Global Courant 2023-05-06 11:00:35
AI software like ChatGPT could be used to replace some college textbooks, transform higher education and demand a greater focus on critical thinking, a college professor told Fox News.
“Certainly for an introductory undergraduate course, ChatGPT could be used to produce excellent course materials,” said Terence Day, a geography professor at Okanagan College in British Columbia. “Essentially, it could replace a textbook.”
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AI chatbots can make curricula less rigid and lower college costs because students don’t have to pay hefty fees for textbooks, according to Day. The professor also believes that some schools will soon prioritize training students to analyze AI-generated texts – such as spotting errors in ChatGPT content – over writing essays.
“Textbooks are expensive to buy, but they’re also expensive to produce,” Day told Fox News. “Instead of spending $100 on a textbook,[students]can just download something from their learning management system.”
Students would also benefit from AI-written courseware, he said.
“If you’re creating course materials with ChatGPT, you can afford to change things up a bit, move things around,” Day told Fox News. “That certainly presents … an opportunity for innovation, I think, in the classroom.”
AI chatbots, such as ChatGPT and Google’s Bard, will revolutionize the way students interact with course materials, Day said. (HU Sheridan Libraries/Gado/Getty Images)
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Errors in the results that ChatGPT generates also provide professors with a new learning tool, according to Day. He said he used an inaccurate ChatGPT response as part of a recent class midterm asking students to spot the error in the geography-related text.
“It really promotes the idea of critical thinking in students,” Day said. “The opportunity is to use those critical thinking skills to figure out if this stuff is true.”
“In my case, I identified a glaring error, which was a very significant error,” he added. “But the students were also able to identify a few minor mistakes, which I completely overlooked.”
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Day believes the arrival of AI means students will eventually stop writing texts from scratch. (Dogukan Keskinkilic/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
Day, who is also an adjunct professor of geography at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, said he believed AI can force universities to prioritize analytics-driven work.
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“As time goes by, the idea of sitting down and writing something from scratch will become less and less likely as a task someone will be assigned,” he told Fox News. “I think the job will increasingly be to evaluate what’s available to you.”
“And this job of evaluation, I think, is something that we really need to educate students, educate students for over the next several decades,” Day said.
To watch the full interview, click here.
