OpenAI introduces ChatGPT for Teens. What do teachers think?
OpenAI said ChatGPT for Teens is designed to help students learn and study. What do educators have to say about AI use in the classroom?
Since ChatGPT’s introduction in the fall of 2022, educators have been trying their best to navigate artificial intelligence’s explosion into the classroom.
On one hand, AI proponents say, when used appropriately, the technology has the capacity to transform education for the better, enabling students to learn subjects more quickly and take in new educational experiences.
On the other, AI skeptics say the technology can be extremely detrimental to student’s ability to critically think for themselves and easily help them cheat. Chatbots are also notorious for sharing false information, they argue.
To help combat negative perceptions about the technology and cater more directly to schools, companies including Google and Anthropic have developed tools and services designed specifically for the education market.
This week, OpenAI added new features to ChatGPT geared toward those teenagers using the chatbot for homework and studying, aptly named ChatGPT Teens.
The company said ChatGPT Teens is “designed to help teens learn, think critically, deepen understanding and use AI with confidence.” One of the hallmarks features of the new software suite is “Study Mode,” which prompts the chatbot to provide students with “guiding questions” and “step-by-step” support when reviewing homework instead of providing them with direct answers.
The fact is, AI use among teens is here to stay. According to a February report from the Pew Research Center, more than 50 percent of teens surveyed use AI to get help with their schoolwork.
And according to a recent survey report from Instructure, the technology company behind the education platform Canvas, 90% of higher education students use AI “at least occasionally” to help them complete assignments.
But what do teachers think about the rollout of new AI features designed with teens in mind? And more broadly, what are their thoughts on AI use in the classroom?
Mark Casto, a chemistry teacher and science department head at Amesbury High School in Massachusetts, began integrating AI into his classroom after attending Northeastern University’s education workshop last year, designed to help high school teachers integrate the technology into the classroom.
One application students use Google’s Gemini AI chatbot for in his classes is to generate topic ideas for projects, he said.
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“I have a mini capstone class where they have to do some authentic research, and one of the biggest obstacles I always had was how do you generate really good topics to research that are practical or could be done within a school setting,” he said
While the chatbot’s output often needs some tweaking and some of its responses need further investigation and validation, Casto has found AI to be a brilliant tool for that purpose.
So when he heard about OpenAI’s ChatGPT for Teens feature, he said he was excited about its applications in the classroom.
“This is exactly what we’re trying to do as teachers anyway — trying to teach students how to use it to make quizzes and as a study tool,” he said.
When used as an educational supplement as opposed to a way for students to shortcut their assignments, AI can be a powerful technology to enrich learning and understanding, explained Jennifer Love, a teaching professor in the College of Engineering and the associate director of the Michael B. Silevitch and Claire J. Duggan Center for STEM Education.
With funding from the National Science Foundation, the Center is the host of the educational workshop that Casto attended last year and this year.
Love serves as one of the workshop leads.
Love said the focus is on helping teachers understand how they could leverage their expertise when using AI in the classroom.
“They are the ones with the subject matter expertise,” she said, noting that the AI should be used as a tool to help them elevate and differentiate their lessons.
That might look like taking a lesson plan that was developed for high school and using AI to help make it more accessible to seventh or eighth graders, she said. AI can also be helpful for teachers to perform more tedious and administrative tasks like updating rubrics, she said.
This gives educators more time to forge relationships with students, she said.
To help teachers use the tools responsibly, Love said the Center turns to the work of nonprofit organizations and think tanks such as the Brookings Institution, a Washington D.C.-based public policy group, which offer guidance on the most ethical use cases for AI.
Love said AI’s potential to reshape education is strong, but it’s important that guardrails
Others are not so quick to embrace the technology. They see it as detrimental to student’s development and reject its inclusion in course content.
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Sarah Rothschild, an educator in Maryland who works with both college and high school students, said she has seen students use AI to cheat on essays and other homework assignments. They are even using it to write discussion posts and to respond to other classmates’ posts.
“I am watching AI slop respond to AI slop in an online classroom,” she said, referring to the low-quality AI-generated content.
Rothschild said she has begun to incorporate more in-class exercises and is making her students show her multiple iterations of their drafts.
On ChatGPT for Teens, and AI in general, Rothschild has “deep skepticism” and believes they have limited utility, particularly in the humanities.
Annika Marie Schone, a Northeastern professor in the Bouve College of Health Sciences and a researcher in AI health safety, said concerns around AI use in the classroom are warranted.
While OpenAI and others claim that their tools will help students improve their “critical thinking” skills, much of that information cannot be verified independently. At this point, people will need to take that information at OpenAI’s word, she said.
“We really don’t know what the outcomes will be from all their interventions,” she said. “There is a lack of regulations. … There are no reporting requirements for [these AI companies].”
Northeastern Global News has reached out to OpenAI for comment but has not heard back as of publication time.
As an educator and someone learning about the pros and cons of the technology, Casto said he thinks it important to let students, at least start exploring, using AI in the classroom.
“You have to allow them to use it because if you are not allowing them to use it in the classroom, then they’re going to use it at home,” he said. “There’s an understanding that is a powerful tool. If you train them [well] to use [it] then you’re only helping to enrich their experience.”
