A CHatGPT Learning Activity Pertaining to CHatGPT

For high school regular US Government students and AP Government students

This activity provides students with an opportunity to come together at lunch in a classroom of their choosing to civilly discuss the topic of “CHatGPT in a High School Setting,” with perhaps the school’s teachers, admins, and staff also invited to attend.

Regardless, this “lunchtime open forum” should begin with the host (a student deemed a good public speaker) calling the forum to order and then giving a brief introduction to the topic to be discussed and the forum’s ground rules. This introduction should also say that the forum will begin with the host giving:

• One student, in the role of the New York City school superintendent who urged his board members to ban CHatGPT on all school devices, a chance to explain his thinking.
• One student, in the role of the NY Times Editor who wrote Don’t Ban CHatGPT, Teach With It, a chance to explain his thinking.
• One student, in the role of the Chicago Sun-Times editor who wrote Say No to ChatGPT in schools, a chance to explain his thinking.
• One student, in the role of the Atlantic Monthly journalist who wrote The End of High School English, a chance to explain his thinking.

The introduction should conclude with the host saying that after the four
“on-stage guests” have been given a chance to explain their thinking, the host will provide those in the audience with a chance to comment.

The host should feel free to use CHatGPT in the crafting of his/her introduction. If he/she does, the introduction might end up looking something like this:

“Good afternoon everyone, and welcome to today’s lunch time open forum. Our topic for discussion is the use of ChatGPT in a high school setting. To get things started, I want to first have you hear from the following:

(Insert students first and last name) playing the role of the New York City school superintendent, who has urged his board members to ban ChatGPT on all school devices. He will explain his reasoning behind this decision.

Then you’ll hear from (insert students first and last name) playing the role of the NY Times Editor who wrote the article, “Don’t Ban ChatGPT, Teach With It.”

Then you’ll hear from (insert students first and last name) playing the role of the Chicago Sun-Times editor who wrote the article, “Say No to ChatGPT in Schools.” This guest will present their views on why ChatGPT should not be used in schools.

And then you’ll hear from (insert students first and last name) playing the role of the Atlantic Monthly journalist who wrote the article, “The End of High School English.”

The presentations of each of these four on-stage guests will last no more than two minutes. and the students are permitted to use ChatGPT to help in their preparation.

When done, I will give some of you in the audience an opportunity to ask questions or make comments, with a time limit of one minute per person.

With all that said, let’s get it started with . . .

All presentations are to last no more than two minutes, with the “on students permitted to use CHatGPT to help in their presentation preparations.

Those planning to sit in the audience should be encouraged to prepare their comments (or questions) in advance, feeling free to use CHatGPT.

See below for some possible questions that those in the audience might want to address

1. Is CHatGPT a game-changer for education?
2. In the age of CHatGPT, how should plagiarism be define?
3. Is there a for students to use CHatGPT for a school-related class without the students being viewed as plagiarists?
4. What are some best practices for using CHatGPT in a classroom setting?
5. Will CHatGPT make teaching obsolete?
6. If students are allowed to use CHatGPT for a school-related purpose, does this encourage them to become lazy thinkers?
7. What are some specific ways that CHatGPT could be used as a teaching tool in a high school class?
8. How effective are CHatGPT detection tools in identifying and preventing plagiarism?
9. Why should a student ever be permitted to use CHatGPT in a history class when primary sources and secondary sources can so be found so easily on the internet?
10. If you used CHatGPT to prepare for today’s forum, to what extent did it prove of value? Notice any limitations?

As the forum closes, I’d like to see the host share his/her response to at least one of these CHatGPT-in-education-related questions.

Then I’d like to see the host say something along the lines of what appears below:

Ok all. Time has just about run out and so this open forum must now come to a end, but before sending you off, I want to take one last minute to say thank you for coming and I hope as you walk out of here saying to yourself that the time was well spent. With that I say bye bye all.

This close-out was created with the assistance of CHatGPT.

“This blog post is a collaboration between myself and OpenAI’s ChatGPT. While ChatGPT provided invaluable assistance in editing and refining some of the paragraphs, all of the ideas and concepts discussed are solely my own and reflect my own thoughts and perspectives.”