how teachers should adapt to student use

To discuss cheat sheets in the age of artificial intelligence (AI), what better way to do this than to ask ChatGPT itself: “Write me an article on cheating in high school with concrete examples, quotes from students, teachers and experts in the style of a mainstream weekly.” The result is enough to make a seasoned journalist dizzy: “For many students, cheating is not simply a question of laziness. It is often seen as a means of survival in a competitive education system. “I use ChatGPT to help me write my essays,” confides Clara, 17, a high school senior. “It saves me time and gives me ideas that I would not have had otherwise.” The sentences may lack rough edges but are perfectly coherent. Let us specify that the article you are reading was indeed produced by us.

Doing the work for them: the ChatGPT solution

Writing an entire dissertation on the powers of Parliament under the Fifth Republic, solving a complex mathematical equation, restoring the gist of a 350-page book… ChatGPT, the conversational agent that produces text using AI and operated by the American company OpenAI since fall 2022, responds to all kinds of requests. And students quickly understood how much they could benefit from it. Starting in middle school, but especially in high school, they are increasingly using it and the temptation is great to ask ChatGPT to do the work for them.

Some people simply copy and paste entire essays or reading notes. Louise, 17, remembers a student, of average level, who had obtained an excellent mark for her summary of the essay Utopia by Thomas More. “Instead of reading our copies in front of the others in class, our teacher asked us to do it ourselves. I read my text without any problem while the other girl stumbled, orally, on vocabulary words of a fairly formal register that she was not at all used to using. To me, it seemed obvious that she had used ChatGPT, even if I am not sure that the teacher really understood it,” says the young girl.

To avoid being found out, some young people explicitly ask the conversational agent in their “prompt” – the question or short sentence that starts the conversation – to insert a few French errors in the text and to write it “in the average style of a first-year student”. Then, they themselves add one or two spelling mistakes, a few clumsy expressions… and that’s it: cheating becomes almost impossible to detect. But it also happens that these smart alecks find themselves caught in their own trap: they write in a precise, reasoned manner… beside the question asked.

Sometimes disappointing results

Louise says she tested AI “only once,” for an economics and social sciences assignment at home. The result clearly disappointed her: “The plan, basic, did not reflect the complexity of my thinking. The ideas proposed lacked precision and did not mobilize the knowledge of the course.” She also noticed that around her, many of her classmates did not consider the use of ChatGPT as an ultra-sophisticated cheat sheet. “The threats that this technology poses to our personal thinking abilities worry me,” she emphasizes. When artificial intelligence is used to completely fill a knowledge gap, the question arises.

Complete your thinking with AI

As always with innovations, AI can also prove to be a valuable aid if used as a complement. Axel, 17, remembers his mock French exam a few months ago. “Our teacher had practically given us the subject by inviting us to think, at home, based on the study of Gargantua Rabelais, about how laughter sometimes prevents knowledge. I had two arguments in mind but I was missing a third. ChatGPT provided it to me immediately, it was solid and convincing.” And Axel continues: “Personally, this tool helps me to enrich my analysis on a specific point, not to write an entire dissertation.” He only sees advantages in it, unlike his mother, who would like him to take the trouble to read books more often… “ChatGPT saves a lot of time,” replies the teenager with an amused air, “and it gives lots of useful explanations when you didn’t understand something in class.” Axel finds that his teachers seem “worried and a little overwhelmed”. The use of AI by students is undoubtedly forcing them to partly review their way of doing their job. A few months after the emergence of the conversational agent, the American-Canadian billionaire Elon Musk predicted “the end of homework” with AI.

His prophecy seems to be coming true. Teenagers are bringing them home less and less. “Now, all I ask of my students outside of class is to revise and watch a few videos on YouTube,” confides Ivan Burel, a history and geography teacher at the Armentières high school (Nord). Before ChatGPT, I would sometimes give comments on texts to do. Today, that’s no longer useful: AI takes care of it instantly.”

Raising awareness among students about AI

Some teachers formulate their topics in a more open way during the few homework assignments still required during the year. “Our history teacher gave us a topic on the Second Republic,” continues Axel. “It wasn’t a title like: “How are powers organized under the Second Republic?” It was very broad, it forced us to understand why the topic was posed in this way and to figure it out on our own. In this kind of case, if we use ChatGPT, it shows.”

Another, more global way to integrate this technological advancement pedagogically is to raise awareness among students about AI. “I try to do this,” says Ivan Burel. “What questions to ask? How to formulate prompts? I invite them to develop their critical thinking.” And to become aware of the limitations of the tool. “Often, ChatGPT gives correct but fairly average, expected answers,” the teacher emphasizes. “It shows itself to be quite uncreative.”

For the moment, no specific system has been set up on a national scale by the ministry. As she enters higher education, Louise wants to be confident, thinking of the talented teachers who have marked her career in middle and high school: “Nothing will ever replace human contact.”

* Cat Generative Pre-trained Transformer