In a recent article for The Chronicle of Higher Education titled “ChatGPT Is Everywhere” by Beth McMurtrie, Michael Dennin (Vice Provost for Teaching and Learning, Dean of Undergraduate Education, and Professor of Physics and Astronomy) had the opportunity to share his insights on ChatGPT.
Read the excerpt featuring Vice Provost Dennin’s remarks below:
Michael Dennin, vice provost for teaching and learning at the University of California at Irvine, expects to see a lot of experimentation on his campus as instructors sort out what tools are appropriate to use at each stage of a student’s career. It reminds him of what his mother, a high-school math teacher, went through when graphing calculators were introduced. The initial reaction was to ban them; the right answer, he says, was to embrace and use them to enhance learning. “It was a multiyear process with a lot of trying and testing and evaluating and assessing.”
Similarly, he anticipates a variety of approaches on his campus. Professors who never before considered flipped classrooms — where students spent class time working on problems or projects rather than listening to lectures — might give it a try, to ensure that students are not outsourcing the work to AI. Wherever they land on the use of such tools, Dennin says, it’s important for professors to explain their reasoning: when they think ChatGPT might be diminishing students’ learning, for example, or where and how they feel that it’s OK to use it.
Interested in learning more? View the full article here (sign-in required). To learn more about Vice Provost Dennin’s thoughts on ChatGPT, check out his Dennin Insights blog post titled “Episode 37: Tools and Creativity—The Role of AI.” To learn more about Vice Provost Dennin, visit his website here.
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