How Students Can Use ChatGPT To Help Them Study And How Universities Can Adapt
Introducing ChatGPT, the chatbot that’s taking the world by storm! This little bundle of coding joy is powered by AI and machine learning and it’s here to make your life easier and more fun.
But what exactly is ChatGPT and how does it work? Well, think of it like a robot brain that’s been trained to understand and respond to human language. It can understand what you’re saying and respond in a way that feels like you’re talking to a real person.
But how does it do all of this magic? Well, ChatGPT is powered by AI (Artificial Intelligence) and machine learning. AI is a branch of computer science that deals with the creation of intelligent machines that can perform tasks that usually require human intelligence. Machine learning, on the other hand, is a method of teaching computers to learn from data, without being explicitly programmed.
Together, these technologies allow ChatGPT to understand and generate text, making it one of the most advanced language processing chatbots out there.
And the best part? The more you use ChatGPT, the better it gets at understanding you. It’s like having your own personal language tutor!
So, if you’re looking for a chatbot that can keep up with you and make your life easier, look no further than ChatGPT. This AI and machine learning-powered robot is here to make your day!
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Using ChatGPT for studying and assignments
1. Generating Summaries
You discover a lengthy document that could be pertinent to your assignment. Nevertheless, you cannot afford to spend time reading through the entire document only to find out it is irrelevant.
Request ChatGPT to give you a brief summary. This way, you can make a more informed decision about whether the text is worth your time.
2. Answer Questions
You read your lecturer’s slides a number of times. And yet you feel like you still haven’t understood. Use ChatGPT to simplify the concept so you can get the ball rolling.
3. Ask for an example
You have explained your topic brilliantly in your assignment. And yet you cannot think of an example to compliment your explanation. ChatGPT can give you an example itself to help you past your writer’s block.
4. Brainstorm ideas
ChatGPT is like that one lit partner in your group project who always comes through with the good ideas. Hit it up for help on your assignment or essay. This is when you’ll be taking notes on its suggestions where you see fit.
5. Correct Grammar
It’s 1am, you’re dead tired and you’re still writing your essay. So you probably made a ton of grammatical mistakes. Ask ChatGPT to improve your English before submitting to Turnitin and avoid that spelling mistake.
To get better results, provide clear prompts with instructions on style, specify more, and give context so that ChatGPT understands better.
University rector Alfred Vella has said assessment methods will be adapted to counter ChatGPT cheating
Is ChatGPT a problem for universities and what can they do?
In the short term, ChatGPT might be problematic and the potential impact of using language models like ChatGPT on the learning outcomes of their classes must be evaluated. If students are able to use the model to complete assignments without truly engaging with the material, it is unlikely that students are still learning and developing the skills the course is intended to teach.
Adjustments to assessments and teaching methods are therefore required. This may include making assessments more difficult for language models to complete. An even better alternative would be to incorporate the use of language models as a tool for learning and skill development.
1. Fight technology with technology
As AI continues to improve these text generation models, it will also assist plagiarism detection software. One can already find models which can detect text generated by a machine, which can be incorporated as part of the anti-plagiarism protocols of universities.
Perhaps a more simple solution would be to require students to submit work in formats that cannot be easily generated by a machine, such as oral presentations.
2. Assess based on critical thinking
If a robot can do the tasks universities are asking for, then perhaps the assessor is the problem, not the student. Assessments should be more difficult for language models to complete, such as requiring written responses to open-ended questions, or using assessments that are based on critical thinking and problem-solving.
3. Encourage originality and creativity
Universities should encourage students to be more creative, and develop original ideas, rewarding them for originality and creativity, rather than for the regurgitation of information. At the end of the day, the latter is all that ChatGPT can do.
Is ChatGPT a solution?
Technology evolves, things change. Perhaps we should stop looking at ChatGPT as a threat to education, and instead look at it as a new reality, which is likely to be a common day-to-day tool available for the future workforce.
We’ve been here before…think of the internet. In the 90s, very similar questions were raised with regards to students ‘cheating’ by using the unprecedented amounts of information now available from the comfort of their own room (as long as their parents did not pick up the phone).
But guess what? Within a decade, that ‘threat’ had become the foundation of most businesses.
This article is part of an ongoing collaborative series by Spunt.mt and Lovin Malta.
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