A Teacher’s Discovery of ChatGPT for Writing and Critical Thinking in the Classroom Demonstrates Why Bloggers Need to Personally Discover ‘Why ChatGPT’

As artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT become more widespread, their role in education has sparked excitement – and concern.

Kelly Gibson, an English teacher with 27 years of experience, offers a nice perspective on how ChatGPT can be a positive force in the classroom in her essay in Business Insider.

Rather than fearing AI as a tool for cheating and short changing a student’s learning, Gibson discovered ways to integrate it into her teaching to enhance learning, improve writing, and foster critical thinking.

Learning of ChatGPT, Gibson was alarmed by its potential to produce entire essays from simple prompts.

But curiosity led her to experiment with ChatGPT, testing its capabilities and discovering how it could assist in planning lessons and generating worksheets. Instead of a threat; maybe it could be a tool.

Rather than questioning ChatGPT, Gibson embraced its potential to benefit others, her students.

• Experimenting with AI-Generated Essays: Students wrote introductory paragraphs, which were then input into ChatGPT to generate full essays. They analyzed the AI’s output, comparing its quality and depth to their own work.
• Using AI for Editing: Students used ChatGPT to polish their essays, improving sentence structure, fixing tense inconsistencies, and refining their overall writing.
• Demonstrating Critical Thinking: Assignments required students to develop their own theses and conduct research independently before using AI, ensuring they built a strong foundation of critical thinking skills.
• Critiquing AI’s Writing Style: Students identified weaknesses in ChatGPT’s writing, such as repetitive arguments, and discussed its limitations as a tool for deeper analysis.

Gibson acknowledges some students may misuse AI, but believes those who are inclined to circumvent systems would find ways to do so regardless.

But most students have embraced her message and understand AI can only take you so far with many students feeling less overwhelmed by longer writing assignments because they have a tool to help them.

Her approach centers on teaching students how to integrate AI thoughtfully, balancing its assistance with their own critical thinking and effort.

What a perfect standard for legal bloggers. Integrate AI thoughtfully, balancing its assistance with your own critical thinking and effort. Do so in way that AI, as a tool, works for you.

Gibson likens the integration of ChatGPT in education to past innovations like spellcheck and SparkNotes, both of which were initially met with resistance but ultimately became accepted tools.

She has never had a parent voice concerns or complain.

Gibson sees a future where AI is seamlessly woven into teaching, supported by proper training of teachers. The goal being to use AI to make students better writers and thinkers without letting it replace their ability to think critically.

As AI tools evolve, Gibson is committed to ensuring they remain just tools. By doing so she aims to prepare her students for a world where AI is increasingly prevalent while maintaining the integrity of their education.

Her story inspires me. Everything I’ve learned about AI—and how I use it to become a better, more effective blogger looking to help others via my writing — has come through discovery: a never-ending process of trial and error.

Gibson serves as a powerful example of how legal bloggers can adapt to technological change, not by resisting it, but by discovering ways to use it for the benefit of themselves, their clients and the public.