Skip to content
ADVERTISEMENT
Sign In
  • Sections
    • News
    • Advice
    • The Review
  • Topics
    • Data
    • Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
    • Finance & Operations
    • International
    • Leadership & Governance
    • Teaching & Learning
    • Scholarship & Research
    • Student Success
    • Technology
    • Transitions
    • The Workplace
  • Magazine
    • Current Issue
    • Special Issues
    • Podcast: College Matters from The Chronicle
  • Newsletters
  • Virtual Events
  • Ask Chron
  • Store
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
  • Jobs
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Professional Development
    • Career Resources
    • Virtual Career Fair
  • More
  • Sections
    • News
    • Advice
    • The Review
  • Topics
    • Data
    • Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
    • Finance & Operations
    • International
    • Leadership & Governance
    • Teaching & Learning
    • Scholarship & Research
    • Student Success
    • Technology
    • Transitions
    • The Workplace
  • Magazine
    • Current Issue
    • Special Issues
    • Podcast: College Matters from The Chronicle
  • Newsletters
  • Virtual Events
  • Ask Chron
  • Store
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
  • Jobs
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Professional Development
    • Career Resources
    • Virtual Career Fair
    Upcoming Events:
    An AI-Driven Work Force
    AI and Microcredentials
Sign In
Newsletter Icon

Teaching

Find insights to improve teaching and learning across your campus. Delivered on Thursdays. To read this newsletter as soon as it sends, sign up to receive it in your email inbox.

March 16, 2023
Share
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Email

From: Beth McMurtrie

Subject: Teaching: What You Need to Know About ChatGPT

This Week I:

  • Describe highlights from a webinar on ChatGPT and other AI
  • Ask how AI tools could hurt, or benefit, students with disabilities
  • Point you to some colleges’ guidance on ChatGPT
  • Ask you to share a survey with online students
  • Want to get your opinion on the value of mental-health breaks for students

To continue reading for FREE, please sign in.

Sign In

Or subscribe now to read with unlimited access for as low as $10/month.

Don’t have an account? Sign up now.

A free account provides you access to a limited number of free articles each month, plus newsletters, job postings, salary data, and exclusive store discounts.

Sign Up

This Week I:

  • Describe highlights from a webinar on ChatGPT and other AI
  • Ask how AI tools could hurt, or benefit, students with disabilities
  • Point you to some colleges’ guidance on ChatGPT
  • Ask you to share a survey with online students
  • Want to get your opinion on the value of mental-health breaks for students

What’s Next for AI in Teaching?

Last week more than 1,600 people showed up for our virtual forum on how ChatGPT and other cutting-edge technology will shape teaching and learning. If you missed it, you can watch the video here. If you’re short on time, though, here are some key takeaways:

Communicate with your students. You’re probably still figuring out what you think of generative AI. That’s expected, said Betsy Barre, executive director of the Center for the Advancement of Teaching at Wake Forest University. But don’t hold off on talking to your students about it. “That’s just always a useful strategy of explaining what it is to you and how you expect them to use it or not,” she said. “You have the right to change your mind about that. But early on just make sure you’re in communication.”

That’s important because different professors have different expectations. Some might ban it entirely; others might encourage its use in limited ways. And you don’t want to trip students up unintentionally if you don’t make your views clear. (For a list of classroom policies you can check out this Google doc, created by Lance Eaton.)

Be cautious about detection tools. Despite claims you may have seen, tools that have been created to detect the use of ChatGPT are not very accurate, says Anna Mills, a writing instructor at the College of Marin who has been compiling resources on AI text generators. “All have been shown to have false positives that could lead to a false accusation of cheating,” she said. Instructors should also be aware of privacy concerns, she noted, such as: How are these tools using the writing that you put into them?

There are other ways to bolster academic integrity. This is a big one, of course, as it ties into the desire to cheat-proof assignments and assessments. It’s likely impossible to outmaneuver technology, the panelists said. But tapping into what is already known about good pedagogy can help. Talk to your students about why writing is important. Design assessments that seem valuable to students, not like make-work. Spend more time in class having students demonstrate their learning. Some of these things are easier said than done, of course, but their point is that you don’t have to reinvent the wheel to reinforce academic integrity.

These tools can be an educational aid. Barre talked about several ways in which generative AI can be a positive force. If a student doesn’t understand a concept, it can ask ChatGPT to explain it like it was talking to a ninth grader, for example.

Steve Weber, vice provost for undergraduate curriculum and education at Drexel University, said it may help to think about how STEM disciplines invoke layering and abstraction. Computer-engineering students need to learn chemistry and physics in order to understand electronic devices and circuits, and eventually understand microprocessors. But once you get to that level of learning, you don’t need to think about the underlying science because, he says, that has been “abstracted away.” Similarly, students studying calculus don’t need to continually show that they understand long multiplication. Are there analogous examples in the humanities or social sciences, where generative AI can perform that foundational work — after students have demonstrated mastery — to free up time to spend on more complex topics?

Digital literacy is more important than ever. Artificial-intelligence tools, and generative AI in particular, raise a host of ethical, political, economic, and social questions. Plus, this tech is soon going to be everywhere, including students’ future professions. (The technology behind ChatGPT, in fact, just got an upgrade this week.) Colleges need to figure out how to graduate digitally savvy students in all disciplines. “The integration of technology into our lives is so pervasive that the restriction of education about AI to the computer scientists and the computer engineers makes no more sense than the restriction of taking English classes by English majors,” said Weber.

Start a conversation on your campus, or in your discipline. All of the panelists stressed the importance of holding wide-ranging, nuanced conversations about the impact and value of generative AI. Weber is leading a 19-person committee at Drexel, including faculty members from a variety of disciplines, to talk about these issues. Barre encouraged teaching-and-learning centers to bring faculty together to learn from one another and tap into the expertise of computer scientists and others on campus. Mills, who provided feedback to OpenAI, which developed ChatGPT, on its guidance for educators, encouraged academics to make their voices heard in how these technologies evolve.

What questions or plans do you have around generative AI? Have you found any resources particularly valuable? Write to me at beth.mcmurtrie@chronicle.com — I’d like to hear about them.

AI and Disability

As instructors think about redesigning elements of their courses to address ChatGPT and other text generators, the question of how this will affect students with disabilities often comes up. In-class assessments, including oral assessments, may present problems for some students, for example. But AI tools could also be a helpful study aid. As one viewer in our webinar last week wrote: “My son has dyslexia. He uses AI as a tool to help organize his thoughts and research into cohesive writing. He says it has changed his life.”

I’d like to dive deeper into the impact of generative AI on students with disabilities. If you have thoughts on the topic write to me at beth.mcmurtrie@chronicle.com

College Guidance on ChatGPT

Looking for more guidance on generative AI? Here is what some universities have put together:

Practical Responses to ChatGPT and Other Generative AI — Montclair State University Office for Faculty Excellence

ChatGPT — University of California at Irvine Division of Teaching Excellence and Innovation

AI-Generated Content in the Classroom: Considerations for Course Design — Illinois State University Center for Integrated Professional Development

Resource Sheet: Teaching and Learning With Artificial-Intelligence Apps — University of Calgary Taylor Institute for Teaching and Learning

ChatGPT: A Brief Introduction and Considerations for Academic Integrity — the Johns Hopkins University Center for Teaching Excellence & Innovation

ChatGPT and AI Composition Tools — Washington University in St. Louis Center for Teaching and Learning. The syllabus template has been updated to mention ChatGPT.

FAQ: ChatGPT in the Classroom — by Andrew Maynard for Arizona State University

ChatGPT Resources for Faculty — University of Pittsburgh Center for Teaching and Learning

Survey of Online Students

Our colleague Julian Roberts-Grmela wants to hear from students enrolled in — or considering — remote classes! If you teach remote courses, please share this survey with your students so they can help us understand this generation’s evolving learning preferences. (That could include students enrolled in remote classes as well as any students who have expressed an interest in remote or hybrid options.)

The number of students enrolled only in online courses nearly doubled between 2019 and 2021, according to our data analysis. We know remote instruction doesn’t work well for everyone. But we also know there is ongoing demand for remote or hybrid learning. We want to learn why.

Questions? Email Julian at julian.roberts-grmela@chronicle.com

Do Mental-Health Breaks Help or Hurt?

In a recent Chronicle advice piece, Sarah Rose Cavanagh argues that it’s time to take another look at the trend toward giving students mental-health breaks. Cavanagh, whose field is psychology, works at a teaching center and has a new book on mental health coming out soon. She thinks that granting pauses are not always the best response to what ails students. As she puts it: “Campus policies that offer mental-health breaks from class aim to solve one problem (student anxiety and stress) but often end up exacerbating another (student avoidance of social interaction, which tends to amplify anxiety).”

We know mental-health breaks have become a thorny issue on many campuses, and we want to hear more about what you’re seeing — and how you’re responding — in your classes. Have a story, observation, or perspective to share? Use this Google Form to fill us in.

Thanks for reading Teaching. If you have suggestions or ideas, please feel free to email us at beckie.supiano@chronicle.com or beth.mcmurtrie@chronicle.com.

— Beth

Learn more about our Teaching newsletter, including how to contact us, at the Teaching newsletter archive page.

Tags
Teaching & Learning
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT

More News

Photo illustration showing Santa Ono seated, places small in the corner of a dark space
'Unrelentingly Sad'
Santa Ono Wanted a Presidency. He Became a Pariah.
Illustration of a rushing crowd carrying HSI letters
Seeking precedent
Funding for Hispanic-Serving Institutions Is Discriminatory and Unconstitutional, Lawsuit Argues
Photo-based illustration of scissors cutting through paper that is a photo of an idyllic liberal arts college campus on one side and money on the other
Finance
Small Colleges Are Banding Together Against a Higher Endowment Tax. This Is Why.
Pano Kanelos, founding president of the U. of Austin.
Q&A
One Year In, What Has ‘the Anti-Harvard’ University Accomplished?

From The Review

Photo- and type-based illustration depicting the acronym AAUP with the second A as the arrow of a compass and facing not north but southeast.
The Review | Essay
The Unraveling of the AAUP
By Matthew W. Finkin
Photo-based illustration of the Capitol building dome propped on a stick attached to a string, like a trap.
The Review | Opinion
Colleges Can’t Trust the Federal Government. What Now?
By Brian Rosenberg
Illustration of an unequal sign in black on a white background
The Review | Essay
What Is Replacing DEI? Racism.
By Richard Amesbury

Upcoming Events

Plain_Acuity_DurableSkills_VF.png
Why Employers Value ‘Durable’ Skills
Warwick_Leadership_Javi.png
University Transformation: a Global Leadership Perspective
  • Explore Content
    • Latest News
    • Newsletters
    • Letters
    • Free Reports and Guides
    • Professional Development
    • Virtual Events
    • Chronicle Store
    • Chronicle Intelligence
    • Jobs in Higher Education
    • Post a Job
  • Know The Chronicle
    • About Us
    • Vision, Mission, Values
    • DEI at The Chronicle
    • Write for Us
    • Work at The Chronicle
    • Our Reporting Process
    • Advertise With Us
    • Brand Studio
    • Accessibility Statement
  • Account and Access
    • Manage Your Account
    • Manage Newsletters
    • Individual Subscriptions
    • Group and Institutional Access
    • Subscription & Account FAQ
  • Get Support
    • Contact Us
    • Reprints & Permissions
    • User Agreement
    • Terms and Conditions
    • Privacy Policy
    • California Privacy Policy
    • Do Not Sell My Personal Information
1255 23rd Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20037
© 2025 The Chronicle of Higher Education
The Chronicle of Higher Education is academe’s most trusted resource for independent journalism, career development, and forward-looking intelligence. Our readers lead, teach, learn, and innovate with insights from The Chronicle.
Follow Us
  • twitter
  • instagram
  • youtube
  • facebook
  • linkedin