FAQ - ChatGPT

ChatGPT FAQ Document

Here are some commonly asked questions we receive regarding ChatGPT and eDynamic Learning courses and the answers to those questions. If you don’t see your questions answered here, feel free to fill out our contact form or email us at hello@edynamiclearning.com

What is ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is a new piece of technology known as “generative artificial intelligence.” Artificial intelligence, referred to as “AI,” is a developing field of information technology where a program can learn from previous work or inputs and change its responses based on that learning. Generative AI is meant to simulate real intelligence and decision-making. 

Users can access ChatGPT by signing up for an OpenAI account. There’s only a single prompt on the page, allowing the user to type in their request in plain English and hit send. They will receive text or code-based responses, depending on what request they made. 

How can students misuse ChatGPT within an eDynamic Learning course? 

In some cases, students could submit answers created directly by the AI. 

Many questions based on real-world scenarios or data could be answered by ChatGPT. Common knowledge on software or topics students are learning about can all likely be answered by AI. 

Edynamic Learning courses use a wide range of assessment styles, including critical thinking questions, discussion questions, and interactive activities that require opinionated responses, content, and media creation. While students could use the AI to come up with scenarios for activities, or even test theories in science and technology-based projects, it would be difficult to use ChatGPT for prompts asking for a more analytical perspective than direct recall. 

What are things ChatGPT CANNOT do?

ChatGPT is not 100% accurate. ChatGPT’s database is built from online human interactions and human-written content, but this information has not been fact-checked. ChatGPT generates “best guess” answers, and these answers might be incorrect or include human bias. 

In addition, ChatGPT is limited in its output. It does not have adequate direct context from its user to be able to generate answers for questions that include self-reflection or opinion-based responses. It can’t easily be used within a group assignment because it does not write in multiple voices. And it cannot as yet create non-text-based deliverables such as slide decks, videos, and other infographics. 

How can a teacher detect content created by ChatGPT?

There are many ways to identify AI-generated text. Just as AI was created to generate content, AI has also been created to detect it. Tools like the AI Classifier, also created by OpenAI, along with third-party tools such as GPTZero and the detection tools at TurnItIn.com can all be used to detect AI-generated text.

ChatGPT may have a more formal tone, voice, and quality of writing than a student. Another way to detect ChatGPT use is to compare a student’s current and previous responses to similar types of questions. You may also compare the student responses to the Suggested Answers in the Teacher Resources to see if there is an overlap. If your student doesn’t sound like themselves, chances are they have gathered content from somewhere else. 

For programming courses, teachers can check submitted code for formatting and syntax errors. Often, generated code will not be formatted properly without specific and appropriate input. AI-generated code might include incorrect code, deprecated functions, or even mixed-up programming languages!

How does eDynamic Learning promote academic honesty?

eDynamic Learning promotes academic honesty by providing an Honor Code. Students start each course with a full introduction and explanation of plagiarism and they are also given resources to avoid unintentional plagiarism. 

We also craft our courses to promote and showcase student creativity. Many activities require students to create forms of media that cannot be generated by AI in full, such as videos, slide decks, posters, infographics, and diagrams. Furthermore, programming courses require students to not only provide working code but also a solution that accurately describes how they got the answer.

What can teachers do to promote academic honesty?

When possible, teachers can assign more work to be done in the classroom or synchronous environment, as opposed to homework, to facilitate monitoring student activity.

Teachers can also create a pre-test or post-test activity, checking for student understanding of a topic within the lessons. This will allow teachers to assess students’ work before and after each activity. When checking for understanding, teachers should look for ways the content changed. If there are quick or unexpected improvements in quality or accuracy, the student may have gotten answers from a third-party source.

In courses that require the use of computer code, sample answers are created with the expected results for comparison purposes. We recommend running student-submitted code manually to ensure it runs without issue and comparing the style and syntax with that of the sample answers. Coding assessments will also often require the student to describe the functionality of lines of code.

How can ChatGPT be used for good?

ChatGPT is a powerful research assistant that can help students solve a wide range of problems. Students use critical thinking skills when verifying the validity of ChatGPT responses and can similarly verify their own answers and conclusions through prompts.

ChatGPT can act as a student’s personal tutor for a course, where a student can quickly get definitions of vocabulary words, explanations on topics that go even further than the course itself, and clarification of concepts they may need help understanding. 

ChatGPT can also be used for collaborative writing exercises, where students can work together to write long-form content like stories, articles, and even full working scripts by providing input to the AI model, refining the output, and putting the parts together.