Vocational education and training - VET

When artificial intelligence went mainstream with the public release of ChatGPT in November 2022, it immediately sent ripples through the world of education. Concerns about equity in AI, data privacy, and how to teach ethical AI skills became heated topics at faculty meetings and in classrooms. Two things have become clear: This technology is already transforming education—and people have many questions.

Science Friday hosted a virtual conversation with experts in AI and education in October 2023 to understand the potential AI holds for education and some of the pitfalls to be confronted as it comes to schools across the country. While the path forward may be challenging and occasionally confusing, our guests suggest that by allowing students to lead and guiding them to use AI responsibly, education stands to benefit from innovative tools that will, no doubt, change our world. Here, we recap some of the ideas and insights that came out of that conversation.

In the second part of their series looking at 100 ways to use ChatGPT in higher education, Seb Dianati and Suman Laudari share 25 prompts for such AI tools to assist with teaching and assessment

The question before us is how we can productively use ChatGPT to help our students become knowledge transformers?  A writer, a teacher, and an education professor all suggest an analogy from the calculator and math to ChatGPT and writing. In the same way that calculators became an important tool for students in math classes, ChatGPT has potential to become an important tool for writers who want to hone their critical thinking skills along with their communication skills. How might this happen? Educators are responding with valuable approaches. Adam Stevens, a high school history teacher in New York City who opposes his district’s decision to block ChatGPT, sees it as a valuable tool to promote—not limit—critical thinking. Students can evaluate the program’s initial response to a prompt, then consider how to improve it through revision. Other teachers quoted in a recent report on ChatGPT for Ed Week advocate for a similar approach and using the program to focus on the writing process. In higher education, we can openly let our students use ChatGPT for their class assignments, as well, and even use the bot in class to generate a first draft. Students can then learn how to move beyond the first draft to make their essays better. This is precisely the method that the first author will adopt at the start of her class after winter break.