Experts shed light on ChatGPT, when it should be used in the classroom

DELMARVA. – It’s a new wave for companies around the world, but in the classroom, professors are cautioning students against using ChatGPT as a crutch for assignments, especially during this finals period.

Professor of communication at Salisbury University, Jennifer Cox, said depending too much on the technology can be detrimental to a student’s learning.

“If a student was fully reliant on ChatGPT or some other AI tool, they wouldn’t actually learn how to do the work that they’re going to need to be doing in the real world,” Cox said.

So, what exactly is ChatGPT? Marketing manager at Impact Technology, Tara Diskin, gave WMDT the breakdown of this AI tool.

“The GPT actually stands for Generative Pre-trained Transformer, which is just a big fancy word for a super smart robot who has already pre-learned a lot of things and can generate responses and transform the data that it has,” Diskin said.

So, how are students using it? Cox sees some students using it to help with essays.
Diskin said it’s the perfect tool in that scenario.

‘The technology itself is really advanced, compared to what humans can even do on the fly,” Diskin said. “It would take us so much longer to transfer the data that we can, so it’s really providing a lot more efficiency in businesses and for individuals.”

But Cox cautions students and said there’s a right and wrong way to use the technology.

“If my students are going to use ChatGPT, I encourage them to create a format for what they want to do use it as,” Cox said.

“It’s a great tool for helping you get your thoughts organized, maybe generate some ideas, but then you need to use it as a jump off point. You need to put in your own work, your own research, and your own time, and ChatGPT isn’t going to do the research for you.”

So, if you’re taking one of Professor Cox’s classes, make sure you use it within reason, because she has a keen eye for detail.

“I’m very trained at what my students’ styles are and I can tell if someone turns in work that does not sound like them,” Cox said. “It’s just kind of nonsensical, the writing that is produced by AI. It doesn’t make much sense in the context of an assignment, if you have a good prompt.”