Chatbots might disrupt math and computer science classes. Some teachers see upsides

FILE - The OpenAI logo is seen on a mobile phone in front of a computer screen which displays output from ChatGPT, Tuesday, March 21, 2023, in Boston. As schools across the country debate banning AI chatbots in 2023, some math and computer science teachers are embracing them as just another tool. (AP Photo/Michael Dwyer, File)

For as long as Jake Price has been a teacher, Wolfram Alpha 鈥 a website that solves algebraic problems online 鈥 has threatened to make algebra homework obsolete.

Teachers learned to work around and with it, said Price, assistant professor of mathematics and computer science at the University of Puget Sound. But now, they have a new homework helper to contend with: generative artificial intelligence tools, such as ChatGPT.

Price doesn鈥檛 see ChatGPT as a threat, and he鈥檚 not alone. Some math professors believe artificial intelligence, when used correctly, could help strengthen math instruction. And it鈥檚 arriving at a time when and educators are .

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The , a coalition of eight newsrooms, is documenting the facing schools and . Members of the Collaborative are , The Associated Press, The Christian Science Monitor, The Dallas Morning News, The Hechinger Report, Idaho Education News, The Post and Courier in South Carolina, and The Seattle Times.

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Artificial intelligence can serve as a tutor, giving a student who is struggling with a problem immediate feedback. It can help a teacher plan math lessons, or write math problems geared toward different levels of instruction. It can show new computer programmers sample code, allowing them to skip over the chore of learning to write basic code.

As schools across the country , some math and computer science teachers are as just another tool.

鈥淢ath has always been evolving as technology evolves,鈥 said Price. A hundred years ago, people were using slide rules and doing all of their multiplication with logarithmic tables. Then, along came calculators.

Price makes sure students have the skills to solve problems on their own. Then, he discusses the limitations of the technologies they might be tempted to use when they get home.

鈥淐omputers are really good at doing tedious things,鈥 Price said. 鈥淲e don鈥檛 have to do all the tedious stuff. We can let the computer do it. And then we can interpret the answer and think about what it tells us about the decisions we need to make.鈥

He wants his students to enjoy looking for patterns, seeing how different methods can give different or the same answers and how to interpret those answers to help make decisions.

Min Sun, a University of Washington education professor, thinks students should use chatbots like personal tutors. If students don鈥檛 understand a mathematical operation, they can ask ChatGPT to explain it and give examples.

She wants teachers to use ChatGPT as their own assistant: to plan math lessons, give students feedback and communicate with parents.

Teachers can also ask ChatGPT to recommend different levels of math problems for students with different mastery of the concept, she said. This is particularly helpful for teachers who are new to the profession or have students with diverse needs, Sun said.

鈥淚t gives you some initial ideas and possible problem areas for students so I can get myself more prepared before walking into the classroom,鈥 Sun said.

A year ago, if you asked Daniel Zingaro how he assesses his introductory computer science students, he would say: 鈥淲e ask them to write code.鈥

But if you ask him today, the answer would be more complex, said Zingaro, an associate professor at the University of Toronto.

Zingaro and Leo Porter, a computer science professor at University of California San Diego, authored the book . They believe artificial intelligence will allow introductory computer science classes to tackle big-picture concepts.

A lot of beginner students get stuck writing simple code, Porter and Zingaro said. They never move on to more advanced questions 鈥 and many still can鈥檛 write simple code after they complete the course.

鈥淚t鈥檚 not just uninteresting, it is frustrating,鈥 Porter said. 鈥淭hey are trying to build something and they forgot a semicolon and they鈥檒l lose three hours trying to find that missing semicolon鈥 or some other bit of syntax that prevents a code from running properly.

Chatbots don't make those mistakes, and allow computer science professors to spend more time teaching higher-level skills.

The professors now ask their students to take a big problem and break it down to smaller questions or tasks the code needs to do. They also ask students to test and debug code once it's written.

鈥淚f we think bigger picture about what we want our students to do, we want them to write software that is meaningful to them,鈥 Porter said.

Magdalena Balazinska, director of the University of Washington鈥檚 Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering, embraces the progress artificial intelligence has made.

鈥淲ith the support of AI, human software engineers get to focus on the most interesting part of computer science: answering big software design questions,鈥 Balazinska said. 鈥淎I allows humans to focus on the creative work.鈥

Not all professors in the field think artificial intelligence should be integrated into the curriculum. But Zingaro and Porter argue that reading a lot of code generated by artificial intelligence doesn鈥檛 feel like cheating. Rather, it鈥檚 how a student is going to learn.

鈥淚 think a lot of programmers read a lot of code, just like how I believe the best writers read a lot of writing,鈥 Zingaro said. 鈥淚 think that is a very powerful way to learn.鈥

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The Associated Press education team receives support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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