Although there is a huge amount of interest in generative artificial intelligence (AI) in the consumer world, particularly since the release of OpenAI’s free ChatGPT program last November, in the hallowed halls of academia the response has been more wary. Concerns abound about academic integrity. There are also worries about how AI-generated content can be biased, inaccurate, and sometimes contain entirely false information, dubbed “hallucinations.”
The cautious response is to be expected according to Houman Harouni, lecturer on education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a former elementary and high school teacher. He has compassion for educators trying to grapple with a rapidly shifting world shaped by machine learning.
“Technology creates a shock,” he explains. “This shock is sometimes of a magnitude that we cannot even understand it, in the same way that we still haven’t absorbed the sharp shock of the mobile phone.”
Harouni has long wrestled with the impact of cutting-edge technology on education, including experimenting in his own classroom, and is convinced that when it comes to teaching “the medium is part of the message.” He believes that getting school students and those in higher ed to engage with virtual worlds is essential.
“Where we want to get to is a place where you’re dancing with it, dancing with robots,” he says.
If the idea of waltzing with a robot creates apprehension for educators, Harouni has some advice :
1) Stop pretending that it doesn’t exist
Educators must “help the next generation face the reality of the world and develop instruments and ways of navigating this reality with integrity,” Harouni says. Students are well aware that technologies such as ChatGPT exist and are already experimenting with them on their own, but they need guidance about how to use them responsibly.
Teacher education and professional development programs should not ignore generative artificial intelligence either.
2) Use AI alongside your students
Engage with generative AI tools with your students in person, when possible. Otherwise, share AI-generated responses to questions during class time and ask students to consider them or have students experiment with the technology at home, document their experiences, and share them with the class.
