[Spring Workshop 2023] ChatGPT: Foe, friend, or paradigm-shifting challenge

Friday June 2, 9:40 – 10:25

  • Sue Hellman is a retired BC teacher with nearly 40 years of classroom experience. She has shared her experience with digital tools and resources at BCcampus, University of New Brunswick, and most recently Columbia College

Session Description

Technological innovation comes in 3 flavours: catastrophic (the sky is falling!); sustaining (helps us do what we’ve always done, but better); or disruptive (what doesn’t kill us can make us stronger). Education articles about ChatGPT generally take the first 2 perspectives. Many warn that cheaters will prosper because ChatGPT is getting better and better at passing typical tests and at generating fakes that fool many of us a lot of the time. Others suggest we should embrace AI and use it ourselves to improve our work/life balance or with students as an ‘intelligent’ tutor.

We may not be able to beat ChatGPT at its own game, but we can change the game by shifting to a flipped classroom model and designing learning experiences that ChatGPT cannot do. During this hands-on session we’ll dig into how to redesign activities and assessments to:

  1. make space in the learning process for students to use ChatGPT appropriately, and
  2. devote precious synchronous/in class time to helping students learn how to engage in thoughtful synthesis and critical thinking instead of perfecting skills like compiling information and explaining concepts at which ChatGPT excels.

Recording and Materials


Files and links.