For the past few years I’ve been looking at the role of artificial intelligence. As a teacher of critical thinking and English composition, I have lots of questions. I consider myself a real novice in this area. I’m reading a lot, but I’ve only really used Grammarly and ChatGPT.

I’ve wanted to share my questions and my process with my students, but I worried about the Pandora’s box. Will they stop thinking? Will they stop writing?

I’ve been fortunate to have colleagues to help me on this journey.

Michelle Petry, GCC librarian, is embedded in my ENG102 class and we plan together every two weeks. Michelle is the Library Liaison for Fitness and Wellness, and my contextualized courses are part of that FOI.

Last year I had the chance to evaluate some OER materials from MIT, and she helped look at them through the information literacy lens. We crafted some assignments to help students begin to ask questions about misinformation and disinformation. These worked well with the questions I used the first day in class to start the AI discussion:

• What is artificial intelligence or AI?
• What should I know as a student and as an informed citizen?
• Why are companies investing billions of dollars in AI?
• How can I use AI most effectively?

We’ve modified some ENG102 topic exploration assignments to actually ask ChatGPT questions. Students are now comparing database searches and ChatGPT transcripts as they identify key words related to the issue they’re exploring.

The final project in ENG102 is a reflection on the research exploration process. We’ve added AI and ChatGPT to the reflection topics.

Here are some student responses. Do you believe that they’re thinking critically? Let me know.

• The only times I used ChatGPT for my scholarly investigation was during the Reflection on ChatGPT where I spent some time practicing with ChatGPT to see its capabilities and when trying to come up with keywords to input into my advanced search for sources. It’s a great place to start a scholarly investigation because it is able to come up with a handful of ideas for you to branch off of but it’s not seen as a reliable source of information because it’s not always credible.
• ChatGPT is a great implementation and very useful. It helped me brainstorm ideas and key terms and find specific aspects of my scholarly investigation. ChatGPT helped me identify the cause and who can make a change in my proposal argument; it gave me a general idea of where to start looking. Overall, it helped me get started, like a push start towards my research. However, I don’t believe ChatGPT can be used as a reliable source. Instead, it should be used for preliminary research but not as a source to cite.
• ChatGPT was extremely beneficial to me in generating ideas for my scholarly investigation. When I began exploring my topic, I didn’t have much background knowledge. By discussing it with ChatGPT, I gained a better understanding . . . However, it’s essential to remember that ChatGPT is not a reliable source; it’s simply a starting point.
• During my research process I used ChatGPT as an assistant in verifying the effectiveness of my sources. I did this by asking questions regarding the incorporation of my sources into my research paper. When asking what websites are most credible when talking about physical
  activity amongst youth, the CDC and the WHO popped up as most relevant when speaking about youth obesity/physical activity. This is a good thing on my part because I already had the sources that were being suggested to me.

I’m grateful to Michelle’s expertise as we continually ask questions about AI. It makes me feel more confident as I model strategies for my students. If you’d like to have your own librarian as a partner in your teaching, look at the Faculty Resources.

Next week I’ll write more about my net(work).