The craft of writing is a centuries-old civic art essential to deeper understanding, perspective-taking, self-reflection, and an active life. We can't let it fade away.
I think we must incorporate chatGPT into our courses. I'm teaching programming and have told them not to use it now, but will relax that later in the semester. I think we have to do this b/c the LLMs are now a fact of life. They're not going anywhere and students need to know how to use them.
Yes this was a focus of our meeting -- I think teaching writing in the format of research-driven analysis, dialectical thinking, and argumentation though is different from programming language. If students skip directly to using AI tools -- they never go through the difficult, rewarding, but never ending process of developing effective writing skills. Once they have achieved proficiency, then I think careful introduction of AI tools can be enhancing of the foundational base they have developed. I am thinking of doing this for their final writing assignment in the class. They turn in a draft of a 6-7 research paper in the format of a "policy style writing" report and receive a first grade. On the revised, final version I think that is the time to then think about a focused, directed use of ChatGPT to improve their writing etc. Thoughts?
I have not taught a class that requires writing in the LLM era (i.e., last semester or this one), but my sense is that the ability write grammatically correct sentences is no longer one that we need to emphasize. LLMs can do that. If I were teaching a writing course, I would just assume that students will turn in papers with well-structured sentences and instead focus (and grade) almost entirely on crafting a good argument that's supported by facts, which I think the LLMs are not nearly as good at doing. It sounds to me like that's basically what you're doing.
Yes -- I agree as I showed with the more advanced assignments I tested the LLMs were frequently cited authors and lines of research that actually contradict the argument made. However, trust me you would be surprised — every semester at least 1/2 my students turn in their first assignments having not taken advantage of even spell/grammar check in Word or Google Docs and seem surprised when I tell them they need to do so. Beyond that, I need to look at the research on writing pedagogy more carefully about the deeper foundations of grammar which I suspect is closely linked to being able to make evidence-based arguments, narrative structure, and obviously voice. So those topics and more are ones I will be returning to. I appreciate your feedback and please do so again! I will also weigh in at The Climate Brink [which is immensely valuable.]
I think we must incorporate chatGPT into our courses. I'm teaching programming and have told them not to use it now, but will relax that later in the semester. I think we have to do this b/c the LLMs are now a fact of life. They're not going anywhere and students need to know how to use them.
Yes this was a focus of our meeting -- I think teaching writing in the format of research-driven analysis, dialectical thinking, and argumentation though is different from programming language. If students skip directly to using AI tools -- they never go through the difficult, rewarding, but never ending process of developing effective writing skills. Once they have achieved proficiency, then I think careful introduction of AI tools can be enhancing of the foundational base they have developed. I am thinking of doing this for their final writing assignment in the class. They turn in a draft of a 6-7 research paper in the format of a "policy style writing" report and receive a first grade. On the revised, final version I think that is the time to then think about a focused, directed use of ChatGPT to improve their writing etc. Thoughts?
I have not taught a class that requires writing in the LLM era (i.e., last semester or this one), but my sense is that the ability write grammatically correct sentences is no longer one that we need to emphasize. LLMs can do that. If I were teaching a writing course, I would just assume that students will turn in papers with well-structured sentences and instead focus (and grade) almost entirely on crafting a good argument that's supported by facts, which I think the LLMs are not nearly as good at doing. It sounds to me like that's basically what you're doing.
Yes -- I agree as I showed with the more advanced assignments I tested the LLMs were frequently cited authors and lines of research that actually contradict the argument made. However, trust me you would be surprised — every semester at least 1/2 my students turn in their first assignments having not taken advantage of even spell/grammar check in Word or Google Docs and seem surprised when I tell them they need to do so. Beyond that, I need to look at the research on writing pedagogy more carefully about the deeper foundations of grammar which I suspect is closely linked to being able to make evidence-based arguments, narrative structure, and obviously voice. So those topics and more are ones I will be returning to. I appreciate your feedback and please do so again! I will also weigh in at The Climate Brink [which is immensely valuable.]