Many students also use ChatGPT for homework or lessons. The Standing Scientific Commission has presented the Conference of Ministers of Education with proposals for dealing with AI in schools.
The triumph of ChatGPT in teaching can no longer be stopped, says Ulrike Cress, director of the Leibniz Institute for Knowledge Media in Tübingen and one of the lead authors of the impulse paper. “Within a very short time, the students realized what they could do with it,” says Cress.
The Standing Scientific Commission (SWK) estimates that around 20 percent of students in Germany now use ChatGPT in class or for homework. A trend that is not bad, but needs to be monitored and accompanied.
Collaboration between students and technology
“It is important not to outsource activities that are conducive to learning,” says Cress. “If a student only writes texts with ChatGPT, then of course they no longer learn anything.”
Writing is an important process. “I connect things and a lot of knowledge-relevant results emerge.” Instead of simply having a chatbot write your homework, there should be collaboration between students and technology.
It is important to also pay attention to what the artificial intelligence produces, because it does not always stick to the facts. “The child must understand: What does AI do, how does AI work? It can formulate like a human, but you have to learn that good formulations do not equal good content,” says Cress.
Everyone should benefit equally
Now it is up to the state education ministers to develop curricula and strategies on how these tools can be used in teaching.
Christine Streichert-Clivot, President of the Conference of Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs (KMK) and Minister for Education in Saarland, says: “AI and especially large language models have been part of our everyday life since ChatGTP at the latest. This must also be reflected in educational institutions.”
When implementing artificial intelligence, Streichert-Clivot is particularly interested in ensuring that all students benefit equally from such programs. “Technological progress must not lead to greater social inequality.”
Split exams
Politicians also now have to answer the question of how artificial intelligence should be handled in exams. The SWK recommends splitting up exams: AI could then be used in one part, but not in another.
For Ulrike Cress, it is particularly important to encourage students to think critically about the tools: “AI is part of our world and we want the students to be able to use it.” In just a few years, the use of chatbots in lessons will be as commonplace as calculators are today.