I am thankful to have had the opportunity to engage with Lutheran educators in many areas of the country this summer and fall on the topic of artificial intelligence (AI). When I led a session in Illinois last month, I was struck by a comment after the session from one of the participants:

“I was absolutely fearful of AI, but this session showed that I don’t need to be afraid and that some good may come of it.”

Perhaps you are one who has been fearful, wondering where AI is headed, asking whether it will destroy what you love about teaching, and finding the entire technology to be overwhelming. If so, allow me to provide a few thoughts that might help de-mystify AI for you:

• At its core, natural language AI systems simply identify words that are used together in various contexts. The original version of ChatGPT was based on 175 billion “weights”, or connections between words “learned” by AI through data analysis algorithms. With the latest 4.0 version, that number has leaped to 1.9 trillion “weights”.
• Playing and experimenting with ChatGPT and other AI services also serves to de-mystify them. Start with some basic teacher-based prompts, such as:
  • Write a lesson plan for (grade level) on (topic) embraces critical thinking
  • Create a for quiz (grade level) on (topic)
  • Generate twenty creative writing prompts for middle school (or other grade levels) students
  • Here is a draft of student writing. Help me provide substantive feedback for the writing
  • (NOTE: Remember, the more specific your prompt, the better the AI can tailor its response. Experiment with different prompts and see what kind of information you can get.)
• Experiment with an image creation prompts within AI services
• Share and discuss results with colleagues. Learn from each other!

When the public version of ChatGPT first emerged two years ago, some feared that education as we know it will end. Clearly, this will not happen, but education will change in ways we might not fully yet understand. The best way to prepare for these changes is to understand what AI is and then practice in generating results. And if I can ever be of help to any of you along the way, please don’t hesitate to reach out at David.Black(at)LHSParker.org.