Teachers and universities push back against ChatGPT

Education is reeling from the advent of ChatGPT, a chatbot which can write documents in academic styles. The bot uses AI to produce texts on any topic, in any style. Although many of its documents are nowhere near the standard of real academic texts, it can sound lifelike enough to mimic a student. Taiwanese high school students are starting to use the bot to write coursework for college applications. That’s left teachers and universities scrambling to crack down on a new avenue for cheating.

Type in some key words, and ChatGPT gets to work writing an essay at once. Some Taiwanese high school students are starting to use ChatGPT to write their coursework. It sometimes does a better job than they can.

Ms. Lin
High school student
I think we should complete our own coursework, because our exams have a second level, an oral examination. The professors will ask you how you produced the report.

Ms. Lee
High school student
When I’m writing it, I start by writing a rough draft, as a reference. In the “Personal Process and Reflections” section you have to include your own ideas, so I always rewrite it again in the end.

The high school coursework portfolio is a major component in the new curriculum. It’s required by the Ministry of Education for every university application, and counts for 20% or more of the student’s grades. There’ve been numerous controversial reports of students paying tutors to write coursework for them. But since the advent of ChatGPT, essays, computer code, novels and even data analysis can all be outsourced to AI. Many high school teachers worry it will distort students’ university applications.

Lee Chi-lung
NTNU Affiliated Senior High
ChatGPT is something like a sample manufacturer; but it leaves out lots of details. We want young people to get to grips with the applications of technology, not to make inappropriate use of it, but to establish the correct attitude toward its use. That’s the goal we tend to have in educational settings.

Universities are taking action. Hong Kong Univeristy has banned the use of ChatGPT or any other AI tool, in exams or in homework. National Taiwan University says that next term it will produce guidelines on the use of ChatGPT for students and staff. National Tsing Hua University has a special working group looking into AI’s impact on teaching and learning.

Lee Chi-lung
NTNU Affiliated Senior High
Even if you ban it, it is impossible to completely prevent situations like that. Instead, we must use educational and evaluative tools to monitor students on more levels, and help them to grow.

Here’s a new essay title. “The functional and dysfunctional uses of AI in education.” You have one hour, you may begin.