^{Themes: Ethical challenges in using AI, Teaching Strategies
Audience & Subject: Grades 4-6, Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12; Digital media}

Introduction

In today’s evolving digital era, adopting emerging, innovative educational technologies and shifting pedagogical practices can revitalize engagement in education for both students and faculty, facilitating bridging the digital divide. This approach also equips students with essential 21st-century skills and competencies, preparing them for real-world challenges. In recent years, new advanced AI technologies have brought both opportunities and challenges for educators in adapting to the evolving education landscape. With the introduction of ChatGPT (generative pre-trained transformer) by OpenAI on November 30, 2022, AI-driven chatbots, particularly those based on a natural language processing (NLP) system have revolutionized educational practices and interactions by generating human-like responses with end users (Dempere et al., 2023).  In addition to AI chatbots, generative AI applications like Midjourney and DeepBrain AI are diffusion models of AI designed to create diagrams, images, and videos from prompting inputs (Menekse, 2023). To harness and optimize generative AI’s potential, developing five key skills is vital for effectively identifying and utilizing suitable generative AI tools: problem formulation, exploration, experimentation, critical thinking, and reflection (Acar, 2023). Enhancing interactions with generative AI language models requires the formulation of precise and effective prompts, known as prompt engineering, which is a crucial skill in the information age (Lo, 2023).  The art of formulating precise and thoughtful prompts is essential for enhancing the interaction between AI applications. This activity focuses on developing strategies for interactions with generative AI, crafting effective prompts to communicate with generative AI, and turning abstract ideas into innovative outcomes.

General Guidelines

1. Start with Clear Objectives: Define what you hope to achieve with AI interactions to ensure that prompts are focused and purposeful.
2. Understand AI Limitations: While AI can process and generate large amounts of information, it is limited by the data it has been trained on and may not understand the context as humans do.
3. Use Simple, Direct Language: Avoid ambiguity by using straightforward language in your prompts to obtain clearer and more accurate responses from AI.
4. Be Specific: Provide detailed information or examples within your prompts to guide the AI toward the desired type of response or action.
5. Iterative Prompting: If the first response from AI does not feel right, refine your prompt based on the feedback, treating the process as iterative.
6. Incorporate Feedback Loops: Regularly reflect to assess the effectiveness of AI interactions and use the feedback to improve future prompts and strategies.
7. Ethical Considerations: Consider the ethical implications of using AI, including data privacy, bias in AI responses, and the potential impacts of AI decisions.
8. Stay Informed About AI Developments: AI technology evolves rapidly; staying updated on the latest tools, capabilities, and best practices can enhance your engagement strategies.
9. Promote Transparency and Accountability: Be transparent about how AI is used and maintain accountability for the outcomes of AI interactions, especially in educational or professional settings.

Activity: Enhancing AI Prompt Crafting Skills

Overview

The activity aims to empower participants to design and refine AI prompts that effectively communicate their specific needs to AI applications, leading to more precise and relevant outputs. The goal is to build confidence in interacting with AI tools across various education and professional development domains.

Description

Students use ChatGPT to request information about certain topics, summarize articles, write revisions, and establish a logical core connection or outline for a paper via multiple questions (Luan et al., 2023). According to OpenAI (2023), ChatGPT design, in terms of functionality, creates appropriate answer patterns depending on user input, making text communication more natural and intuitive. Choose a GPT and use the PAIR framework by Acar (2023), which consists of four steps to develop AI skills:

1. Problem formulation: Students define the problem or challenge they want to solve.
2. AI tool selection: Students choose the best generative AI tools to help them with their problems. Explore, compare, and evaluate different generative AI tools and their features.
3. Interaction: Students use the generative AI tools to solve their problem. They experiment with different inputs and outputs to see how the generative AI tools affect their problem-solving process and outcome.
4. Reflection: Students assess and report their experiences with the generative AI tools.

Possible Challenges

• AI Misinterpretation: Overly complex or vague prompts may lead to inaccurate or irrelevant responses. Additionally, AI may lack an understanding of context, and ambiguous queries will require contextual information in prompts.
• Ethical Considerations: Always consider your sources and ethical implications when using AI applications, including data privacy, bias in AI responses, and the potential impacts of decisions made by AI.

Support Materials

Some ideas for prompts to get started:

• Prompt Library – All Prompts — AI for Education
• 1000+ Best ChatGPT prompts (notion.site)

Resources

• AI Educator Tools: The Future of Learning: An AI tools repository:
• AI Chatbots (free versions are available):
  • ChatGPT (openai.com)
  • Copilot (microsoft.com)
  • Poe

References

Acar, O. A. (2023, June 15). Are your students ready for AI?. Harvard Business Publishing. https://hbsp.harvard.edu/inspiring-minds/are-your-students-ready-for-ai?

Dempere, J., Modugu, K., Hesham, A., & Ramasamy, L. K. (2023). The impact of ChatGPT on higher education. Frontiers in Education, 8, 1-13. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2023.1206936

Lo, L. S. (2023). The art and science of prompt engineering: A new literacy in the information age. Internet Reference Services Quarterly, 27(4), 203–210. https://doi.org/10.1080/10875301.2023.2227621

Luan, L., Xi, L., Dai, Y., Hu, H., & Sun, Q. (2024). Exploring the cognitive dynamics of artificial intelligence in the post-COVID-19 and learning 3.0 era: A case study of ChatGPT. Asian Journal of Distance Education, 19(2), 1-10. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10990472

Menekse, M. (2023). Envisioning the future of learning and teaching engineering in the artificial intelligence era: Opportunities and challenges. Journal of Engineering Education, 112(3), 578–582. https://doi.org/10.1002/jee.20539

OpenAI. (2022, November 30). ChatGPT: Optimizing language models for dialogue.  https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt/

About the author

name: Joycelyn Kelly

Joycelyn Kelly brings over 15 years of professional experience in corporate training, career development and workshop facilitation in the community and higher education. Joycelyn is passionate about student development, mental health and program delivery using emerging AI technologies. As a Program Instructor in the Artificial Intelligence in Teaching and Learning program in Continuous Learning at Ontario Tech University, Joycelyn enjoys connecting and applying emerging AI technologies in professional practice – teaching and learning. Her innovative approaches have significantly enhanced educational outcomes and student engagement. Joycelyn is a graduate of Ontario Tech University (BA Hons Educational Studies & Digital Technology) and is progressing with her research (AI and VR use for mental health in adolescent and post-secondary populations) in the Masters of Education program at Ontario Tech University.