{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "content": "---\ntitle: \"Are you ready for ChatGPT in the classroom this semester?\"\ndescription: \"Practical advice for educators on incorporating ChatGPT into their teaching\n  this semester rather than pretending it doesn't exist.\"\ntags:\n  - ai\n  - teaching\n---\n\nAs I scrolled through my social media feeds over the Christmas break\n[I](https://www.ft.com/content/86e64b4c-a754-47d6-999c-fcc54f62fb5d)\n[read](https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2022/12/chatgpt-ai-writing-college-student-essays/672371/)\n[through](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/dec/04/ai-bot-chatgpt-stuns-academics-with-essay-writing-skills-and-usability)\n[several](https://garymarcus.substack.com/p/how-come-gpt-can-seem-so-brilliant)\n\"what do AI tools like [ChatGPT](https://chat.openai.comhttps://chat.openai.com)\nmean for the future of Higher Education\" pieces, and I'm sure you saw them as\nwell. To be honest, I'm reluctant to add to that discourse, because most of my\nthoughts on the issue have already been made.\n\nI was at a BBQ dinner with a colleague last weekend and our chat turned to\n\"how's your class shaping up for the coming semester?\" My colleague was aware of\nChatGPT and isn't worried about it destroying the fabric of higher education or\nanything like that, but they were a bit unsure about if and how they could make\nuse of it in their class. So here are a few things to think about if you're in\nthat position. I'm going to use\n[ChatGPT](https://chat.openai.comhttps://chat.openai.com) as an example (because\nit's the hot one right now), but similar questions apply for any AI content\ngeneration tool, whether for generating text\n[images](https://stability.ai/blog/stablediffusion2-1-release7-dec-2022),\n[music](https://www.riffusion.com),\n[voiceover](https://blog.elevenlabs.io/enter-the-new-year-with-a-bang/) or\n[video](https://twitter.com/SmokeAwayyy/status/1613765555768668160).\n\nFirst, if your class includes student deliverables which involve submitting\nwritten work (e.g. essays, but also lab reports, process blogs, compulsory forum\nposts and more) then some of your students are going to use ChatGPT to write\ntheir submissions. It's inevitable, and although the NY Schools district is\ntrying to bury its head in the sand and\n[ban ChatGPT](https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/new-york-city-public-schools-ban-chatgpt-devices-networks-rcna64446),\nthis is (in my opinion) both\n[wrongheaded](https://time.com/6246574/schools-shouldnt-ban-access-to-chatgpt/)\nand\n[too difficult to enforce in practice](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jan/12/college-student-claims-app-can-detect-essays-written-by-chatbot-chatgpt).\n\nSo, as you look over your course outline and assessment schedule you need to ask\nyourself whether you care if your students use ChatGPT. It's a question that\ngoes to the heart of why we set deliverables at all. The reasons include\n[legal compliance](https://www.teqsa.gov.au/guides-resources/resources/guidance-notes/guidance-note-course-design-including-learning-outcomes-and-assessment),\nbut for most educators they also reach into deeply held ideals about education\nas the pursuit of knowledge and truth, and into what it means to give a good\n(or bad) grade.\n\nMaybe you don't care, or at least you don't care enough to re-jig your whole\nclass to \"defend\" against students using ChatGPT to submit work that they don't\nunderstand. I think that's an ok position to take for now, although I'd\nencourage you to watch closely as other educators try things (and no doubt fail\nin interesting and unforseen ways). We will learn from each others' experiences\nin how best to incorporate these tools in our classrooms. But you should at\nleast think hard about \"why do I set that particular essays as the final\nassessment item in this course, and what would it mean if a student used ChatGPT\nto write it?\"\n\nSecondly, there are already some good ideas floating around about how to use\nChatGPT productively in your teaching. This isn't just if you're designing a new\ncourse on \"Applied AI Language Models\", there are ways to incorporate it into an\nexisting course as well. The Centre for Learning and Teaching at Washington\nUniversity has already got a helpful\n[ChatGPT and AI Composition Tools](https://ctl.wustl.edu/resources/chatgpt-and-ai-composition-tools/)\npage up on their website. There are a\n[bunch of folks experimenting with ChatGPT-designed syllabi](https://twitter.com/search?q=chatgpt%20syllabus).\n\nI think that people like Yoav Goldberg are on the right track when\n[they say](https://twitter.com/yoavgo/status/1602026029979164675)\n\n> \"actually now that i think of it more, i think a \"write an essay with the help\n> of chatGPT and discuss the process and the resulting prose\" can be a\n> super-effective assignment also in a humanities-centric, critical-ai program.\"\n\nIf you're wondering how you might incorporate ChatGPT into your class this\ncoming semester, look through your course outline for every time you ask your\nstudents to produce a written artefact in response to a question or prompt that\nyou give them. Can you change it up so that the student (or students) asks that\nquestion of ChatGPT and then has to critically reflect on the output they\nrecieve from the AI model? This process could be scaffolded by first doing it in\na facilitated class discussion setting, but then later as an assessment task\n(and perhaps the students need to create their own rubric or criteria on which\nthe output of the AI model should be evaluated). There are heaps of variations\non this idea, but the general idea is this: wherever in your current class you\nask your students to write something, that's an opportunity to get the student\nto co-write (or evaluate) that same something with ChatGPT. On a superficial\nlevel this sort of \"AI tool use\" is the sort of process that knowledge workers\nwill increasingly be incorporating into our daily workflows. At a deeper level\nit's an opportunity to reflect on where these tools work well and where they\nmight be actively harmful.\n\nOne final point which I made to my colleague in the context of incorporating\nChatGPT into this semesters's class is about availability. During the\n[current initial research preview ChatGPT is free to use](https://help.openai.com/en/articles/6783457-chatgpt-faq).\nBut OpenAI (creators of ChatGPT) haven't released any information about how long\nthis research preview window will last, or how much it'll cost when that window\nends.\n\nChatGPT running costs are\n[estimated at $3m USD per month](https://twitter.com/tomgoldsteincs/status/1600196995389366274),\nand OpenAI are a private company, so they can't be counted on to keep it running\nfree forever as a public good. If it's eventually\n[priced similarly to GPT3](https://openai.com/api/pricing/) (the AI language\nmodel on which it's based) then it'll be fairly cheap---probably only a few\ncents to write an article as long as this one---but you're still left with an\nequity issue unless you're willing to pay for a subscription for all your\nstudents. Even if your institution is willing, these tools don't yet have an\n(easy) way to sign up a whole class, ensuring that student's activity stays\nunder a given budget, and send one easy bill. I'm sure that will come in time,\nand AI companies may well be willing to offer partnerships and scholarships with\neducational institutions doing this sort of thing, but be prepared for a small\npanic if ChatGPT's free trial gets turned off 24 hours before an assessment\ndeadline.\n\nI'm not trying to play the techno-optimist and downplay the potential downsides\nof ChatGPT in higher education. These tools may well\n[blow up society](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/15/opinion/ai-chatgpt-lobbying-democracy.html),\nand higher education is (clearly!) not going to be unaffected if that happens.\nMy main point is that if you're careful you can start using them in the\nclassroom today---your students will be anyway, and this way you get to go on\nthat journey with them. There will be some challenges, and you might have to ask\nyourself some deep questions about why your class is designed the way it is. But\nit is a pretty exciting chance to be part of a community of educators figuring\nit out together, and whatever conclusions we come to I do strongly believe that\nwe need to learn how to live in a world of AI-generated bullshit, so why\n_wouldn't_ we set our students up to start that learning journey with us while\nthey're in our classrooms?\n",
  "createdAt": "2026-05-13T23:14:46.977Z",
  "description": "Practical advice for educators on incorporating ChatGPT into their teaching this semester rather than pretending it doesn't exist.",
  "path": "/blog/2023/01/16/chatGPT-in-the-classroom",
  "publishedAt": "2023-01-16T00:00:00.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:tevykrhi4kibtsipzci76d76/site.standard.publication/self",
  "tags": [
    "ai",
    "teaching"
  ],
  "textContent": "Practical advice for educators on incorporating ChatGPT into their teaching this semester rather than pretending it doesn't exist.",
  "title": "Are you ready for ChatGPT in the classroom this semester?"
}