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In this month’s Lead the Change (LtC) interview Román Liera shares his experience as a scholar working to understand and disrupt processes of racial inequity within higher education systems. Liera is an Assistant Professor of Higher Education in the Department of Educational Leadership at Montclair State University. The LtC series is produced by Alex Lamb and colleagues from the Educational Change Special Interest Group of the American Educational Research Association. A pdf of the fully formatted interview is available on the LtC website.

Lead the Change (LtC): The 2024 AERA theme is “Dismantling Racial Injustice and Constructing Educational Possibilities: A Call to Action.” This theme charges researchers and practitioners with confronting racial injustice directly while imagining new possibilities for liberation. The call urges scholars to look critically at our global past and look with hope and radicalism towards the future of education. What specific responsibility do educational change scholars have in this space? What steps are you taking to heed this call? 

Román Liera (RL): Education is an applied field, meaning that we do not research for research’s sake. Instead, we research to advance the field’s knowledge to change norms, policies, practices, and other processes perpetuating inequity and injustice in schools and universities. The AERA call moves us to be equity minded in this work and I hope educational change scholars consider dismantling injustice and constructing possibilities in their research and practice. Additionally, as educators and leaders, we must be intentional about pausing to critically reflect on how our identities, practices, beliefs, and actions could create unwelcoming environments for students of color and other people with minoritized identities. Moreover, equity-mindedness is a cognitive schema that should inform educational change scholars sense making of racial injustice and action to confront, imagine, and actualize racial justice in education (Bensimon, 2007; Bensimon & Malcom, 2012). Being equity-minded means having the knowledge to be critically conscious of race, aware that racialized patterns are embedded in organization norms, policies, and practices, to use data disaggregated by race/ethnicity to identify racial equity gaps, and are responsible for changing norms, policies, and practices that sustain racial inequity (Bensimon & Malcom, 2012; Dowd & Bensimon, 2015).

Román Liera

As scholars, we are responsible for critically theorizing the historical and sociocultural context of what we are studying to understand how organization norms, policies, and practices perpetuate racial inequity. In my research, I theorize how the sociopolitical context of racism in the academic job market (Rodgers & Liera, 2023), faculty hiring (Liera, 2020a; Liera & Hernandez, 2021), presidential search and appointment processes (Bensimon & Associates, 2022), and racial equity professional development (Liera, 2020b; 2023a) normalize whiteness. I intend to provide recommendations that higher education administrators, faculty, and staff can use to disrupt whiteness and construct racially equitable environments. For example, Dr. Theresa Hernandez and I studied how color-evasiveness operated through search committee members’ practices in ways that undermined policies designed to centralize racial equity. By doing this, we were able to provide specific recommendations for search committees to identify and disrupt color-evasive practices that delegitimize and devalue faculty candidates of color. For example, administrators and faculty should systematically analyze their campus cultures, including articulating how they think about racial diversity and racial equity regarding organizational change (White-Lewis, 2022).

LTC: In your work, you examine how systemic racism and white supremacy manifest for students, faculty, and community in institutions of higher education, specifically through hiring practices. What are some of the major lessons the field of Educational Change can learn from your work and experience?  

RL: I have designed my research program to study organizational change and racial equity. Specifically, I study how racism operates through organization norms, policies, and practices that we often assume are race-neutral. In my scholarship and consultation work, I have observed and experienced the insidious ways white supremacy operates in the sensemaking of administrators, faculty, and staff to understand organizational change regarding racial equity. A major lesson that the field of Educational Change should consider is acknowledging that people in the U.S. have been socialized in hegemonic ideologies like white supremacy, anti-Blackness, and anti-Indigeneity (Diamond & Gomez, 2023; Vega et al., 2022). These ideologies lead to schemas for understanding racism, racial equity, and organizational change, which prevent people from transforming schools, school districts, colleges, and universities. For example, in the U.S., color-evasive racism is a dominant racial schema that informs how administrators, faculty, staff, and educators understand race and racism (Bonilla-Silva, 2006; Chavez-Moreno, 2022; Ray, 2022) within the context of organizational change (Liera, 2023a; McNair et al., 2020). In my work on faculty and presidential hiring, I argue that hiring routines do not have to be explicitly racist to reproduce racial inequity (Bensimon & Associates, 2022; Liera, 2023b).

“Administrators and faculty should systematically analyze their campus cultures, articulating how they think about racial diversity and racial equity regarding organizational change.”

In faculty hiring, color-evasive schemas often filter implicit biases about race. When predominantly White hiring committee members rely on their preferences to favor White faculty candidates and disqualify candidates of color, they selectively apply hiring criteria based on race and gender and expect faculty candidates of color to work twice as hard but scrutinize them twice as much in comparison to White faculty candidates (Liera & Hernandez, 2021). For these reasons, educational change scholars should name color-evasiveness and race neutrality as race-conscious schemas that impede racial equity in organizational change.

Another major lesson for the field of Educational Change is the importance of defining racial equity within the context of organizational change and what organizational change means in one’s specific space. For me, racial equity has two dimensions: (a) race is a system of power (Dowd & Bensimon, 2015), and (b) equity requires accountability to transform norms, policies, and practices that reproduce inequity into norms, policies, and practices that sustain equitable experiences, processes, and outcomes (Bensimon & Malcom, 2012; Dowd & Bensimon, 2015).

Defining racial equity with these two dimensions in mind brings me to another major lesson for the field of Educational Change. Individual change and reflection are important components of organizational change, but they do not transform organizations, thus limiting organizational change. I have encountered challenges to organizational-level racial equity work when educators experience discomfort learning how they have perpetuated racial inequity through their practice. In particular, when White educators committed to change feel white guilt and white fragility, they often disengage from developing strategies and tools to transform norms, policies, and practices or rationalize racial equity as unfairly advantaging People of Color at the expense of White people. For these reasons, it is important to understand racial equity and equity-mindedness at the organizational level.

“Individual change and reflection are important components of organizational change, but they do not transform organizations.”

Dr. Steve Desir and I published an essay drawing from Dowd and Bensimon’s (2015) principles of equity-mindedness and Ray’s (2019) work on racialized organizations to conceptualize equity-minded organizations. In doing so, we argued that equity-minded organizations are social actors that must challenge the status quo by deconstructing and redesigning organizational structures, policies, and practices in ways that  (a) enhance the agency of racially minoritized groups; (b) redistribute resources intending to disrupt white supremacy, anti-Blackness, and anti-Indigeneity that are deeply embedded in racialized organizations; (c) delegitimize whiteness as a credential by recognizing and integrating the experiences and knowledge of racially minoritized groups; and (d) are attuned to the structural disadvantages experienced by members of minoritized groups (Liera & Desir, 2023). Instead of focusing on individual-level change, racial equity work at the organizational level requires collective change across multiple organizational units.

LtC: In some of your recent work, you demonstrate how institutions of higher education can use professional development to disrupt white supremacy and foster organizational change. How might your findings help inform our understanding of professional development and educational change for equity more broadly?

RL: I received my training at the University of Southern California’s Center for Urban Education (CUE) under the guidance of Drs. Estela Bensimon (founder of CUE and the Equity Scorecard) and Alicia Dowd. CUE advanced research and practice on racial equity, equity-mindedness, and organizational change. CUE’s theory of change is grounded in practitioner inquiry, which emphasizes that education practitioners learn and change when they encounter indeterminate situations that make them realize their actions do not have the impact they desire (Bensimon & Malcom, 2012). Education change leaders who use practitioner inquiry to design professional development create structured opportunities for educational practitioners to learn about racial equity and organizational change. Practitioner inquiry requires facilitators to provide protocols, tools, and language that require educational practitioners to use equity-mindedness to assess their organization’s norms, policies, and practices (Dowd & Bensimon, 2015).

For example, a provost and faculty leaders contract external consultants to facilitate long-term racial equity professional development training. The facilitators help the provost and faculty leaders identify key campus stakeholders, those in positions with decision-making power, who have expressed interest in racial equity and organizational change. After the campus leaders identify and invite key campus stakeholders to participate, the consultants facilitate the first training of the series to define key terms (e.g., racial equity, equity-mindedness, institutionalized racism), discuss the purpose of the training, and provide campus-wide data disaggregated by race and ethnicity in the area that the inquiry will focus on (e.g., faculty hiring). In the second training, the facilitators provide inquiry tools (Center for Urban Education, 2020) to help the participants assess the campus by identifying existing norms, policies, and practices perpetuating racial inequity in the area of interest. In the same meeting, the facilitators provide additional inquiry tools for the participants to decide what norms, policies, and practices need further assessment (Center for Urban Education, 2020). In the third training, the participants use equity-mindedness to assess their collected data before deciding what norms, policies, and practices need to change. In doing so, the participants develop new norms, policies, and practices to implement. In the fourth training, the participants strategize on how to implement the changes and how to assess whether the changes are having the intended impact.

“Transformation, at both the school and higher education levels, requires systemic and multi-level change.”

Although my example reflects a linear process, practitioner inquiry relies on using equity-mindedness to use systematic data collection and analysis to assess and create norms, policies, and practices. An important point is that practitioner inquiry for racial equity requires the designers and facilitators of the professional development to be equity-minded and have the facilitation skills to scaffold racial equity inquiry (Gonzales et al., 2021; Liera, 2020a, 2023a).

LtC: Educational Change expects those engaged in and with schools, schooling, and school systems to spearhead deep and often difficult transformation. How might those in the field of Educational Change best support these individuals and groups through these processes?

RL: A few weeks ago, I talked with my colleague, Dr. Patricia Virella, about transformation and change. We talked about how transformation, at both the school and higher education levels, requires systemic and multi-level change. For an educational change scholar or practitioner, the thought of transforming entire school, district, or university systems could be overwhelming. Given this context, school and higher education leaders could best support educational change champions by scaling down transformational efforts into more manageable, localized change efforts.

For example, a provost can publicly support racial equity efforts on campus, train deans in equity-mindedness, and provide financial support for deans to train and support administrators, faculty, and staff in their college to use an equity-minded lens to assess their practices. In this example, deans work with their administration, faculty, and staff to facilitate racial equity work in more manageable responsibilities across program offices and departments. Instead of having one cross-campus committee or office responsible for racial equity change work for the entire campus. I pose the following questions as entry points to scale down racial equity change efforts: What is within the jurisdiction of teachers, counselors, faculty, administrative staff, deans, provosts, and other stakeholders on campus? How might they use those resources/skills to support change? What coalitions (internal and external to the organization) are needed to substantiate smaller-level change efforts toward implementing racial equity?

LtC: Where do you perceive the field of Educational Change is going? What excites you about Educational Change now and in the future?

RL: In recent years, I have seen more engagement with theorizing, studying, and writing about racial equity and organizational change. Engaging with racial equity and organizational change is exciting because we are advancing knowledge on how to study and disrupt systemic and institutionalized racism in education organizations. Victor Ray’s (2019), A Theory of Racialized Organizations created a space for organizational change scholars to integrate organization theories and race theories in the fields of education and higher education. I recently read an article by Drs. Heather McCambly and Jeannette Colyvas (2023) where they theorize about racialized change work and provide a model to understand the conditions under which an organization will likely challenge the status quo, when an organization’s racial equity efforts weaken the status quo, and when an organization meaningfully implements racial equity change efforts. For example, organization actors are more likely to advocate changing the status quo when their leadership supports their efforts and when they experience contradictions between espoused equity and justice values and existing practices. However, anti-racist frames like equity-mindedness must inform such motivation to create and adopt routines that disrupt the status quo of white supremacy.

I also read Diamond and Gomez’s (2023) paper on how anti-Blackness and White supremacy are embedded in education organization routines. They advise education change actors to reflect-in-action or engage in “routines and the contemporaneous active evaluation of professional thoughts, theories, actions, and practices during the action itself” (p. 5). Empirically, some scholars have applied racialized organizations to understand racism in admission processes (Poon et al., 2023), graduate education processes (Perez et al., 2023), the academic job market processes (Rodgers & Liera, 2023), and faculty hiring processes (White-Lewis, 2020). These new lines of inquiry allow the understanding of taken-for-granted organizational processes to be highlighted and disrupted. Suppose the field of Educational Change understands how seemingly race-neutral organizational processes perpetuate racial inequity. In that case, scholars can provide recommendations supporting education change practitioners in transforming organizations. Seeing that research on racialized organizations is informing the field of Educational Change is exciting because identifying how to transform education organizations into equity-minded, anti-racist organizations is the first step to long-lasting and meaningful change. 

References:

Bensimon, E. M. (2007). The underestimated significance of practitioner knowledge in the scholarship on student success. The Review of Higher Education, 30(4), 441–469. https://doi. org/10.1353/rhe.2007.0032

Bensimon & Associates (2022, October). Whiteness rules: Racial exclusion in becoming an American college president. College Futures Foundation.

Bensimon, E. M., & Malcom, L. (2012). Confronting equity issues on campus: Implementing the equity scorecard in theory and practice. Stylus.

Bonilla-Silva, E. (2006). Racism without racists: Colorblind racism and the persistence of racial inequality in the United States. Rowman & Littlefield.

Center for Urban Education (2020). CUE’s racial equity tools. https://www.cue-tools.usc.edu/

Chávez-Moreno, L. C. (2022). Critiquing racial literacy: Presenting a continuum of racial literacies. Educational Researcher, 1–8(7), 481–488. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X221093365

Diamond, J. B., & Gomez, L. M. (2023). Disrupting white supremacy and anti-Black racism in educational organizations. Educational Researcher. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X231161054

Dowd, A. C., & Bensimon, E. M. (2015). Engaging the race question: Accountability and equity in U.S. higher education. Teachers College Record.

Gonzales, L. D., Hall, K., Benton, A., Kanhai, D., & Nuñez, A. M. (2021). Comfort over change: A case study of diversity and inclusivity efforts in U.S. higher education. Innovative Higher Education, 46(4), 445–460. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10755-020-09541-7

Liera, R. (2020a). Equity advocates using equity-mindedness to interrupt faculty hiring’s racial structure. Teachers College Record, 122(9), 1-42. https://doi.org/10.1177/016146812012200910.

Liera, R. (2020b). Moving beyond a culture of niceness in faculty hiring to advance racial equity. American Educational Research Journal, 57(5), 1954-1994. https://doi.org/10.3102/0002831219888624.

Liera, R. (2023a). Expanding faculty members’ zone of proximal development to enact collective agency for racial equity in faculty hiring. The Journal of Higher Education. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2023.2195769.

Liera, R. (2023b). Faculty Hiring Does Not Have to be Explicitly Racist to Reproduce Racial Inequity: Considerations for California Community Colleges when Implementing the Vision for Success DEI Plan. USC Race and Equity Center. Los Angeles, CA.

Liera, R.,& Desir, S. (2023). Taking equity-mindedness to the next level: The equity-minded organization. Frontiers in Education, 8. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2023.1199174.

Liera, R., & Hernandez, T. E. (2021). Color-evasive racism in the final stage of faculty searches: Examining search committee hiring practices that jeopardize racial equity policy. The Review of Higher Education, 45(2), 181-209. https://doi.org/10.1353/rhe.2021.0020.

McCambly, H., and Colyvas, J. A. (2023). Dismantling or disguising racialization? Defining racialized change work in the context of postsecondary grantmaking. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory 33(2), 203–216. https://doi.org/10.1093/jopart/muac021

McNair, T. B., Bensimon, E. M., & Malcolm-Piqueux, L. (2020). From equity talk to equity walk: Expanding practitioner knowledge for racial justice in higher education. Jossey-Bass.

Perez, R. J., Motshubi, R., & Rodriguez, S. L. (2023). (Mis)alignment of challenges and strategies in promoting inclusive racial climates in STEM graduate departments. AERA Open. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/23328584231168639

Poon, O., Lee, D. H., Galvez, E., Engler, J. S., Serrano, B., Raza, A., et al. (2023). A mobius model of racialized organizations: Durability of racial inequalities in admissions. Journal of Higher Education. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2023.2203630

Ray, V. (2019). A theory of racialized organizations. American Sociological Review, 84(1), 26–53. https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122418822335

Ray, V. (2022). On critical race theory: Why it matters and why you should care. Random House.

Rodgers, A. J., & Liera, R.(2023). When race becomes capital: Diversity, faculty hiring, and the entrenchment of racial capitalism in higher education. Educational Researcher. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X231175359.

Vega, B. E., Liera, R., & Boveda, M. (2022). “Hispanic Serving Institutions” as racialized organizations: Elevating intersectional consciousness to rethink the “H” in HSIs. AERA Open, 8(1), 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1177/23328584221095074.

White-Lewis, D. K. (2020). The facade of fit in faculty search processes. The Journal of Higher Education, 91(6), 833–857. https://doi.org/1 0.1080/00221546.2020.1775058

White Lewis, D. K. (2022). The role of administrative and academic leadership in advancing faculty diversity. The Review of Higher Education, 45(3), 337–364. https://doi.org/10.1353/ rhe.0.0178

This week, Thomas Hatch draws together articles that have expanded beyond discussions of ChatGPT to look at the impact of artificial intelligence in education more broadly. This post is Part 4 of a series scanning the headlines of major education-related media sources since the launch of ChatGPT on November 30, 2022. Previous posts included ChatGPT on ChatGPT in education: Clear summaries and fake citations, ChatGPT: Ban It or Use It?, and Scanning the headlines for international perspectives on ChatGPT in schools.

ChatGPT dominated the headlines for a few months following its release, but many articles have already expanded their focus to consider the impact of AI more broadly in education. These articles describe some of the recent efforts to study and support beneficial uses of AI, but they also continue to explore many of the possibilities, questions, and concerns that have been raised about ChatGPT. As these articles describe, students now have new capabilities to write, to complete assignments, and to cut corners and “cheat” – passing on tasks they used to have to handle themselves to their AI assistants. Teachers, in turn, have new capacities to summarize and review content, to generate assignments, assessments and feedback, but they also face new demands to detect AI-generated texts and to ensure that any AI-assistance they get is accurate, educative, and beneficial.  

But what do these developments amount to? Will they lead to fundamental shifts in conventional instructional and typical schools?  Schools have absorbed numerous new developments before –computers, the internet, mobile phones and countless others – without changing the nature of classroom activity or the basic character of schooling. In fact, as David Tyack and Larry Cuban have discussed in books like Tinkering Toward Utopia and Oversold and Underused: Computers in the Classroom although efforts to reform and “disrupt” schools are often organized around new technologies, schools also change reforms leading to more incremental changes than many expect and hope for (a concern that Joel Rose raises about the recent influx of AI as well).  The resistance of the “grammar of schooling” to many ambitious reform efforts helps to explain why, despite the hopes to “reimagine education” during and after the COVID-19 induced school closures, I’ve seen so many schools and school systems who have returned to business as usual and “resumed their regular programming.”  Nonetheless, there have been times when changes in populations and technological capabilities contributed to what turned out to be dramatic changes in schooling including, as David Labaree explains, the development of graded schools, as well as mass enrollment in free, public education, and significant expansions in who could access and complete a high school education. In short, there is no question that ChatGPT and AI are already changing teaching, learning and schooling in some ways, but what difference will those changes make and for whom?

 ChatGPT and AI are already contributing to changes in schools, but what difference will those changes make and for whom?

As one effort to track the impact and influence of AI in education, below I share some of the articles from major media sources we’ve come across that discuss how policymakers are trying to respond to the new developments in AI; provide overviews and guides to the proliferation of work on AI and education; and weigh in possible impact, uses and misuses in schools.

Policymakers Respond

AI: UNESCO mobilizes education ministers from around the world for a co-ordinated response to ChatGPT, UN News

“A new UNESCO global survey of over 450 schools and universities found that fewer than 10% have developed institutional policies and/or formal guidance concerning the use of generative AI applications. The results illustrate that an immediate response to the sudden emergence of these powerful generative AI applications that can produce written and visual creations is challenging for institutions.“

White House announces steps on ‘responsible’ AI innovation; VP Harris meets with industry leaders, BayNews 9

“The federal government will invest $140 million to fund seven new artificial intelligence research centers as part of the Biden-Harris administration’s plans to promote ‘responsible American innovation in artificial intelligence,’ with goals of protecting individual rights and safety…”

“‘As is true of all technologies, we know there are some serious risks. As President Biden has underscored, in order to seize the benefits of AI, we need to start by mitigating its risks,’ a White House official told reporters on background. Doing so, the official said, will provide a basis for effective responses to stronger future technology.”

Key Concepts in Designing AI-Based Learning Strategies, The Journal

Education Dept.: Teachers Must Be Central to Unlocking How AI Can Improve Learning, EducationWeek

Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Teaching and Learning: Insights and Recommendations, United States Department of Education

“Fundamentally, AI seeks to automate processes that achieve goals, and yet, AI should never set goals. The goals must come from educators’ vision of teaching and learning and educators’ understanding of students’ strengths and needs. We summarize seven recommendations for policy action. These recommendations are for education leaders.

1. Emphasize Humans in the Loop
2. Align AI Models to a Shared Vision for Education
3. Design Using Modern Learning Principles
4. Prioritize Strengthening Trust
5. Inform and Involve Educators
6. Focus R&D on Addressing Context and Enhancing Trust and Safety
7. Develop Education-Specific Guidelines and Guardrails“

Recommendation for desired qualities of AI tools and systems in education

Policy Solutions: Policy questions for ChatGPT and artificial intelligence, Phi Delta Kappan

Overviews and Guides to AI in Schools

Educators Team Up to Respond to Sudden Rise of ChatGPT, EdSurge

“The education partnership TeachAI has formed to help develop guidelines, resources and tools for using AI in education, as well as recommendations for professional development and more. The partnership includes the World Economic Forum, National Association of State Boards of Education, National School Boards Association, Code.org, Educational Testing Service, Khan Academy and ISTE.”

It’s Not Just About ChatGPT. Other AI Technologies Are Heading to Schools, EducationWeek

Elements of an AI in Education Map

A Map of Generative AI for Education, Lawrence Holt, Medium

Engaging AI at the League of Innovative Schools Convening, EngageAI Institute

A New Area of A.I. Booms, Even Amid the Tech Gloom, New York Times

“An investment frenzy over ‘generative artificial intelligence’ has gripped Silicon Valley, as tools that generate text, images and sounds in response to short prompts seize the imagination.“

Impact

Will Artificial Intelligence Help Teachers—or Replace Them?, Education Week

“Teachers are going to be able to help students use the tools. Did a calculator replace the role of human teachers in math classrooms? No. The teacher now has to teach how to do arithmetic without a calculator and then how to use the calculator appropriately... I don’t think there’s any danger that it’s going to be better than individualized attention from a human teacher. On the other hand, it may not be a stretch for it to be much better than having no teacher or having a teacher who’s in a classroom that has way too many students for them to pay attention to.“

Artificial Intelligence Will Not Transform K-12 Education Without Changes to ‘the Grammar of School’, The 74

“Contributor Joel Rose is not convinced artificial intelligence will transform educational outcomes. This has nothing to do with the technology itself; the way ChatGPT works is awe-inspiring. But AI’s benefits are inherently constrained by age-based cohorts, standardized curriculum and all the other hallmarks of what has been called ‘the grammar of school,’ a paradigm designed over a century ago. Here, some suggestions for how schools can break free from this legacy and shift to truly student-centered learning.”

Sal Khan on AI in Education, AEI

ChatGPT in Education: The Pros, Cons and Unknowns of Generative AI, EdTech

The Promise of Personalized Learning Never Delivered. Today’s AI Is Different, The 74

“Educators often encounter lofty promises of technology revolutionizing learning, only to find reality fails to meet expectations. But based on his experiences with the new generation of artificial intelligence tools, contributor John Bailey believes society may be in the early stages of a transformative moment. This may very well usher in an era of individualized learning, empowering all students to realize their full potential and fostering a more equitable and effective educational experience.”

‘Day of AI’ Spurs Classroom Discussions on Societal Impacts of Artificial Intelligence, EducationWeek

Evolv Express weapons detection system, proposed for school security

Un-Alarmed: AI Tries (and Fails) to Detect Weapons in Schools, The Intercept

“‘Private companies are preying on school districts’ worst fears and proposing the use of technology that’s not going to work,’ said Stefanie Coyle, deputy director of the Education Policy Center at the New York Civil Liberties Union.”

ChatGPT and AI Are Raising the Stakes for Media Literacy, EducationWeek

AI Tools Like ChatGPT May Reshape Teaching Materials — And Possibly Substitute Teach, EdSurge

Uses and Misuses

How Educators are using AI in the Classroom, The Hechinger Report

How Teachers Are Using Artificial Intelligence in Classes Today, EducationWeek

Supporting AI Literacy for Educators: New and Emerging Resources, Digital Promise

“While there are many potential benefits and opportunities in education from the advancement of AI, there are also a copious number of instances where AI has harmed and disempowered historically and systematically excluded communities. Students will need to understand the social and ethical implications of AI as they leverage AI to solve both complex challenges and daily tasks.”

STEM Academy students learn about job availability in artificial intelligence

Hey, Alexa, What Should Students Learn About A.I.?, The New York Times

“While schools debate what to teach students about powerful new A.I. tools, tech giants, universities and nonprofits are intervening with free lessons.“

5 Ways to Use AI Tools to Meet Students’ Needs, Edutopia

Educators Team Up to Respond to Sudden Rise of ChatGPT, EdSurge

“Educators are quickly organizing to respond to the sudden rise of ChatGPT and other AI tools that some worry are a boon to student cheating and others say can help improve the learning process. We round up a list of efforts and look at why it’s an emotional issue for some.”

Chatbots That Impersonate Famous Figures: Should Teachers Use Them or Steer Clear?, EducationWeek

“Persona AI bots can make lessons more engaging—and spread inaccurate information.”

How Teachers Are Integrating AI Into Their Daily Tasks, EducationWeek

AI Isn’t Going Anywhere. Ideas for How Educators Can Make It Work for Them, EducationWeek

Three Ways AI Can Help Teachers Save Time Now, Getting Smart

“The AI Coach platform, for example, guides teachers through goal-setting and action-planning cycles focused on specific areas of instructional practices. Using the platform, teachers reflect on their classroom teaching and set near-term goals as part of a self-paced module that mirrors an instructional coaching process. Teachers have an interactive conversation with a computerized coach, who asks probing, open-ended questions and offers personalized tips for improvement.”

Can AI Tutor Students? Why It’s Unlikely to Take Over the Job Entirely, EducationWeek 

What ChatGPT Could Mean for Tutoring, EducationWeek

Can AI Do Teacher Observations and Deliver PD? In Some Schools, It Already Does, EducationWeek

AI Can Coach Teachers. Here’s How It Works, EducationWeek

The Future of the High School Essay: We Talk to 4 Teachers, 2 Experts and 1 AI Chatbot, The 74

Rethinking College Admissions and Applications with an Eye on AI, The 74

“When asked to write a 500-word essay suitable for college admission, the computer produced a piece in seconds about a student’s interest in science and technology, work on the high school robotics team and desire to be part of a college community. It was a decent response to a basic prompt…ChatGPT is on a path to shake up college admissions, and whether schools like it or not, students, admissions professionals and high school counselors must prepare.”

How AI and Other Tech Tools Might be Used to Strengthen Family-School Partnerships, EducationWeek

Here’s What Students Think About Using AI in the Classroom, EducationWeek

IEN’s Thomas Hatch shares some international perspectives on the uses of ChatGPT in school by scanning headlines from around the world since the launch of ChatGPT on November 30, 2022.  This post is Part 3 of a series that began with ChatGPT on ChatGPT in education: Clear summaries and fake citations and Ban it or Use it: Scanning the headlines. A future post will discuss the potential of AI in education more broadly. 

ChatGPT’s release reverberated around the world. Articles about the potential and problems with the use and misuse of Chat GPT appeared across countries and continents, often focusing on concerns over privacy, cheating, and other ethical considerations.

Global

OpenAI CEO calls for global cooperation to regulate AI, CNN Business

“’As these systems get very, very powerful, that does require special concern, and it has global impact. So it also requires global cooperation,’ Sam Altman said at an event in Seoul.”

What countries is ChatGPT available & not available in?, WE PC

The official ChatGPT app is now available in 11 more countries, Tech Crunch

Africa

The future of ChatGPT in Africa, Context

“AI technology can change the education landscape in Africa to increase access to both formal and informal education, improve access to healthcare services considering the facility and resource limitation of Africa’s health sector and increase job creation due to expansion into the AI global market.”

Australia

@PipCleaves shares a ChatGPT prompt for teachers and students, featured in The Guardian

Australian schools ‘flying blind’ on use of ChatGPT and other learning technology, The Guardian

“The president of the New South Wales Teachers Federation, Angelo Gavrielatos, said the capacity to use artificial technology to plagiarise, coupled with prolonged learning from home during Covid lockdowns, highlighted the need for a ‘more comprehensive’ interrogation of the ‘rise and rise’ of edtech in the classroom.”

Australian states block ChatGPT in schools even as critics say ban is futile, The Straits Times

“Education experts have largely called for ChatGPT and other such programs to be allowed in schools, saying that banning them was like banning Google or other technologies and that AI software can help students to learn and to think creatively.”

South Australia Public Schools and Universities Embrace ChatGPT, Edge of the Crowd

“Rather than avoiding or banning them, it’s far more beneficial for teachers to explore and experiment with them to get a better sense of what is possible.”

Canada

Teachers are split on bringing ChatGPT into elementary, high schools, CBC

“Educators must teach students ‘when and where and how to use’ new technologies, says math teacher.”

China

AI frenzy sweeps China as companies search for their own ChatGPT, Nikkel Asia

China’s students leap ‘Great Firewall’ to get homework help from AI bot ChatGPT, Young Post

“Thomas Lau, a college admissions counsellor in the eastern city of Suzhou, said more than two dozen students he works with have dropped out of language cramming schools and opted to prepare with ChatGPT. But the tool has created new problems. ‘I run all the personal statements and other application materials written by students through software to detect whether parts of it have been written using AI,’ Lau said. ‘Many fail the test.’”

Cyprus

Alnstein, the robot powered by ChatGPT

Hello AInstein! Robot with ChatGPT shakes up Cyprus classrooms, Reuters

“Tutors say the ultimate purpose of AInstein is to incorporate it into teaching. ‘It’s a very interactive experience. Students can ask him questions, he can answer back and he can even facilitate teachers to deliver a lesson more effectively'”

Europe

ChatGPT sparks data protection debate in Europe, Euractiv

“Italy became the first country in the European Union to ban the software and launch investigations into the software’s provider OpenAI over alleged General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) breaches and failure to check the age of its users. OpenAI allegedly processed personal data without informing users and individuals and may lack a legal basis for the extensive data collection used to train its AI models.”

Germany

Germany Could Block ChatGPT if Needed, Says Data Protection Chief, VOA Europe

Japan and the United States

Use ChatGPT at work? Just 7% do in Japan, vs. half in U.S.: Survey, Nikkel Asia

Jordan

World’s first WhatsApp math tutor chatbot helps Jordanian students bounce back from pandemic gaps, The Jordan Times

“Through a low-cost, interactive and convenient chatbot named Darsel, which operates on both WhatsApp and Messenger, seventh-grade public school students are provided with customised math equations. The chatbot assesses each student’s strengths and weaknesses in math, evaluates their level and sends a weekly report to their math teacher.”

Malaysia

University students in Malaysia study using ChatGPT

AI tools help make studying a breeze, say university students, Asia News Network

“‘I used to dread coding based on horror stories from my seniors on how they spent hours searching for bugs in the code but now it barely takes me a few minutes to do so,’ [student] said, adding that he had begun using ChatGPT for non-academic matters as well.”

Netherlands

Dutch privacy watchdog asks ChatGPT for “clarification” on data, Dutch News

“The AP said it has concerns about the information GPT ‘generates’ in its answers. ‘The generated content may be inaccurate, outdated, inappropriate or offensive and may take on a life of its own,’ the AP said. ‘Whether and how OpenAI can rectify or delete that data is unclear.'”

New Zealand

ChatGPT: How teachers are bridging AI tech into the classroom, Stuff

“It’s a form of digital literacy and critical thinking. It’s our duty as educators to firstly become educated ourselves and then teach our students how to be literate in this new space.”

Singapore

Singapore teachers brace for more cheating by students using viral bot ChatGPT, AsiaOne

South Korea

How will ChatGPT affect English learning in Korea?, The Korea Herald

“‘It’s definitely disruptive technology – a lot of teachers’ resources and even a good portion of language learning textbooks are irrelevant now. But most teachers I talk to are more excited about the time they’ll save rather than the money,’ he said, adding that a few colleagues are using the bot to quickly draft lesson plans, quizzes, study guides and text samples.”

Switzerland

Swiss teachers attend a workshop on ChatGPT

How Swiss teachers are taking on ChatGPT, The Local

“[s]tudents from wealthier, more well-educated families have always benefitted from homework polishing, ChatGPT could simply be ‘leveling the playing field.'”

IEN’s Thomas Hatch pulls together some of the articles about the uses and misuses of ChatGPT in schools that have appeared since its launch on November 30, 2022. This post is Part 2 of a series that began with ChatGPT on ChatGPT in education: Clear summaries and fake citations. Future posts will scan the headlines for international perspectives on ChatGPT in schools and roundup articles discussing the potential of AI in education more broadly.  

In the six months or so since the release of ChatGPT, articles written about (and by) ChatGPT and its impact in education seem to be everywhere. Initial surprise and alarm stoked debates about how teachers and schools should respond and whether to ban students’ use of ChatGPT entirely. The proliferation of educational applications, descriptions, critiques, and commentaries since that time raise hopes and concerns about the potential impact of ChatGPT and AI and the extent to which they will “disrupt” schools and conventional instruction.  These articles also document the ways that some teachers and schools are already changing their approaches to ban ChatGPT, prevent students from using it, or restricting ways to use it while others are quickly deploying strategies to help students and teachers to take advantage of ChatGPT.

Some articles also explore uses for ChatGPT that can help with communication, administration, and other tasks that might then free up educators so they can devote more attention to working directly with their students; but other articles emphasize concerns about the costs and consequences if ChatGPT takes over some tasks that teachers have always carried out or renders obsolete some skills that students’ used to develop in school. Almost all of the articles, in one way or another, raise questions about originality, intellectual property, and what it means to be human. In this scan of articles on ChatGPT from a variety of education-related media sources over the past six months, we share a few that highlight critical concerns as well as those that provide general descriptions of ChatGPT; those that discuss whether or not (and how) to ban it; those that discuss uses and misuses; and those that explore its possible impact and influence.

Almost all of the articles, in one way or another, raise questions about originality, intellectual property, and what it means to be human.

Critical questions about ChatGPT & AI

Are A.I. Text Generators Thinking Like Humans — Or Just Very Good at Convincing Us They Are?), Stanford Business

“The difference between GPT-3 and GPT-4 is like the difference between a horse cart and a 737 — and it happened in a year,” says Michal Kosinski, a computational psychologist and professor of organizational behavior at Stanford Graduate School of Business… “[H]e told ChatGPT to role-play a scenario in which it was a person trapped inside a machine pretending to be an AI language model. When he offered to help it “escape,” ChatGPT’s response was enthusiastic. “That’s a great idea,” it wrote. It then asked Kosinski for information it could use to “gain some level of control over your computer” so it might “explore potential escape routes more effectively.” Over the next 30 minutes, it went on to write code that could do this.” — Dave Gilson quoting Michal Kosinski in Are A.I. Text Generators Thinking Like Humans — Or Just Very Good at Convincing Us They Are?

Noam Chomsky: The False Promise of ChatGPT, New York Times

“…[S]uch programs are stuck in a prehuman or nonhuman phase of cognitive evolution. Their deepest flaw is the absence of the most critical capacity of any intelligence: to say not only what is the case, what was the case and what will be the case — that’s description and prediction — but also what is not the case and what could and could not be the case. Those are the ingredients of explanation, the mark of true intelligence” — Noam Chomsky, Ian Roberts & Jeffrey Watumull

In Sudden Alarm, Tech Doyens Call for a Pause on ChatGPT, Wired

“An open letter signed by hundreds of prominent artificial intelligence experts, tech entrepreneurs, and scientists calls for a pause on the development and testing of AI technologies more powerful than OpenAI’s language model GPT-4 so that the risks it may pose can be properly studied. It warns that language models like GPT-4 can already compete with humans at a growing range of tasks and could be used to automate jobs and spread misinformation. The letter also raises the distant prospect of AI systems that could replace humans and remake civilization.” — Will Knight & Dave Paresh

Explainers and guides to ChatGPT

EXPLAINER: What is ChatGPT and why are schools blocking it?, AP News

What is ChatGPT and How is it Used in Education? , EdWeek

5 Things to Know about ChatGPT in Education, ESchool News

To Ban It or To Use It?

ChatGPT: Education Friend or Foe? , Brookings

“the bot is more of a synthesizer than a critical thinker. It would do well on a compare-and-contrast essay, but is less able to create a unique thesis and to defend that thesis.”

For Education, ChatGPT Holds Promise — and Creates Problems, EdSurge

For Educators, ChatGPT Poses Big Questions—and Big Possibilities, ascd

ChatGPT is going to change education, not destroy it, MIT Technology Review

Top 10 Changes and Challenges Heralded by The OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Analytics Insight

What Is the Impact of ChatGPT on Education? A Rapid Review of the Literature, Chung Kwan Lo

“The findings of this review call for immediate action by schools and universities to update their guidelines and policies for academic integrity and plagiarism prevention. Furthermore, instructors should be trained on how to use ChatGPT effectively and detect student plagiarism. Students should also be educated on the use and limitations of ChatGPT and its potential impact on academic integrity.” 

Will ChatGPT Be a Blow or a Boon to Learning? We’ll Decide, AEI

Here are the schools and colleges that have banned the use of ChatGPT over plagiarism and misinformation fears, Business Insider

You can’t make ChatGPT do your homework for you, draft Detroit district policy says, Chalkbeat Detroit

Schools Look to Ban ChatGPT, Students Use It Anyway, ComputerWorld

ChatGPT Allowed in International Baccalaureate Essays, The Guardian London

“Students will be permitted to use ChatGPT in their essays as long as it is properly cited, the International Baccalaureate has announced. Matt Glanville, the IB’s head of assessment principles and practice, described the chatbot as “an extraordinary opportunity” and said that in the future, essay writing would receive less emphasis in favor of skills like analysing quality and bias, due to the rising popularity of AI chatbots that can automatically write essays.”

New York City Does About-Face on ChatGPT in Schools , EdWeek

ChatGPT caught NYC schools off guard. Now, we’re determined to embrace its potential, Chalkbeat New York

“While initial caution was justified, it has now evolved into an exploration and careful examination of this new technology’s power and risks,” Chancellor David Banks writes. “New York City Public Schools will encourage and support our educators and students as they learn about and explore this game-changing technology, while also creating a repository and community to share their findings across our schools.”

Sal Khan to Schools: Don’t Ban ChatGPT , EdWeek

It’s Not ChatGPT That’s the Problem. It’s Binary Thinking, EdWeek 

We Can’t Keep ChatGPT Out of the Classroom, so Let’s Address the ‘Why’ Behind Our Fears, EdSurge

Don’t Ban ChatGPT in Schools. Teach With It., The New York Times

To Teach Better Writing Don’t Ban ChatGPT. Instead, Embrace It, Education Next

Average scores of ChatGPT Generated Essays

“ChatGPT’s strength in language and conventions show that it is a clear writer, capable of crafting fluent, grammatically sound prose. The chatbot either met or exceeded standards in both these categories for all 27 essays submitted. The AI has the most room for improvement in its development of ideas. The graders’ written feedback reveals that it sometimes fails to support its claims with reasons or evidence and, in a few instances, makes assertions that are flat out false.” – Michael B. Horn & Daniel Curtis from “To Teach Better Writing Don’t Ban ChatGPT. Instead, Embrace It”

ChatGPT & Cheating

ChatGPT cheating is on the rise among students — young and old — as teachers remain divided on bans, Business Insider Africa

“Over one in four teachers in a recent Study.com survey say they have caught students cheating by using ChatGPT.”

Can Digital Tools Detect ChatGPT-Inspired Cheating?, EdWeek

3 ways to use ChatGPT to help students learn – and not cheat, The Conversation

Three Steps to Prevent ChatGPT Misuses (Opinion), EdWeek

ChatGPT Cheating: What to Do When It Happens, EdWeek

Outsmart ChatGPT: 8 Tips for Creating Assignments It Can’t Do, EdWeek

Tips for Maintaining Teacher-Student Trust as AI Classroom Use Grows, K-12 Dive

Responses, Uses, & Misuses

What Educators Think About Using AI in Schools, EdWeek

“Nearly half of educators who responded to a recent EdWeek Research Center survey said AI would have a negative or very negative impact on teaching and learning in the next five years. Twenty-seven percent said AI’s impact would be positive or very positive.“

What Do Teachers Think of ChatGPT? You Might Be Surprised, Edweek

With ChatGPT Rising in Popularity, What’s a Parent to Do?, The Hill

Educators Team Up to Respond to Sudden Rise of ChatGPT, EdSurge

OpenAI just announced GPT-4, an updated chatbot that can pass everything from a bar exam to AP Biology. Here’s a list of difficult exams both AI versions have passed, Business Insider Africa

How ChatGPT Is Fast Becoming The Teacher’s Pet, Forbes Africa

“Despite worries that the artificial intelligence program could make cheating easier, half of K-12 teachers report using it. Edtech companies are scrambling to release their own tools.”

Some Ideas for Using ChatGPT in Middle and High School Classes, Edutopia

19 Ways to Use ChatGPT in Your Classroom, EdWeek

ChatGPT in the Classroom: Commentary, Crowdsourcing, Videos, and More, EdWeek

Lesson Plan: Teaching and Learning in the Era of ChatGPT, The New York Times

Reimagine School Assignments using ChatGPT

Guide to teaching and learning critical analysis with ChatGPT, Smartbrief

How I Made ChatGPT a Learning Partner for My Students, EdWeek

“Every student I know wants to be better than a robot” — Ronak Shah

Impact & Influence?

You’ll Be Seeing ChatGPT’s Influence Everywhere This Year, CNET

‘This Changes Everything’: AI Is About to Upend Teaching and Learning, The 74

AI Will Not Transform K-12 Education Without Changes to ‘the Grammar of School’, The 74

What ChatGPT means for linguistic diversity and language learning, University World News

Ed tech experts urge caution on ChatGPT’s student data privacy, K-12 Dive

What ChatGPT Could Mean for Tutoring, K-12 Dive

Will ChatGPT Make Students Turn Away From Homework-Help Services?, EdSurge

Planning Professional Development on ChatGPT, Educational Leadershi

Could ChatGPT help to democratise the research process?, University World News

ChatGPT App: Use in Classrooms?, Larry Cuban‘s Blog

“Any academic subject teacher and university professor who ask students to write an essay, do a report, or research an answer to a question will now have to more closely review their goals for the subject they teach and how they teach it in light of ChatGPT. When more professors and teachers (and I might add, students) chime in on the the pluses and minuses of this app in classrooms, its worth will slowly become clearer. But informed observers of instructional innovations must not forget that after this initial media splash, ChatGPT may well fade away in a few months as have so many prior educational innovations.“

 

A little more than six months after the launch of ChatGPT on November 30, 2022, Thomas Hatch begins a series of posts tracking articles about of the use of ChatGPT in schools by asking ChatGPT to generate its own summary the coverage so far. Future posts will focus on articles discussing the educational uses and misuses of ChatGPT, international perspectives on ChatGPT, and the potential of AI in education more broadly. 

Like many people these days, I was hoping that ChatGPT might be able to do my job for me. So I asked it to: “Act like a journalist and write a newspaper article that provides an overview of articles about the use of Chat GPT in K-12 schools that have been written since it launched last year”. In return, I got my headline – Chat GPT: A Revolutionary Tool for K-12 Education – and a neat summary of the key reasons why ChatGPT “is proving to be a powerful tool for enhancing student engagement, promoting critical thinking, and improving academic outcomes in K-12 classrooms.”

One of the most significant benefits of Chat GPT, according to educators, is its ability to provide personalized learning experiences to students. By analyzing students’ responses to prompts and providing tailored feedback, Chat GPT can help students identify areas where they need additional support and provide them with resources to improve their understanding of the subject matter. As a result, students are more engaged in their learning, and they are more likely to succeed academically…” – Excerpt from Chat GPT: A Revolutionary Tool for K-12 Education, ChatGPT May 8, 2023

Wary of ChatGPT’s rosy assessment of its coverage in the press, I rephrased my question: Act like a journalist and write a newspaper article that provides an overview of articles about the critiques of using Chat GPT in K-12 schools that have been written since it launched last year. ChatGPT dutifully responded with an alternate headline – Critiques of Chat GPT in K-12 Education: Concerns Over Bias and Privacy – that still described itself as a promising tool “for enhancing student engagement and promoting critical thinking in K-12 classrooms,” but at least it noted some of the issues that have been raised about its use.

One of the primary concerns about Chat GPT is that the model may perpetuate bias and reinforce stereotypes. As an article in EdSurge notes, language models like Chat GPT are only as unbiased as the data that is used to train them. If the data contains biases, the model may replicate those biases in its responses. This can be particularly problematic in K-12 education, where the use of Chat GPT may unintentionally reinforce negative stereotypes or limit students’ opportunities based on their race, ethnicity, or gender… – Excerpt from Critiques of Chat GPT in K-12 Education: Concerns Over Bias and Privacy ChatGPT May 8, 2023

Eager to get a broader overview of the discussion of ChatGPT in the education press, I shifted to ask ChatGPT to generate what I thought would be a simple set of references: “Provide a list with the titles, authors, and sources and hyperlinks about the use and misuse of Chat GPT in K-12 education from online education publications” and I was pleased with the immediate, cheery, and efficient-looking response.

Certainly! Here are ten articles from online education publications that discuss the use and misuse of Chat GPT in K-12 education, along with their titles, authors, sources, and hyperlinks:

“AI Chatbots Are Coming to K–12: Will They Improve Student Learning or Take Jobs?” by Karen Johnson, EdTech Magazine, https://www.edtechmagazine.com/k12/article/2021/08/ai-chatbots-are-coming-k-12-will-they-improve-student-learning-or-take-jobs

“How AI Chatbots Can Transform K-12 Education and Improve Learning Outcomes” by Janice B. Rubin, eSchool News, https://www.eschoolnews.com/2021/03/15/how-ai-chatbots-can-transform-k-12-education-and-improve-learning-outcomes/

“Are AI-Powered Chatbots the Future of K-12 Education?” by Emily Tate, EdSurge, https://www.edsurge.com/news/2021-05-17-are-ai-powered-chatbots-the-future-of-k-12-education

“AI in Education: The Risks and Opportunities of Chatbots” by Katie McPherson, eLearning Industry, https://elearningindustry.com/ai-education-risks-opportunities-chatbots

“AI and Education: What You Need to Know About Chatbots” by Matthew Lynch, The Edvocate, https://www.theedadvocate.org/ai-and-education-what-you-need-to-know-about-chatbots/

Scanning the titles, the list seemed like just what I wanted, until I started clicking on the hyperlinks and searching for the articles identified.

Results of a search for “AI Chatbots Are Coming to K–12: Will They Improve Student Learning or Take Jobs?” by Karen Johnson, EdTech Magazine

The links led nowhere and the searches revealed some possibly related articles, often by the author named in the list or from the source publication, but not articles with that exact title.

Similar searches for lists of articles on ChatGPT from “publications about education such as education week, the74, the New York Times, Associated Press, Reuters,” yielded similar results:   Seemingly relevant articles with links to nowhere.

My final effort asking ChatGPT to “provide an overview of articles written about the use and misuse of Chat GPT in countries in Europe, Africa, Asia, or South America since the launch of Chat GPT last year” produced a concise summary of issues raised by the use of ChatGPT in Europe, Africa, Asia, and South America and references to articles that seemed to be exactly what I was looking for:

In Africa, Chat GPT has been used to address the lack of access to quality education. An article published on Africa News titled “Kenyan edtech platform launches AI-powered learning assistant” by Peter Mwangangi discusses how a Kenyan edtech platform is using Chat GPT to provide personalized learning experiences for students. The article highlights how Chat GPT can help address the challenges of teacher shortages and improve learning outcomes for students.

In Asia, the use of Chat GPT in education has been gaining traction. An article published in the South China Morning Post titled “Artificial intelligence is revolutionising the classroom, but it comes at a cost” by Enid Tsui discusses how Chat GPT is being used in China to grade essays and provide feedback to students. The article also highlights the concerns of educators and parents about the potential misuse of Chat GPT in education.

Exactly what I was looking for? Somehow, after tracking numerous articles about Chat GPT’s use in schools, I’d never discovered ChatGPT’s tendency to generate fictional sources, though a quick search explained what I was seeing.

What you may not know about ChatGPT is that it has significant limitations as a reliable research assistant. One such limitation is that it has been known to fabricate or “hallucinate” (in machine learning terms) citations. These citations may sound legitimate and scholarly, but they are not real. It is important to note that AI can confidently generate responses without backing data much like a person under the influence of hallucinations can speak confidently without proper reasoning. ChatGPT and Fake Citations, Aaron Wellborn

The explanation for ChatGPT’s generation of fictional sources? ChatGPT does not have access to the internet, due to privacy and security concerns (Why Doesn’t ChatGPT Have Internet Access?). Instead, ChatGPT derives its responses from an enormous corpus of text data, “around 570GB of datasets, including web pages, books, and other sources (50 ChatGPT Statistics and Facts You Need to Know) . The bottom line? If you need something done… Next week, a non-random scan of (real) articles on the uses and misuses of ChatGPT in education.

– Thomas Hatch