticated or well-written as human-generated text. If a student's writing assignment seems to be lacking in depth or complexity, or if it contains unusual language or syntax errors, it may be a sign that they are using a tool to generate their writing.
"3. Ask the student directly: If you have a suspicion that a student is using ChatGPT or another automated tool to complete their writing assignment, you can try asking them directly. Keep in mind that students may be hesitant to admit to using such tools, so you may need to approach the conversation in a non-confrontational way.
"It's important to note that it can be difficult to definitively identify when a student is using an automated tool to complete their writing assignment. However, by using a combination of these approaches and paying attention to red flags, you can get a better sense of whether a student may be using such a tool."

#AcademicIntegrity #HigherEducation #ChatGPT #ArtificialIntelligence #AI #Chatbots