Image Description: AI Generated image of student with AI robot hologram
tutor during a study session (Image from diamandis.com)
As I am not particularly experienced in using AI, I wanted to try out some of the features I saw in the lectures this week. This week, I focused on using ChatGPT as an AI tutor. My daughter sometimes struggles in mathematics, and we have hired a tutor to come to the house to help her. It would be nice if she could have a tutor to help her when she is trying to do homework on her own when he is not available. I asked ChatGPT to help me with ratios, and it gave me an overview, and then asked me some sample questions. I thought it was very helpful in the way that it responded to incorrect answers by helping me see what I did wrong and then giving me another sample question to make sure I understood before moving on. I was pleasantly surprised when I asked it how to find greatest common factors for clarification of the directions when it was explaining simplifying ratios. I thought it might forget the original prompt, but instead, it explained and gave me sample questions just as it had done with the original prompt and then asked if I had more questions or wanted to continue with the lesson on ratios. I think this could be a very useful tool for students.
Image Description: Battle of the Books title with two jousting knights emerging from books
Chat GPT was also helpful for practicing for Battle of the Books. I asked it to tutor me for Battle of the Books, and it asked for the book list, my grade level, and the date of the competition. It gave me a weekly plan to prepare for the competition; however, the question format was not the format that we use for Battle of the Books questions. I was able to ask it to adjust the format of the questions to fit our competition and it did, excluding proper names and asking in the format, "In which book did ___ happen", limiting questions to specific events, not overall themes. It even gave me the option to find which specific pages events could be found in the book, if I included the edition of the book I was using. Once I finished fine tuning the tutorial to ask the questions the way I wanted, it also allowed me to create a tutorial to share with my students and gave me a prompt to enter in ChatGPT to recreate the same formatting of questions for students to create their own tutorials using ChatGPT. I think this will be an invaluable tool in my library to help me prepare students for the competition this year.
In my experiencing practicing with these tools in chatGPT, I could definitely see some of the advantages that Schools that Lead (2024) referenced. The features were highly adaptable to fit my specific needs, were available right when I needed them, and offered immediate feedback so that I could understand my mistakes immediately and make corrections. I could also see how some of the drawbacks mentioned could come into play, though. Some students might not have access to a computer or broadband services at home, which would give them an unfair disadvantage compared to their peers who did, as Aniya Green-Santos mentioned in NEA Today (2024). Also, I could see there being some confusion if the AI tutored a student in a subject differently than the way the teacher taught it in the classroom. Additionally, I think that if students are not clear enough in exactly what they need to learn because they do not quite understand the subject enough to convey their needs in chatGPT, their results may differ from peers who are better able to work with the program. Still, I think that there are some extremely promising features that can greatly help students, as long as there is a teacher available to help them learn how to use chatGPT effectively. Fortunately, there have been efforts made to assist teachers in preparing to educate students in AI, however there is still much to be done to ensure all teachers are on the same page, rather than leaving it to the teachers to tackle this task alone (Green-Santos, 2024).
References
Green-Santos, A. (2024). Does AI have a bias problem? NEA Today. https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-news-articles/does-ai-have-bias-problem
Schools that Lead. (2024). Advantages and disadvantages of AI in education. https://www.schoolsthatlead.org/blog/ai-in-education-pros-cons
Amber,
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for sharing about using Chat GPT for tutoring! I, too, am not very experienced with AI and wanted to learn more about it. I appreciate the example you gave about your daughter struggling with math. My youngest daughter does as well. Since math is not my strong point, I always refer her to her dad for extra help. He, however, is not at home or available to help at that exact moment. I will now show her how to use Chat GPT as another option. Brilliant! And I LOVE how you utilized it as a tutor for Battle of the Books! I have never participated in this activity but am excited to learn more and would love to include it in future programming. Your post opened my eyes to using AI to do just that. Thank you!
Best,
Cameron Bongiorno
I found your experience with the Battle of the Books practice very insightful! It highlights a key skill in using these tools: not just accepting the first response, but actively refining the prompts to get the precise format and output needed. The fact that you could create a shareable prompt for your students is a great takeaway for any educator. Also, acknowledging potential drawbacks like equity issues and the need for students to prompt effectively adds important, realistic context. It reinforces your conclusion that these tools have significant promise, but their success relies heavily on teacher guidance to help students navigate them.
ReplyDeleteAmber,
ReplyDeleteI also played around with the AI tutor. I did something simple such as two digit subtraction with regrouping. I then purposely got it wrong to see how it worked. It asked if I should start in the tens or ones place and then It asked then if I could subtract 3-7 when I said the ones and when I said no it then prompted me to think about what I could do to make it so I could subtract in the ones place. It wasn't just saying no like sometimes students do to each other but it was walking me through the problem so that I could get the correct answer "on my own". I thought about using this during small group time in my classroom when I am working with a group of students and my other students are doing independent work. What a perfect way for them to get help without just getting the answer like so many students would do because it's the easy way. I am definitely excited to use this in my classroom this coming year.
Amber,
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for sharing all of the experiences you had with the multiple ways that you interacted with ChatGPT. I also worked with the AI Tutor to create a prompt to assist students with literary analysis, so it was really fascinating to see how it helped when working with different content. The Battle of the Books practice that you did really stood out to me the most. My school has a Battle of the Books competition each year, and I know that the librarians spend an unbelievable amount of time handcrafting each of the practice quizzes and final question lists. The AI Tutor could help them so much in streamlining this process so that they can be made available to students quicker in the coming year. I will be sure to share this with the librarians at my school this year to help them out!
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ReplyDeleteAmber,
ReplyDeleteThank you for such a thoughtful and detailed reflection! It’s inspiring to see how you explored ChatGPT both as a math tutor for your daughter and as a tool to support Battle of the Books preparation, although they are different but meaningful applications. You also raise important points about equity and the need for teacher guidance to help students use AI effectively, which I completely agree with. Your post highlights the great potential of AI when paired with thoughtful implementation and support in schools. I especially appreciate how you tested and adapted ChatGPT to fit specific instructional needs, showing just how versatile and responsive the tool can be when used intentionally. With continued exploration and collaboration among educators, I believe tools like this can transform student engagement and access to learning.