Activities to Experiment With ChatGPT
(Peabody Conservatory)
Anicia Timberlake, assistant professor of Musicology, created activities for her undergraduate and graduate students to experiment with ChatGPT during her Spring 2023 classes. She provides undergraduate and graduate policies about using AI in the classroom.
TextGenEd: Teaching With Text Generation Technologies—an Open-Access Textbook
(Krieger School of Arts and Sciences)
Carly Schnitzler, instructor in the University Writing Program, helped develop an open collection of cross-disciplinary assignments that use text generation technologies, mostly in a writing context. TextGenEd: Teaching with Text Generation Technologies consists of freely accessible assignments submitted by scholars from across the United States. Assignments are divided into categories, such as AI literacy, rhetorical engagements, professional writing, creative explorations, and ethical considerations. Most are designed so that the technologies used are explored by students and instructors together, requiring very little “expert” technological skills.
Integrating Generative AI Education in Information Systems
(Carey Business School)
Ritu Agarwal, professor, and Minghong Xu, assistant professor at Carey Business School, introduced a novel assignment in their MSIS class, incorporating the use of Chat GPT. The initiative aimed to familiarize students with the practical application of generative AI, emphasizing its relevance in the field of information systems. The course highlighted the broader significance of these assignments in preparing students for the evolving technological landscape post-graduation.
The Rise of Generative AI in Industries:
In light of the growing prominence of generative AI in various industries, Ritu and Minghong backed their assignment ideas using insights from a McKinsey report, illustrating the widespread adoption of this technology. The McKinsey report showed a significant percentage of professionals regularly engaging with generative AI, with predictions of its transformative impact on the workforce in the near future. Minghong’s discourse set the stage for the incorporation of these real-world insights into the class assignment.
The ChatGPT Tool and Critical Thinking Assignment:
The class assignment introduced in this course emphasized the critical thinking aspect and the integration of additional research beyond the use of the ChatGPT. The assignment required students to validate ChatGPT-generated information and develop their own evaluation metrics for assessing its performance and learning capabilities. It is noticed that students showed great enthusiasm for exploring the tools, but there were concerns regarding academic integrity and the appropriate use of generative AI tools. It was critical to have clear guidelines and expectations to ensure ethical and effective use of ChatGPT and similar tools within the academic setting.
Politics of Language course
(Krieger School of Arts and Sciences)
Scott MacLochlainn, assistant professor of anthropology, adapted his writing assignments to focus more on process, hand-written assignments, and focus on specific objects.
Language Exercise
Early in the semester, students will choose a piece of language. This can be a text, video, or piece audio etc. and analyze it in terms of topics and themes of the course. Ideally it should be short enough to present in its entirety when submitting your exercise. The chosen example of language should highlight a space in which language itself becomes a topic of interest and debate. Essentially, what is going on with language here? How does the language used itself become a topic of interest? We will discuss each student’s chosen piece of language in class at different points throughout the first half of the semester, with students describing why they find their chosen example noteworthy. Students will submit the language example (pdf, mp3, mp4, online link etc.) and a 4-6 page discussion/analysis of the chosen example.
Topics chosen by students included: arguments over how to tag submissions according to non-canon on a fan fiction site; the genre of apology videos on TikTok, the unwritten rules of high school debate competitions, the pedagogy involved in producing medical scripts at Johns Hopkins Hospital, the politics of suicide letters in Indian universities, and the strategies of lying in the TV show Survivor.
Course Journal
Students will submit a course journal at the end of the semester. This journal will contain all weekly responses, notes on readings, marginalia, class notes, drawings and doodles, drafts of responses, exercises, random thoughts, and papers. The goal of this journal is to collate all of the written work, no matter how informal, that the student produces as part of the course. As we will learn throughout the semester, much of the language we encounter in the world is only a finished product, but hardly accounts for the work and presence of language in our lives, even the language that we ourselves produce. How do we develop our thoughts through writing and reading? What short-hands do we use? What do we keep repeating? Where are we more formal/informal in our coursework? This journal should ideally be submitted as a pdf, but another preferred platform of the student’s choosing can also be used (once access is provided to instructor).