As educators continue to grapple with their student's’ use of AI, some have found that the productive use of generative AIs can bolster student learning.
One series of articles titled “Student Use Cases for AI” by Professor Ethan Miollick and Dr. Lilach Mollick suggests four ways to let your students incorporate AI into their studies. Each page includes additional tips and example prompts for use with GPT-4. Their four suggestions for using AI are as follows:
Using an AI like ChatGPT or BingChat can provide students with instant feedback at anytime, shown to improve learning. Students may use a prompt to model their instructor, describe something they’re working on, and get suggestions at any time.
If students are struggling with a specific topic, they can use an AI to provide analogies, and explain and breakdown complex information. This can enable students to help themselves learn at their own pace and personalize their educational experience.
If you’re planning group work or a team project, consider asking your students to use AI to help organize the team and develop a charter. Use the AI to facilitate the team describing their project, process, and unique skills to better define how they should work, and get off to a good start.
Perhaps most unique of all, asking the AI to act as the student provides an opportunity for *your* students to explain material, effectively creating a self-explanation machine. Self-explanation is shown to improve student learning, so encourage your students to practice explaining what they think they know to an AI for an extra boost.
As you encourage your students to explore productive uses of AI, be sure to level-set and explain the pros and cons of using generative AI. Like any novel tool, generative AIs are changing rapidly so be sure to continuously monitor student progress and adjust expectations as needed.