Course Requirements
EDUC 439/639: ChatGPT & AI Chatbots
Generative AI is changing the world in fundamental ways. Already we see this happening via AI Chatbots such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and other emerging competitors. This course helps you understand how these AI tools work via generative, pre-training, and transformative processing. Through the course modules you will explore how generative AI is being integrated into everyday tools and reflect on the impact this has on teaching and learning. After exploring the capabilities of ChatGPT and Gemini, which is Google's answer to ChatGPT, you will study how educators are using AI tools and consider how you think AI should be regulated (or not) moving forward. You will understand the societal issues posed by AI chatbots and know how to stay current with emerging technologies as artificial intelligence continues to roll out. Along the way, you will consider the extent and the manner in which students ought to learn and use AI or not.
As you immerse yourself in this exciting journey into the world of AI in Education, you will receive grades on four kinds of activities. First, there are communication assignments designed to create a proactively supportive relationship between you and your professor. Second, you will choose a presentation topic about some AI tool or issue that you would like to explore and share with the class. Third, there are three graded discussions that involve you in cooperative learning activites with your fellow classmates. Fourth, you will create a final project that you make with an AI tool on a topic of interest in your personal or workplace context.
Participants will be expected to spend at least twelve hours per week working through the course modules, completing AI Chatbot exercises in the graded discussions, and working on your final projects.
Assignment #1: Goal Statement
Your first assignment is to state the reasons why you enrolled in this course and explain what you hope to accomplish by taking it. If you have only a general idea of why you chose to enroll in this course, go ahead and describe your goals in general terms. If you have more specific goals in mind, please enumerate them. I will use this information to help advise you and guide you through the appropriate course materials.
Assignment #2: Weekly Discussion Forum
Every student in this class is required to participate actively in the course discussion forum. To enter the discussion forum, log on to the course and click the Discussions option. One of the first messages you write in the forum should inform your fellow classmates about the nature of the project you are hoping to create. The forum is an excellent place to network with your fellow students and help each other learn to use AI tools effectively and understand their impact on education, the workplace, and society at large. To earn all your discussion points, write a thoughtful message at least once per week during the course. Creating a new discussion post counts the same as responding thoughtfully to an existing post. Use the discussions to share knowledge with each other during the course. You can write about your experience using AI tools, the latest news about how they are emerging, technical aspects about how large language models work, societal issues posed by generative AI, whether you feel that student use of AI is cheating, or any topic related to helping your fellow classmates deepen their understanding and make effective use of AI tools.
During the course, three graded discussion topics will appear in the forum. When responding to the discussion topics you are expected to write one or two paragraphs in the Discussions in Canvas. Please avoid very lengthy responses. It is more important to be concise in your own reaction and respond to other students' thoughts rather than write a very lengthy reaction and ignore your classmates' ideas. The grading rubric for the individual assignments is focused on the following 3 dimensions: integration of readings, responsiveness, and timeliness. Follow this link to the rubric used to grade these discussions.
Assignment #3: Presentation Topic
During the course of the semester, you (individually or with a partner) will be responsible for presenting one of these AI tools or topics (or one of your choice if approved by the instructor). Educational technologies are continually evolving. The purpose of this activity is therefore twofold: First, it will enable you to enhance your skills by exploring a technology-enhanced learning environment or tool that you want to explore and maybe you haven't seen before. Second, it will help you develop your skills as instructor / trainer / leader. As you prepare for this activity, here are some things you need to keep in mind:
- Provide an overview focusing especially on the principles upon which your topic is based.
- Explain applicable characteristics such as availability, hardware requirements, appropriate age levels, pricing, publication date, etc.
- If appropriate, download and install the appropriate plug-in on your computer and acquire all necessary passwords.
- Identify the key features of the tool or learning environment and discuss how they support (or do not support) the principles of how people learn.
- Try to prepare an interactive presentation. For example, you can create some role playing activities for your classmates, pretend that you are introducing the tool or environment to a group of teachers who are considering adoption, etc.
- Synergy with your final project is good, i.e., it is fine for you to use what you present as part of your final project.
- Check the schedule to make sure nobody else has chosen your topic yet. If they have, you can perhaps talk with them about the possibility of working together and co-presenting. The presentation schedule is a link on your course home page in Canvas.
In response to the Presentation Topic assignment, please indicate which AI tool or topic you would like to present, and give one or two preferred class dates when you would like to make your presentation. If you are taking the course online, you have the option of presenting remotely via the classroom videoconferencing stream, or you can come physically to class on the evening when you present. If you are presenting about a tool or an app, actually use it during your presentation so the attendees can experience it in action. If you are presenting about a quizzing tool, for example, actually use it to quiz your fellow classmates.
Assignment #4: Presentation Delivery
This is where your instructor will grade the presentation of your chosen AI tool or topic. In response to the Presentation Delivery assignment in Canvas, you should submit the file you used to organize and make your presentation. Your grade will be determined as follows:
- Provides a clear description of the AI tool or topic: 2 points
- Articulates the connection between learning theory and your AI usage: 2 points
- Is coherent, organized and professional: 2 points
- Is interactive and involves the audience: 2 points
- If this is a group presentation, it has the participation of all group members: 2 points
If you are presenting about a tool or an app, actually use it during your presentation so the attendees can experience it in action. If you are presenting about a quizzing tool, for example, actually use it to quiz your fellow classmates.
Assignment #5: Final Project Idea
A major part of your grade in this course comes from a final project that you make with an AI tool on a topic of your choice. At this point midway through the course, I am asking you to tell me what you have decided make your final project about. In a nutshell, you will be using an AI tool to do something you need or want to accomplish. Although you are free to make this topic anything you want, ideally it should be something you actually need to do either as part of your job or to advance some social cause or other kind of personal effort you would like to work on. Along the way you will keep a log of the prompts you give and the responses you receive. At the end of the course, you will submit your final project in the form of an essay in which you identify which AI tool(s) you decided to use, explain whether they met your expectations, discuss what you learned about designing prompts, and comment on the accuracy of what the AI responded.
Assignment #6: Graded Discussion #1
The art of learning how to converse with an AI Chatbot is called prompt engineering. You type a prompt and the AI Chatbot responds. Whether you get something useful depends on how clever you are in conversing with the Chatbot. In the following article from the Chronicle of Higher Education, Columbia University undergrad Owen Kichizo Terry provides strategic advice for how to prompt a chatbot when you are assigned to write an essay:
- Terry, O.K. (2023, May 26). I'm a student. You have no idea how much we're using ChatGPT. No software or Professor could ever pick up on it. The Chronicle of Higher Education. https://www.chronicle.com/article/im-a-student-you-have-no-idea-how-much-were-using-chatgpt
Here are more ideas for designing prompts:
- https://blog.enterprisedna.co/what-is-prompt-engineering/
- https://beebom.com/best-chatgpt-prompts/
- https://markwiemer.medium.com/unlock-the-power-of-chatgpt-with-prompt-engineering-46aa760e929a
- https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/docs/prompting-strategies
- https://weam.ai/blog/prompts/how-to-write-better-chat-gpt-or-gpt-prompts/
How far have you progressed in your own prompt engineering? What kinds of prompts have you tried? What strategies worked better than others? Respond to some of your fellow classmates’ messages and help each other learn to create more effective prompts.
Assignment #7: Graded Discussion #2
Where do you stand on the issue of whether and how students should be permitted to use Chatbots? At the University of Delaware, for example, the Center for Teaching and Assessment of Learning (CTAL) has created four scenarios that give professors the option to (1) prohibit all use of AI chatbots, (2) permit their use with prior permission, (3) permit their use with acknowledgement, or (4) freely allow their use. Follow these links to review these kinds of policies in more detail:
- University of Delaware: https://ctal.udel.edu/advanced-automated-tools
- Boston University: https://www.bu.edu/cds-faculty/culture-community/conduct/gaia-policy
- Yale: https://poorvucenter.yale.edu/AIguidance
What do you think your local policy should be? Does your school or workplace already have an AI policy in place? Talk about the domain of your own work in education and give your opinion about whether, how, and when you think students should be permitted to use AI chatbots. Make citations to at least two of the scholarly resources you studied in the course modules or found on your own and respond thoughtfully by name to posts from at least two of your fellow classmates.
Assignment #8: Graded Discussion #3
Khan Academy has created an intelligent tutor named Khanmigo. Created as a customization of GPT 4, Khanmigo does more than just answer questions. Instead, Khanmigo responds by working with the student to build knowledge and pose a further question to keep the student thinking. In 2024, Anderson Cooper conducted a 60 Minutes interview that demonstrates the classroom use of Khanmigo. Follow this link to view the interview:
- Cooper, A., Chasan, A., Cetta, D.S., & Brennan, K. (2024). Sal Khan wants an AI tutor for every student: here's how it's working at an Indiana high school. 60 Minutes Overtime. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-khanmigo-works-in-school-classrooms-60-minutes
What do you think about the way Khanmigo works? During the interview, Khanmigo makes a mistake. In the world of AI, mistakes are called hallucinations. Although the term hallucination may seem to lessen the impact of these mistakes, they actually happen so often that AI tools post warnings to always double check whether they are correct. How serious of a problem do you view generative AI's propensity to make mistakes by so-called hallucinating? How can these mistakes harm students using tools such as Khanmigo? How much of a priority should be placed on teaching AI to stop making these kinds of mistakes? Based on what you have learned about how large language models work, do you think they can ever learn to stop hallucinating? Due to the harm these mistakes can cause, do you think society is moving too fast by integrating AI tools prematurely into virtually every aspect of our lives?
Assignment #9: Final Project Submission
Here is where you submit your final project in which you use an AI to accomplish some task that is meaningful in your workplace or in advancing some social cause you feel passionate about. You have total freedom in deciding what AI tool(s) to use. You will submit your final project in the form of a reflective log written as a term paper. In terms of length, your paper should be three to five pages for undergraduate credit (EDUC 439), or five to seven pages for graduate credit (EDUC 639). As you write your paper, make parenthetical citations to at least three scholarly articles (undergrad) or six articles (graduate) that you studied as you worked through the course modules, and conclude your paper with a list of the references you cited formatted in MLA, CMS, or APA style. Education majors should use APA style. Listed here are some section heads that you should include in your paper to help explain what you did.
- Use Case. What was the purpose of your project? Why did you think AI could help accomplish your project’s goals?
- AI Model. What AI model did you use? List the choices you had and explain why you chose the model you decided upon. If you used more than one model, describe how they compared.
- Expectations. Generative AI tools are relatively new and you probably had some expectations about what would happen when you tried to make this project. Explain how the AI tool(s) you chose met your expectations and were there any surprises along the way.
- Prompting. How did you prompt your AI to achieve the outcomes you sought? Provide specific examples of the prompts you made and the responses you got. What did you discover about creating effective prompts? More on prompt engineering is at https://zapier.com/blog/gpt-prompt.
- Accuracy. AI is known for hallucinating which is why you must always check it for accuracy. Explain whether you encountered any problems with accuracy and if so write about some specific hallucinations you encountered. If you used more than one AI model, was one more accurate than the others? How so?
- Recommendations. Based on your AI experience in completing this assignment, what recommendations would you make about the use of AI? As you make these recommendations, refer to specific parts of your project that informed each recommendation you make.
Assignment #10: Course Evaluation
Your final assignment in this course is to evaluate it. During the last couple weeks of the course, you will receive email at your udel.edu email address instructing you when the evaluation period begins and ends. This email tells you when the course evaluation window is open. You must log on to the course evaluation system within this window of time. The Web address of the course evaluation system is www.udel.edu/course-evals. After you complete the course evaluation, your instructor will give you credit for completing it. The responses you give are completely anonymous. While your instructor will be able to see the ratings and comments, it is impossible for your instructor to identify the person who gave a certain rating or made a given comment. Once you complete the evaluation, your grade on this assignment will be an automatic A.
