00:00:00.000class is in session and welcome to unlearn 16 classes in session guys i need to share something
00:00:10.400with you today i'm gonna get to the real topic in a second but i need to say this i think possibly
00:00:17.680maybe i had a hot flash is that possible i'm 47 would i have a hot flash i was doing nothing
00:00:26.800Anna and I were trying to record a TikTok and I started just sweating profusely and I blamed the
00:00:32.060t-shirt that I had just bought from Urban Planet because I feel like that material sometimes just
00:00:36.840going to catch on fire and combust in general. And then when I got home and I took it off,
00:00:43.740I felt better. Could I be having a hot flash at 47? Guys, it's not for the faint of heart.
00:00:51.540Getting older is not for the faint of heart. And on that note, as a teacher, let me roll into what we're going to be talking about today, because I think it's very interesting. And I think it's very much part and parcel of the way that the world changes and the way that we have to adapt and the way that teachers have to adapt.
00:01:10.180listen i've been teaching for 20 years when i first started teaching i guess the internet was
00:01:17.800a thing 20 years ago but but they had to be at a computer most kids didn't have a laptop they might
00:01:23.540have they might have had one um but for the most part they needed to be at a desktop i don't
00:01:29.320remember was that still dialogue we sure as heck didn't have smartphones they i remember still
00:01:35.220taking class trips to teach them how to use the U of T library. Fast forward to today, guys.
00:01:42.900Come with me on this mind-bending, neck-churning adventure, because now we have something called
00:01:50.820ChatGBT. For the love of God, I can't even say it. They even make the acronyms. Oh, wow. You know
00:02:00.080what, as a teacher, sometimes you can't get words out. But they could have made it easier to say,
00:02:05.720I mean, it's going to be really easy to cheat. That's kind of the point of this particular
00:02:10.160program. So it's an AI program for those who have never heard of it. And I'm talking to you,
00:02:14.960parents, teachers, and I'm even talking to students right now, if they happen to be listening
00:02:19.380to me for the next half hour, 45 minutes. Because this is an interesting turn of events
00:02:25.500in the academic world, right? So here's how this AI thing works. You go to your computer,
00:02:32.660you go into this program, you type in what you need. So let's say I want an essay on the
00:02:39.020Civil War in the United States. And I want it to be an argumentative thesis paper
00:02:44.640on how the unconstitutionality of Lincoln and his actions during the Civil War.
00:02:54.860I know a lot of you are like, Joanna, what the hell are you talking about?
00:04:06.980So everybody's up in arms, wondering if this is the destruction of education,
00:04:12.820wondering why we need teachers anymore.
00:04:15.020If you can type this in and somehow get this kind of answer back
00:04:20.060and students will never again have to learn anything. And when I hear people panic like
00:04:26.420this, all I can think is you haven't been a teacher for long. Listen, kids were cheating
00:04:32.100when I was in school. Kids are cheating as I'm a teacher. Kids will be cheating long after I've
00:04:37.060retired, which will be pretty much never. Because people find ways to get around the system. But
00:04:44.480here's the reality. Back in the day, you could get a friend to do your paper. You could pay
00:04:51.460somebody to do your paper. You get a smarter kid to do your paper. There were many, many ways. And
00:04:58.380once the internet sort of exploded, you could buy your paper. Now, some kids aren't going to spend
00:05:03.480that money. So there's this monetary limit to who's going to cheat. But the kids aren't going
00:05:08.980to spend their money. It doesn't mean they can't do a different paper for a different kid and
00:05:13.600somehow exchange goods and services, listen, they're relatively, you know, ingenuous. Oh my
00:05:20.420God, ingenious. You know, I probably should put the holds on this whole podcast if I can't even say
00:05:27.400any sentence correctly. But nonetheless, it's been around forever. I've watched kids try to
00:05:34.380get around the system at every single turn. And a lot of people have been asking me, well,
00:05:39.300Are you nervous? I teach social sciences. Are you nervous? This is pretty much obliterating you as a teacher. This is obliterating you as an educator. It's taking away anything you need to do with these kids. And I'm like, what are you talking about?
00:05:54.680Number one, it's doing one version of an assignment that is, I guess, an independent study kind of thing.
00:06:04.840So if I sat in my class and as a teacher, the only level of assessment I give is handing out one essay.
00:06:14.660The kid can figure out how to cheat.1.00
00:06:17.820Well, who's the bigger idiot here?1.00
00:06:21.220As an educator, especially in high school, you understand that there's a multitude of ways we should educate. There should be a multitude levels of assessment, a different diverse sense of interconnectivity in both written and auditory and test and all of these different forms of the way we can get at, has the kid learned the information, can they use it?
00:06:51.220they analyze it can they apply it that doesn't just happen in one essay also as a teacher you
00:06:58.420understand that you're not going to everything's not going to be this take-home project right
00:07:03.940i need to see how my kids how my students do in the classroom when we're talking about the material
00:07:11.540if they can't pivot to a question if if they've handed in this perfect piece and then we all sit
00:07:18.980down to discuss the the analysis of their essay and other students sort of
00:07:26.480start raising questions and they have no idea the inconsistencies become apparent
00:07:34.100also as an educator you have to understand that some kids can write
00:07:39.440great essays some kids can't that doesn't mean that kid a is great and kid
00:07:44.180B is not it doesn't mean the opposite it just means there are different ways to
00:07:48.660to evaluate each student and if you're an intelligent educator as most incredible educators
00:07:57.300are you understand the variety just isn't to get at their potential the variety is to test
00:08:03.300a bunch of different skill sets so that student becomes aware and becomes prepared for different
00:08:12.740sets of circumstances that they'll meet in the future whether that is a test a presentation
00:08:19.700a debate leading a seminar or writing and my kids sometimes hate this word an in-class essay
00:08:28.660you want to take the the myth or you want to take the you know the trial away from whether
00:08:35.380or not a kid's going to cheat on your essay great have an in-class paper note have them
00:08:40.100sit down with their notes in front of them, which is completely acceptable, have them work through
00:08:44.760their thought. Keep that on file to every other essay they're going to submit. The way students
00:08:54.160write is very, very similar. Their grammar, their syntax, the things they're going to draw on is
00:09:00.000very similar. I am not saying that a student couldn't make a take-home essay better because
00:09:05.120they have more time and they have more skill and they have the greater ability to reread it and
00:09:11.040then submit it again, I am saying you'll see consistencies. So, given all that information,
00:09:18.700can students cheat? Sure. This isn't making it any necessarily any more prevalent. It's just
00:09:26.860making it a little bit more easy for them to access because everybody can go into this.
00:09:32.060everybody can type it into the margins and be done with it. They're also going to have to be
00:09:36.860really carefully aware of, if they all start doing it, because it does spread like wildfire,
00:09:43.540how similar are papers going to be if you enter in similar questions.
00:09:50.680Then kids are going to have to, what, get together and compare, figure out which sections you can use
00:09:58.480and I can use and Pete over there can use, because if you all had in the same paper or
00:10:04.120very similar paper, you're kind of in the same position of plagiarism you were in before.
00:10:11.900So I like to look at it and I'll talk about this particular piece of AI with my students
00:10:17.600because I don't think ignoring it is the best solution, but to talk about it maybe as a
00:10:22.020research tool, maybe as a citation tool. Listen, I used to belong to the kind of generation that
00:10:30.580thought you needed to go to the library to do real research. Those days are long gone.
00:10:37.840So since those days are long gone and we're in this amazing, incredibly powerful and ever-changing
00:10:44.400world of the internet and what we can gain access to and how much more information we have,
00:10:50.340You have to adjust with all of the different things they can access that have good and negative consequence, powerful and destructive consequence.
00:11:00.040So I'm definitely going to talk about it. Right.
00:11:03.440But I am also going to make it very clear that my job as a teacher isn't to get them past my class, isn't to get them the 80 and move on with your day.
00:11:15.200A lot of people talk about how we can judge teachers.
00:11:18.640How do we know what the good teacher is and what the mediocre teacher is and the poor teacher?
00:11:23.400There's lots of conjecture about that out in the public.
00:11:28.500The only way you can really judge what a teacher's done is if you get the kid, the student, for me, I teach high school.
00:11:37.820So if I teach a kid through grade 10, 11, and 12, and they go off to university, which is their goal,
00:11:45.120My test comes when they sit in the politics classroom of first year, when they do a seminar presentation of third year, when they're writing that paper and that dissertation in their master's level.
00:11:58.060And I realize it's all cumulative, but that's what I've tried to prepare them for.
00:12:02.520When a student comes back to me and says, Joanna, your notes for politics 12 were awesome for first year university.
00:12:11.900When they tell me that I explained it in a good way, when they tell me that I gave them strategies and tips and methodology in order to better their writing skills, better their presentation skills, then that's, you know, even better their test taking skills than I've done my job.
00:12:32.560How they, not what mark they got, that doesn't make any sense.
00:12:36.780Not how much the kid even likes you, to be honest.
00:12:39.740and I do like to be liked, but that's not a judgment of my teaching style. I get judged and
00:12:47.340there's not necessarily the greatest of evidence or tracking system involved in this, but I get
00:12:54.580judged on the basis of how those kids did when they moved on to the next level. And I have to
00:13:02.840acknowledge this program. I have to acknowledge this program for its benefit, but I also have
00:13:08.080to acknowledge this program for the landmine they might step into because as anybody knows if you've
00:13:14.520been in the social science in university very quickly two things happen number one you steer
00:13:22.860away from just major exams at the end of the semester that's not how they test you anymore
00:13:27.380you'll do that first maybe second year university and then they steer away from it why i'll tell you
00:13:33.060why? Because it's not a great way of assessing intelligence or capacity, but it is a great way
00:13:38.420of handling, especially those like Scantron cards. It's a great way of handling and assessing large
00:13:43.700groups of students and then dividing them out who's going to make it through and who's not
00:13:48.320going to make it through. I don't personally think the test is the best form of analysis,
00:13:53.340but it is quick and easy, right? And it gets the job done in a classroom, let's say, that could
00:14:00.440have five, 600 kids in it come first year university. So when kids say, Joanna, we don't
00:14:05.980like tests, why are you making us do a test? Well, the answer is very simple because I have to teach
00:14:10.160you how to take a test. I have to teach you how to absorb and organize and memorize large amounts
00:14:16.580of information. I have to help you minimize your anxiety and minimize your levels of stress
00:14:23.600and maximize your ability to manage your time and manage your intellect and even your energy
00:14:32.040in order to tackle that particular task. So I have to do it. Do I think it's the best? No.
00:14:39.400But I know first and second year of university, you're going to hit it. After that happens,
00:14:43.140those social sciences, what happens is you then are, as soon as you get graded a test,
00:14:50.000This is what I found. Because I wasn't great at a test in high school. I got really good at
00:14:53.500university. And as soon as I got really good and wanted to know what happened, they stopped giving
00:14:57.560me tests. Because the class size is reduced. And by the time you hit third and fourth year in
00:15:04.980university and then progress on to your, you know, your master's or PhD, they're not interested in
00:15:11.280making you memorize stuff anymore. That's not the goal. Because that's very, that's a very low
00:15:17.160academic bar. They're interested in two things. Can you understand and analyze and apply? And
00:15:25.540here's the real kicker. Can you do it on your feet? Can you do it in the moment? Can you do it
00:15:33.440where there is no net and you're not able to double check with your friend and send a paper
00:15:39.280over here or pull something off, chat, GPT? Can you do it in that room full of students
00:15:46.060where the professor's asking you questions, where that pain in the butt student keeps asking you
00:15:51.180questions just so they seem extra smart, right? Where they're trying to trip you up. How well do
00:15:57.700you do it then? And if up until that point, you've forgone actually doing your own papers,
00:16:05.440you've avoided figuring out how to analyze, figuring out how to criticize. You've sidestepped
00:16:12.080all of that. And by the way, you didn't need chat GPT to do that. You just needed a little
00:16:18.980bit of money and a smart kid in class willing to do papers for free and nobody could catch you
00:16:23.260doing that. Or you buy them off the internet that's on a locked site. Like there's so many
00:16:29.220ways to cheat, right? And lots of people say, oh, cheating never works, blah, blah, blah. Here's why
00:16:35.360this kind of cheating never works. In education, there will become a time where if you can't do
00:16:41.720it on your feet. If you can't do it in the room, everybody's going to see you for what you are,
00:16:47.920which is a fraud. So you're not going to excel in those upper years. You're not going to get
00:16:54.860the job. You're not going to be great at the job because all of the skills that you've sidestepped
00:17:01.820in order just to get good marks and get through and do it quick and easy are now going to come
00:17:09.300crumbling down upon you and you won't be able to prove yourself because you haven't forced
00:17:15.660the skill set upon you. Now, can we use this amazing form of AI to help the learning process?
00:17:24.540Absolutely, we can. Can it help understand? And I mean, I haven't seen it work like this,
00:17:30.340but can it help raise up different critical questions? Absolutely. Want to know how I'd
00:17:37.080use it? Here's how I use it. I would want it to create, like, let's say we're talking about an
00:17:44.940argumentative paper, and this is the intelligent way to use this kind of AI to actually utilize
00:17:50.980technology we have to better your understanding, your analysis, and your output. If I was writing
00:17:59.500a paper, let's say, and my paper was, let's make it easy, Jaws, the best movie ever made.
00:18:09.000First of all, I think that might be an objective fact. But if I wrote that paper, and I cited,
00:18:15.080you know, special effects and music and character development and all those things,
00:18:20.480and I pulled things from the movie and, you know, analysis from critics and analysis from theater
00:18:27.360and box office results and all of those things and i built this amazing mountain of an argument
00:18:33.360want to know what chat gpt should be used for the opposite paper
00:18:40.720have that computer that ai challenge you because we don't all have people around us
00:18:48.240that can challenge our ideas that can say or that can frame the exact same
00:18:54.400extreme level of critique, but in opposition to your ideas. The best way for any of us to learn,
00:19:01.620myself included, is by sitting across the room from somebody who is equally passionate and driven
00:19:09.240to disprove everything you've researched and you've said, and then to listen to what they
00:19:16.220have to say, not necessarily to change your mind, but to make your original argument stronger.
00:19:23.420Now, normally this works by having a friend sit there, right?
00:19:27.440Batting ideas back and forth or having a colleague sit there and batting ideas back and forth.
00:19:32.700We all get smarter the more people in the room.
00:19:36.200But minus that, this kind of AI and this kind of research capacity could really raise those questions quickly.
00:19:45.460So if I then ask the computer to make me an essay citing why JAWS was a complete disaster,
00:19:51.500I raise that essay. I listen to those statistics. I then go and cite their sources. I go find where
00:19:58.760they source their material from. Are they valid sources? Are they reliable? Are they credible?
00:20:03.420Because that's important, obviously. P.S. There should be a whole course in high school about
00:20:07.840that. There isn't. And then take it back to my paper and see which things I should tackle
00:20:16.400within my argumentative essay, not just to prove my point, but to slyly, to covertly, to subtly
00:20:24.780disprove anybody's opposition to the points that I've already raised. That is a great paper.
00:20:34.820The first or the former is a decent paper. The latter would be a great paper.
00:20:39.360And if anybody thinks that that interaction and that use of AI is not making students and academics better, well, you're being ridiculous.
00:20:53.580You're just being nervous about and trepidatious about the negative impacts that this kind of access to information would have, but you're not taking in the full picture.
00:21:05.620It's still doing what we want it to do, which is allow a funnel, a wave, a community of intellectual powerhouses to be channeled through this amazing thing called the computer.
00:21:22.040So I can sit and have deep, important, powerful thoughts and analysis and critique about all of the pieces that I've learned.
00:21:32.880that's isn't that education why would i as an educator be afraid of that as an educator why
00:21:41.820wouldn't i embrace all of the amazing things that could bring when i was a kid and we were sent to
00:21:48.160the library to go do a paper on whatever in politics right unless we were given resources
00:21:55.140i'd go find i don't know 10 books what i in my first and second year my third year even was i
00:22:02.180doing that intelligently? No. Did I make friends with a librarian? Yes. Yes, I did. Did she help me
00:22:09.580try to find the best books? Yes. They always talked about journal articles. So you try to
00:22:14.220master that and as a new piece of information. But guys, when we were kids, we had the U of T
00:22:21.360library. And I don't know if anybody's from Toronto or knows what the U of T library, but it isn't
00:22:26.880I should take a video down there because it's just this epic place.
00:30:33.100I'm a big fan of making them do more work because if you haven't gotten it then, my
00:30:39.160job is to work you until you get it. That's it. And this chat GPT is just another step in an
00:30:49.640evolution of an access point to the epic world of information this world has to offer. It is the
00:30:57.480next plateau. It doesn't make our kids less intelligent. It doesn't make our kids less,
00:31:04.020like giving them less less access to information it gives them more it gives them more power
00:31:11.300more flexibility more worldly understanding and and awareness that is going to make them better
00:31:18.740humans more intelligent more capable in the world for future generations that's what it does
00:31:25.100and as soon as it does that we're all in a better spot what we need to do and here's where some
00:31:32.100people are going to disagree. We need to build an education model that mirrors that. What does
00:31:38.260that mean? Well, it means that we need to start changing the sit down, be quiet, and write that
00:31:42.920essay. Or sit down, be quiet, and memorize this list. Because that structure no longer fits this
00:31:50.700reality. That structure and that template is no longer best serving the student of today,
00:31:58.880the knowledge they can access today, and the vast amounts of critical information they need
00:32:07.460to figure out how to process in order to get some end result. We have to change. And to do that,
00:32:14.840we need to understand more time in the classroom. A wider, in my opinion, a wider variety of classes
00:32:23.120should be expected for kids to be able to take and master.
00:32:27.800And at the very least, just take and understand the fundamentals of.
00:32:32.840And I think in that way, you're going to start seeing this amazing push,
00:32:37.780not just of, well, my kid's going to go to college or university and become a billionaire,
00:32:41.820but this amazing push that a 12-year-old can sit around the dinner table
00:32:47.680and talk intelligently about the crisis going on in Ukraine right now. Or a kid,
00:32:56.840you know, 15 years old can sit on a trip to Florida with their parents and talk about how
00:33:05.280economic ideologies are changing in Latin America. You think teenagers can't do that?
00:33:11.060I'm telling you they can. And I'm telling you right now, they have access to that information.
00:33:16.340So we need to figure out a way to open the conduit, let them tap into it, and then redirect how we're going to structure a course in order to grow their critical skills, in order to grow their intelligence, and grow their passion for learning more.
00:33:34.680it's never been about how much can you memorize or it never should have been about that
00:33:41.040it always should have been about how do i get them people in general not just students how do
00:33:49.240i get them to care about information how do i get them to care about the world around them how they
00:33:56.360impact it, how it impacts them, how all of those moving parts are necessary in us for us to progress
00:34:06.140and make the world a better place. That's where the magic lies. And chat GPT might let some kids
00:34:14.200skate by as long as they can without doing any real work and one day it all comes crashing.
00:34:20.520or, or it's going to open up new doors, new access points for kids everywhere, no matter where they
00:34:30.020live, no matter who they are, no matter what language they speak in order to maximize their
00:34:37.780potential, maximize their reach and maximize the impact they're going to have on this world.
00:34:42.960in closing chat gpt bring it on i'm good i think i can handle it as a teacher i think my classroom
00:34:53.880can handle it and i know my highly intelligent students are going to be better for the access
00:35:01.280than closing ideology and closing ideas and limiting the information they can
00:35:07.620get in my classroom. Thank you guys so much for hanging out with me this week. I will see you
00:35:14.880next Tuesday. Same bat time, same bat station. Have a great week, guys. Dismissed.