How will AI affect students' writing skills? — Transcript

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1. 0:00I actually resonate with teachers when
2. 0:01they when they stress about students
3. 0:02using AI tools. It hearkens me back to
4. 0:05one of the first English teachers that
5. 0:06we worked with. Uh we we we did this
6. 0:09training on how you know this is like
7. 0:10the very first days of chat GPT and I
8. 0:12caught up with her 6 months later asked
9. 0:13her like how is it going using AI in the
10. 0:16classroom? She was like oh my gosh it
11. 0:17was so engaging. My students loved it.
12. 0:19She she had all these really fun
13. 0:20activities that she created with AI. Um
14. 0:24it's the most engaged that she'd ever
15. 0:25seen her students. And and then I was
16. 0:27like and we actually had a New York
17. 0:28Times reporter that wanted to talk to a
18. 0:29teacher that was using chat GBT and I
19. 0:31said oh like well how are you using it
20. 0:32today? And she's like oh I don't use it
21. 0:34anymore. Well why don't why did you stop
22. 0:36using it? She said well you know I teach
23. 0:37freshman English and we got to the
24. 0:39portion of my class where students were
25. 0:41learning how to create an outline and I
26. 0:44realized how part part of the way
27. 0:46through that se section that they they
28. 0:49were not learning how to create an
29. 0:50outline. They were learning how to ask
30. 0:51and prompt engineer for an outline. and
31. 0:54she's like, "Those are those those are
32. 0:55actually different skills."
33. 0:56The thing I would just say about that is
34. 0:58I'm not suggesting that people should
35. 1:01stop learning how to write. What I'm
36. 1:03suggesting is that it's a different
37. 1:05process now. And that the same way, by
38. 1:08the way, like you could have said the
39. 1:10same thing about spellch check. And I
40. 1:11remember I'm old enough to be like,
41. 1:13"Penmanship is important to learn."
42. 1:16Is penmanship important to learn?
43. 1:20I
44. 1:22I don't think so. I do think that
45. 1:24writing is thinking.
46. 1:25Sure. I I agree with that. And so my
47. 1:28point is not that writing is like
48. 1:30penmanship. My point is that of course
49. 1:32it's important to learn. And the
50. 1:34question is how and in what context and
51. 1:36that we should get away from, well, if
52. 1:38they're using the LLM, they're not
53. 1:39learning to write. It's like, no,
54. 1:41they're learning to write in the same
55. 1:42way that when I use spellch check, I'm
56. 1:43still learning to write. It's just
57. 1:45different. and I need to stay pay
58. 1:47attention to how do I edit, how do I how
59. 1:50can I compose a paragraph on my own and
60. 1:52we just don't know what all those lines
61. 1:55are going to be.
62. 1:56I agree with that. I my my my in my
63. 1:59instinct is that the the whole the whole
64. 2:01thing about like writing is thinking and
65. 2:03the whole thing about like why is it why
66. 2:06does it feel
67. 2:08uh wrong when a student is just getting
68. 2:10to um the outline so quickly and I think
69. 2:13that is that there's actually a lot that
70. 2:15you gain from sitting in front of a
71. 2:18blank p piece of paper and like
72. 2:20struggling to figure out how to get
73. 2:21started like you have these thoughts in
74. 2:23your head and this like sort of
75. 2:25productive struggle that comes from
76. 2:27writing, especially early on, you know,
77. 2:28like once you do it enough, you kind of
78. 2:30build the like the muscle memory to
79. 2:32figure out how to get started and, you
80. 2:33know, like for me it was always like I
81. 2:34would spend a lot of time with the first
82. 2:36paragraph and once I had that, the rest
83. 2:38kind of flowed. But the process was not
84. 2:40just it's not it's it's I I think that I
85. 2:42actually built and learned a lot from
86. 2:45the the the the challenge that that I
87. 2:48faced in writing. And I and I and I
88. 2:50wonder if
89. 2:52something being so easy. Um
90. 2:55yeah, and and maybe it's just different
91. 2:56ways of creating productive struggle,
92. 2:58right?
93. 2:58I think it's different ways. So I think
94. 3:00productive struggle is for sure
95. 3:01essential, but I think the different
96. 3:04ways is the question because I sort of
97. 3:07hear like when I went to school, I had
98. 3:08to walk up, you know, walk uphill both
99. 3:10ways kind of thing. And okay,
100. 3:13struggle is great. It's just got to be
101. 3:15necessary struggle. And unnecessary
102. 3:18struggle can be fine as an exercise.
103. 3:20Like look, I go to the gym. I li I don't
104. 3:22really, but I should go to the gym and
105. 3:24lift weights and that's unnecessary
106. 3:26struggle, but it's necessary for my own
107. 3:28health and learning, you know? Um uh uh
108. 3:32uh
109. 3:33yeah. And so, but I but I think I'm not
110. 3:36trying to dismiss the idea of productive
111. 3:38struggle. I'm trying to dismiss the idea
112. 3:40that which struggles are productive is
113. 3:42fixed because I think it's malleable
114. 3:43across time and we should find new
115. 3:45productive struggles. That's my kind of
116. 3:47general take.
117. 3:48Yeah. And this is and this is where I I
118. 3:50find that the issue with teachers being
119. 3:52worried about students cheating is is so
120. 3:54fascinating to me because on the one
121. 3:56hand I I don't think it's correct to
122. 3:58just think of a student using AI equals
123. 4:00cheating.
124. 4:00Of course not. And at Berkeley, by the
125. 4:02way, in my class, I require the students
126. 4:04to use AI. The only rule is they have to
127. 4:06tell me how they used it.
128. 4:08But okay, so but but but the nuance is
129. 4:11if the student is more effective at
130. 4:13using AI than the teacher and certainly
131. 4:15if the teacher doesn't have any
132. 4:18comfort or experience with what AI is
133. 4:20capable of, I do think that it's
134. 4:21possible for the students to get around
135. 4:23the teacher's ability to um create that
136. 4:26productive struggle because like if if
137. 4:28the teacher doesn't know what the AI is
138. 4:30capable of, you know, they'll do things
139. 4:32like what my favorite is when they say,
140. 4:33"Oh, I figured out the Trojan horse
141. 4:35strategy." And this is one of the things
142. 4:36that was shared on our Facebook where
143. 4:37you put like, you know, in white text
144. 4:39some like, you know, Trojan horse to
145. 4:41sort of fool the prompt into like
146. 4:42including the word Frankenstein
147. 4:44somewhere in the in the homework
148. 4:45assignment. Um, and and to me, this is
149. 4:48like this is this is what this
150. 4:50represents is that teachers are not
151. 4:51they're they're spending too much time
152. 4:53trying to figure out how to actually
153. 4:54like enforce and like stop students that
154. 4:56they're actually they're not investing
155. 4:58the time into figuring the tools out for
156. 4:59themselves, which I think would get them
157. 5:01to a place where they figure out, oh
158. 5:03yeah, I mean that is a you kids and your
159. 5:04rock and roll kind of moment.
160. 5:07Do you have any So, what other
161. 5:08strategies? I mean, so you ask the
162. 5:10students to use the AI and show you how
163. 5:11they use it.
164. 5:12I have no other strategies.
165. 5:16How do you how can you validate I mean
166. 5:18like are your I assume your homework
167. 5:20assignments are not um they're not doing
168. 5:24multiple choice tests is they're not
169. 5:26doing
170. 5:26I don't have a cheating problem in
171. 5:28general because the students can't even
172. 5:30disclose their grades they're paying a
173. 5:32lot of money to be there it's business
174. 5:33school so my view is
175. 5:36right
176. 5:36it's not if they cheat it's fine but I'm
177. 5:39not there to enforce anti-cheing against
178. 5:41them and there's no right answers to the
179. 5:43question I ask like the final assignment
180. 5:44as a personal reflection essay on the
181. 5:46class. Like I don't even know what it
182. 5:47would mean to cheat on that. Like did
183. 5:49you not share the thing that you and so
184. 5:52it's just different for me and easier.
185. 5:54But I do empathize with the fact that in
186. 5:57a different context if you're a math
187. 5:59teacher, if you're an English teacher
188. 6:01assigning an essay on Sound and the
189. 6:02Fury, you know, cheating could be a big
190. 6:05deal. So um but I but but I hear you on
191. 6:08the desire for people to figure out what
192. 6:11they're doing. um being something that
193. 6:15is
194. 6:17sorry figure out the tools being
195. 6:19something that trades off with blocking
196. 6:21others from using the tools. So that
197. 6:22seems like a real issue to me.
198. 6:25Okay. I this this this self-reflection.
199. 6:28This is one of my favorite ones. Um been
200. 6:30something else that I hear a lot is
201. 6:31teachers say, "Well, self-reflection,
202. 6:32something that that that that's
203. 6:34personalized to the student." Um, and
204. 6:38the challenge is I think you can
205. 6:40actually get a pretty damn good
206. 6:42self-reflection with a single sentence
207. 6:44prompt. And and you could do a little
208. 6:47bit more prompting. It would take you
209. 6:49probably less than 5 to 10 minutes to
210. 6:50get to something that's
211. 6:52probably high enough quality that
212. 6:55totally maybe not you, but
213. 6:57by the way, if I had to do a
214. 6:58self-reflection, I'd be like, "Hey, AI,
215. 7:01look at my emails that I've sent
216. 7:02relating to this class." I'd upload the
217. 7:05emails directly into chat gyppt or
218. 7:07claude or something like that and I'd
219. 7:09say based on this and also my slack
220. 7:11messages which I'd cut and paste in what
221. 7:13are my reflections and then I'd edit
222. 7:16that and then you'd edit it and but I
223. 7:19guess the challenge is what like how and
224. 7:21and so the point is taking that if
225. 7:23you're an MBA and you're cheating it's
226. 7:24like well why are you spending the money
227. 7:26like
228. 7:26but also but also like look if it's
229. 7:29easier or harder I'm not going to the
230. 7:30printing press and laying out the print
231. 7:32type on the machine anymore. more
232. 7:34either. I'm not doing mimographs, you
233. 7:36know, like there's a lot of conveniences
234. 7:38that have come along the way and I think
235. 7:40we have to embrace constructive
236. 7:42convenience and still find a way to
237. 7:44learn the things we need to learn. So
238. 7:46your point about productive struggle I
239. 7:48think is so valid but the mere fact it
240. 7:51is a lot easier does not disqualify it
241. 7:54in my perspective.