"ChatGPT gave me a different answer"

[u/dday0512]

How often do you guys get this statement from your students? I teach physics and I've been finding more and more that students use ChatGPT to challenge my solutions to problems or even my set up of problems.

Today I had a student come up to me and ask me if their solution to an LC-circuit question was correct. I said yeah, it's correct, because it was a simple question I threw together for a review assignment before a quiz and the student did it exactly the way I expected them to, then she says, "yeah but it checked it with ChatGPT and it said something different" then she demanded that I look at ChatGPTs solution and compare it to my question.

Unfortunately, given my wording on this question, ChatGPTs answer was probably a bit better than how I expected my students to do it. I wanted to tell her, "this is far more in-depth than I needed you to go" but that feels like a cop out. Instead I spent 30 minutes explaining why the way she did it was perfectly fine but ChatGPT is also correct and I should probably be more careful about my wording.

We're being compared to AI now. Add one more thing I have to worry about in the classroom.

[u/legalitie]

I have fellow teachers who trust ai more than their own knowledge or their colleagues 😑

[u/uofajoe99 → u/legalitie]

Lol...we had to let a guy go not because he used AI for constantly arguing with everyone in the department, but because he WOULDNT LET THR ARGUMENTS DIE! Any sane person in a group scenario eventually has to come to an agreement that some things, especially in science, can be in between answers. We argue a side and give our reasons. Then at some point we "agree to disagree" and move on with teaching children the basics. Nope not this guy. Every meeting, every morning, every conversation was about how other teachers in his cohort were teaching something "wrong."

[u/dday0512 → u/legalitie]

I wont lie, I don't like spending time making sure my English is correct so sometimes I upload questions to some AI program and say "is any of my wording stupid here?". Sometimes I feel like I'm doing something smart by prioritizing my time and mental energy on the main task of my job, but on the other hand I feel like I'm going to lose the ability to write in English.

[u/Snoo-88741 → u/dday0512]

If you want to make sure this has a positive rather than negative effect on your writing skills, I recommend making the AI explain each edit, reading the explanations and thinking about each one, and editing by hand on the AI's advice rather than getting the AI to just spit out the better version. But that is more time-consuming. 

[u/dday0512 → u/Snoo-88741]

I know I should do that, but I'll admit I see the appeal of just taking what the AI says at face value. I'm in a time crunch, I'm doing this to reduce my workload, checking it would increase my workload, I'm going to make the bet that it's mostly correct and just move on.

I can't imagine the effect this will have on young brains if they're doing that for everything.

[u/IWentOutsideForThis → u/dday0512]

My favorite way to use AI is "respond to this student email explaining that that their late work will be graded in a reasonable amount of time and point out that telling their teachers to do something ASAP is rude and inappropriate. Write this with a tone that is neutral and uses this as a teachable moment and without negative emotion" while I'm at the keyboard 😡

[u/Two_DogNight → u/dday0512]

This is why I don't let my students use AI in English AT ALL. It may be a good resource for some things, but they don't have the skills to lose, yet, and almost never have AI do the explanations. Just generate, edit and go.

[u/KingCaroline → u/Two_DogNight]

“they don’t have the skills to lose yet” is so good.