ChatGPT and Generative AI Platforms in the Classroom: Assignments & AI

College libraries have culled the following tips from the internet and articles on ChatGPT to help instructors deal with its use.

• Provide clear instructions in your syllabus and at the beginning of the semester regarding the use of AI in class assignments.
  • Have conversations with your class about what ChatGPT can and can't do, what its flaws and limits are, and why you are adopting your chosen guidelines for its usage.
  • If you use ChatGPT, discuss your usage with your students. When and how do you use it, and when do you not use it, and why?
  • Students will need to consider the implications of AI now because they will be facing choices about its use beyond the classroom, too.
• Educate students on the implications of AI on their assignments, and why it can be considered plagiarism.
  • Emphasize the educational and critical thinking opportunities they are missing by using ChatGPT. They're in college to learn and grow, not simply to get a degree, and they aren't learning anything by having an AI do their work for them.
• Give your students agency by allowing them to help write your class's AI policies, including what AI usage is allowed, what is not allowed, and under what circumstances its usage will be punished.
  • Provide students with a reading on the ethics of ChatGPT/AI, conduct a class discussion, vote on the policy, and then include it in your syllabus.
  • This suggestion was drawn from Johnny Calavitta dos Santo's presentation "Reimagining the Role of Generative AI in Meeting Diversity, Equality and Inclusion Outcomes" at Digital Pedagogy Institute 2023.
• Test your assignments using ChatGPT to see what sort of results the AI delivers and what the AI missed. This can help you change your assignment or grading rubric to make ChatGPT less useful.
• Alter your grading rubric to prioritize skills that ChatGPT cannot duplicate, such as original or creative thinking, incorporating ideas discussed in class, or the proper use of sources.
• Require sources and references in assignments where appropriate, and check those references for accuracy. When prompted to include references in a paper or essay, ChatGPT and other AIs often simply invent plausible sounding, but entirely fictional, sources.
• Conduct a flipped classroom, with students doing more of their writing in class and by hand.
• Create assignments that require critical thinking, originality, and problem solving, all areas at which ChatGPT struggles.
• Create assignments for which an AI will have no context, such as those that incorporate class discussions or content only discussed in class, or have students analyze a specific video, an on-campus speaker, or a concert or play performance.
• Use self-reflection assignments, such as research journals or essays that explain the student's feelings or thinking process about their current project.
• Require students to turn in their work as they progress through a research assignment, including their research proposal and research question, annotated bibliography, and preliminary drafts, all of which allows you to check on their progress while also ensuring that they are doing their own work. 
• Develop assignments that do not involve traditional writing, such as group discussions, presentations, video or audio submissions of students discussing their work, or other interactive activities.
• Encourage students to write about topics that genuinely interest them, and empower them to create and defend their own research questions and arguments.

Rather than fighting against AI, some instructors have embraced it, designing assignments that make use of ChatGPT.  The following are some examples the library has come across while researching AI in the classroom.

• Have students prompt ChatGPT to ask them questions about the materials they are reading in class. This is most effective if their prompt instructs the AI to act like a professor, instructor, or philosopher of the subject matter.
  • Example: "Act like an English literature professor and ask me questions about the major themes of The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway."
• Require students to seamlessly integrate AI-written text into an essay, and then have the students write a reflection on the process, asking if they felt like they were cheating, how difficult it was to accomplish the integration, did they expect a reader to notice the AI-composed portion of the essay, etc.
  • This assignment was created by Paul Fyfe from the NC State Department of English, and is detailed in his article How to Cheat on Your Final Paper: Assigning AI for Student Writing.
• For creative writing, have the student write the first paragraph of the story, then have ChatGPT write the second, have the student write the third, and so on, forcing the student to respond as the AI takes the story in unexpected directions.
• Use ChatGPT to create alternative essays on a research topic and have the students critique those essays and write their own, improved versions.
  • These two assignments were suggested by Mike Sharples from the Open University's Institute of Educational Technology in his article  Automated Essay Writing: An AIED Opinion.

This infographic from Ditch That Textbook contains other suggestions for how ChatGPT can be incorporated into the classroom.