There has been a fair amount of concern over the threats that ChatGPT and AI in general pose to teaching. But perhaps there’s an upside? Eric Schliesser (Amsterdam) entertains the possibility: Without wanting to diss the underlying neural network, but ChatGPT is a bullshitter in the (Frankfurt) sense of having no concern for the truth at all… I have seen many of my American colleagues remark that while ChatGPT is, as of yet, unable to handle technical stuff skillfully, it can produce B- undergraduate papers.
Teaching
“It will be difficult to make an entire class completely ChatGPT cheatproof. But we can at least make it harder for students to use it to cheat.” (I’m reposting this to encourage those teaching philosophy courses to share what they are doing differently this semester so as to teach effectively in a world in which their students have access to ChatGPT. It was originally published on January 4th.) That’s Julia Staffel (University of Colorado, Boulder) in a helpful video she has put together on ChatGPT and its impact on teaching philosophy. In it, she explains what ChatGPT is, demonstrates how it can be used by students to cheat in ways that are difficult to detect, and discusses what we might do about it. You can watch it below: See our previous discussions on the topic: Conversation Starter: Teaching Philosophy in an Age of Large Language Models If You Can’t Beat Them, Join Them: GPT-3 Edition Oral Exams in Undergrad Courses? Talking Philosophy with ChatGPT Philosophers On GPT-3 (updated with replies by GPT-3)
Between the developments in large language models (like GPT-3) and their possible use by students, and being in the thick of end-of-term grading of papers, the idea of making use of oral exams, as suggested in a recent New York Times column, seems tempting. It would be useful to hear from philosophy professors who have used oral exams in undergraduate courses. What are the advantages and disadvantages? What are some tips for doing it well? What are some problems to try to avoid? How structured are they? How uniform across students? Do you use a rubric, and if so, what’s on it? What kinds of philosophical questions do they work well with, and which not? What do the students think of them? And for those who haven’t used oral exams in this setting: do you have other questions you’re hoping could be answered by those who have? Do you have particular concerns about doing so? Tell us all about it. Thank you!
I started cold calling after a student (a CT reader and commenter, who remembers this because I remind her of it [1]), many years ago, having sat silently throughout my senior-level class in political philosophy, explained why she wanted to attend Law School. “I’ve heard that in Law School they cold-call, so that all the […]
I’m attempting a new strategy in my Introduction to Advertising course. This semester, any student who competes eight hours on LinkedIn Learning will be able to “power up” their Final Exam to an automatic 100. So how did this come about? Students are eager to learn hard skills. Students often bring up in end of […]