Using ChatGPT and AI for Efficient Teaching and Work

Generative AI tools like ChatGPT can simplify and enhance academic work by automating content creation, providing personalized feedback, writing course objectives, summarizing course content, providing lesson ideas, assisting with meeting preparation and documentation, starting a draft or presentation, and more. In this article, we will explore some of the positive uses of ChatGPT and similar tools to make work easier. We will also share good prompt-writing tips for making AI work for you! Note that AI tools are rapidly developing and changing as of the writing of this article (August 2023).

Generative AI Tools

By “generative AI tools,” we are referring to digital tools that can mimic human intelligence and perform tasks, including creating text, images, audio, code, and data with minimal human intervention. These tools continue to learn and develop based on input, training, and feedback. There are many AI tools, but this article will focus on the large language model tools that are used primarily for text generation. Here’s a list of additional AI tools for education that you may want to explore.

Primary Language Generating Tools:

• ChatGPT — this “Generative Pretrained Transformer” created by Open AI is available at a “freemium.” Users can create an account and use version 3.5 or pay $20 a month for more access and the use of version 4. ChatGPT can be used on a laptop/desktop and has an iOS and Android app. It saves a clear history of any chats, and users can export results with a URL. It is speedy, decent at math, and a good contextually relevant conversationalist. It is not connected to the internet, so does not access content from post-2021. You can get started by creating an account and checking out the prompt suggestions on the homepage.
• Bing Chat — this AI chat tool uses the same “behind-the-scenes” technology as ChatGPT4, but no account is needed. However, using a Microsoft account with the tool will provide more access. Bing has an iOS and Android app. Users can export results as a link. Two unique features of Bing Chat include its ability to generate images in its chat function and that it is connected to the internet, so it can access both training information and “live” information. Mac users will need to install the Edge browser to use Bing.
• Google Bard – this free AI chat tool requires the use of a Google account (currently, NC State users cannot use their university Gmail account to access Bard). The tool provides a clear history, and some testing suggests that it might be the best for coding. The tool automatically provides multiple drafts of its output and allows users to use voice commands to prompt the tool/chat with the tool. Results and drafts from Google Bard can be exported into Google Docs, Google Sheets, or Gmail.

All of these language-generating AI tools may collect data that would lead to potential privacy violations, so do not use sensitive information in conversations with the chatbots. Check and verify information created by any of these generative AI tools. The authors of this article prefer the creativity and contextual conversational style of ChatGPT, so you will see many examples from ChatGPT but try each tool to determine what works best for you!

Positive Uses of AI

Idea generators: AI can offer fresh ideas and perspectives. By providing prompts with specific topics, these tools can generate multiple suggestions, helping you to consider various angles and perspectives. 

Save time: By using AI assistance, you can save time in the content creation process. Instead of starting from scratch, you can leverage the AI’s capabilities to speed up the writing process and focus on other aspects of course preparation.

Supplementary Writing: AI can supplement your existing content with additional information, examples, or explanations, making your work more comprehensive.

Diverse Writing Styles: AI is versatile and can adapt its writing style to match your tone or the specific needs of your target audience. Whether you require a formal, professional tone or a more casual, conversational approach, AI can accommodate various writing styles.

Automating Content Creation

Use these tools to generate blog posts, articles, emails, or social media content and save time by letting AI create repetitive and time-consuming content. They can also help with creating video scripts which provide users with a skeleton of a script to then read/use while filming an instructional video. These tools can also take existing content from an article or narrative and turn it into a script format. Using different formats can quickly transform content to better fit an audience.  While AI tools can generate content, it still requires some human editing and proofreading to ensure accuracy. The syllabus recommendations on our “Developing an AI Syllabus Statement for Your Course” were originally drafted with ChatGPT.

Develop course outlines and objectives

Generative AI language tools excel at generating a wide range of basic information. One possible application for AI in the classroom is to use the algorithm to generate outlines for broad topics. As an example, if an instructor wanted an outline of basic nutritional guidelines, ChatGPT would excel using the prompt “What are the basic nutritional guidelines?” After the AI generates the text, it is important to edit the output and ensure that all the information is correct. AI outlines are not intended to be final products but instead an initial start to the outline process. Here is an example course outline for a college statistics course.

AI can assist in crafting clear and concise course objectives.  You can also ask ChatGPT to revise or write “measurable” objectives using Bloom’s Taxonomy verbs at various levels. By inputting a syllabus or course overview, ChatGPT can generate objectives aligned with the course content. If you are revising objectives, write a narrative of what you want students to learn or existing objectives that may not be written with measurable outcomes, and ChatGPT can revise the objectives.

Additionally, ChatGPT can save time by summarizing articles. Simply paste the article content into ChatGPT, and it will provide a concise summary. This is particularly useful for selecting course materials or gaining a better understanding of new concepts.  

Generate lesson plans and instructional materials

You can input your course objectives, target audience, and desired outcomes into ChatGPT to generate detailed lesson plans. This includes sequencing activities, selecting resources, and outlining instructional strategies. Note: resource selection may be improved by using Bing Chat or Google Bard, which are connected to the internet.

ChatGPT can also be used to design interactive quizzes and assessments to enrich your lesson plans. You can also ask ChatGPT to provide sample student answers that are correct and incorrect and possible feedback for each of those answers. This way, ChatGPT aids in creating comprehensive and engaging assessments to gauge student understanding effectively. If you include a link to an article from prior to 2021, ChatGPT can create guided reading questions to go along with the article.

You can also ask ChatGPT to suggest supplementary resources and materials that cater to students’ learning needs in the lesson plans.  Keep in mind that, ChatGPT does not have information from after 2021.  If you ask what are the most recently published articles, it will not show them.

Tool Alert! Check out “QuestionWell” to use AI to write question sets based on your topics or a copy/pasted reading. Questions can be exported to Moodle and other tools.

AI for Feedback

Ethan Mollick, an Associate Professor at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, publishes a blog detailing his uses of AI in his course assignments. In one feedback suggestion, he shares an idea to have students write a short paper explaining something they did or didn’t understand in class. Possible questions for students: “What was the most important idea or concept covered in class today” or “What is the most difficult class concept so far?” Instructors can gather responses and copy/paste them into an AI tool with this prompt: “I am a teacher who wants to understand what students found most important about my class and what they are confused by. Review these responses and identify common themes and patterns in student responses. Summarize responses and list the 3 key points students found most important about the class and 3 areas of confusion.” The results will provide teachers with a quick way to focus future classes and instructional materials.

Copy/paste text from a student-submitted written assignment and ask for feedback to improve the writing. If you use or provide rubrics for assignments, you can also include specific traits from the rubric into a tool and ask for feedback, suggestions for improvement, or a suggested grade. If you have character limits when using a tool, you can also try Claude.ai, which works with longer text segments.

Instructors may want to use AI-generated text to improve the critical thinking skills of their students. A suggestion is to have students generate text using AI and then critique the AI’s work similarly to how they use peer feedback in your course. By “grading” the AI’s work, students must demonstrate a mastery of the material and exercise critical thinking to critique the algorithm.

Despite AI’s strengths, a major complaint about ChatGPT is the vagueness that AI-generated text tends to display. Consider generating a body of text about course subjects and displaying the results for students. Use the opportunity to highlight how the AI failed to cite its sources, give a detailed explanation, and go deeper than superficial aspects. Let the AI be a “what not to do” example in your course. Showing clear and concise examples of both acceptable and unacceptable work is important for setting course expectations.

Prompt Writing Tips

Most language model AI tools need good prompts in order to provide the results you are looking for. This extensive list of prompts will help you get started thinking about different ways to use AI successfully.

Tips:

• Talk to the AI as if it were an assistant, use complete sentences, and have a conversation.
• Be clear and specific
• Provide context and an identity, profession, or audience if appropriate to your informational goal
• Try different formats, i.e., “create a script that…” or “create a matrix to…”
• use an iterative process and ask follow-up questions to refine results.

Resources and References

NC State Office of Faculty Excellence: Navigating the Landscape of Higher Education in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

Cynthia Alby: AI Prompts for Teaching

Question Well: App to use AI to create questions based on reading or instructor topic

CHATGPT and higher education: Initial prevalence and areas of interest. EDUCAUSE Review. (n.d.). https://er.educause.edu/articles/2023/3/chatgpt-and-higher-education-initial-prevalence-and-areas-of-interest

American Psychological Association. (n.d.). How to use CHATGPT as a learning tool. Monitor on Psychology. https://www.apa.org/monitor/2023/06/chatgpt-learning-tool

McKenna, S. (2023, May 19). Chatgpt is the push higher education needs to rethink assessment. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/chatgpt-is-the-push-higher-education-needs-to-rethink-assessment-200314

Mollick, Ethan R. and Mollick, Lilach, Using AI to Implement Effective Teaching Strategies in Classrooms: Five Strategies, Including Prompts (March 17, 2023). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4391243 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4391243