Master Class: Revolutionizing Course Content Creation with ChatGPT: An Interactive Workshop for Educators

Pre-Conference Workshop Session 2

Brief Abstract

Artificial intelligence has the potential to revolutionize online education by creating sophisticated and personalized learning experiences and feedback for students. This workshop will examine the platform ChatGPT, assessing its capabilities and limitations while exploring potential implementation strategies. Participants will collaborate to create sample course content (objectives, syllabus, lecture notes, etc.).

There is a fee of $300 for this pre-conference Master Class. You may also register for this Master Class as part of a special $550 Combo package of 2 Master Classes (1 AM and 1 PM class).

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Presenters

Lead Presenter: Sean Nufer, TCS Education System

Dr Sean Nufer is the Director of Teaching and Learning at TCS Education System, and an associate adjunct professor at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology and Pacific Oaks College.

Co-presenter: Veronica Estrada, Pacific Oaks College

Dr. Veronica Estrada is a Core Faculty for the School of Human Development at Pacific Oaks College, where she has been a faculty member since 2015. Dr. Estrada is currently serving her second term as Faculty Council Chair at the College. Dr. Estrada is also an adjunct professor for the Social and Behavioral Sciences Department at Citrus College where she has been teaching Foundations of Leadership since 2014. Dr. Estrada has had over fourteen years of experience teaching in Higher Education at the community college, bachelor and master degree level. Additionally, Dr. Estrada has over twenty years of experience as a Student Affairs Professional at various institutions in California (Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Cal State Long Beach, Glendale Community College, Citrus College, UCLA, California Institute of Technology, and Pacific Oaks). Dr. Estrada completed her Ed.D. in Higher Education Administration and Leadership at the University of Southern California, her M.S. in Counseling with a specialization in Student Development in Higher Education from California State University at Long Beach, and her B.S. in Developmental Psychology from California Polytechnic University at San Luis Obispo. Her research interests lie in the area of Educational Leadership, effective teaching styles to increase student retention, progressive student learning frameworks, elevating student classroom engagement using innovative technology, implementation of restorative practices in the classroom, and addressing the College completion gap among low-income students, specifically focusing on Latinx and DACA students. Dr. Estrada dissertation, “Evaluating the effects of diversity courses and student diversity experiences on undergraduate students’ democratic values at a private urban research institution”, examines the findings from previous research on the benefits of diversity courses and diversity experiences on student democratic outcomes. The purpose of this study was to evaluate to what extent diversity courses and student diversity experiences correlated with democratic values. Dr. Estrada has had the opportunity to travel various parts of the world for pleasure, business and academic conferences as well as sits on the Board of Directors and advisory board for two nonprofit 501(c)(3) organizations. Dr. Estrada has presented at several international, national, and state-wide conferences and has published peered review articles.

Extended Abstract

Artificial Intelligence (AI) can generate highly coherent and human-like text, making it a powerful tool for educators and curriculum developers to create interesting course content for students. One of the most popular platforms in recent months is ChatGPT, developed by OpenAI. AI platforms like ChatGPT have the potential to revolutionize online education by helping to create natural and personalized learning experiences for students by quickly and easily facilitate the generating various types of course content, including learning objectives, lesson plans, syllabus, lecture notes, quizzes, class activities, and student feedback. With revisions and oversight, this content is generally high-quality.

This workshop session will discuss ChatGPT extensively, assessing what the platform is and what it can do for educators, as well as what the platform cannot (yet) do. This workshop will include many hands-on components where participants will work together in groups to create course content for a “course” that we will design together using ChatGPT. We will strive to create a syllabus, lesson plans, lecture notes, course policies, rubrics, an assignment, quizzes, classroom activities, and perhaps feedback for students.

AI can be especially useful for creating material drafts such as lecture notes and quizzes, where the ability to generate accurate and coherent text is essential. It can also be used to create engaging and interactive class activities that help to engage students and make learning more interesting and fun. In some situations, ChatGPT can help educators personalize their course materials to the specific needs and expectations of individual students. While recognizing the general fallacy of learning styles and the meshing hypothesis, ChatGPT can nonetheless create outlines for activities that focus on certain sensory principles. By analyzing the student's past interactions and performance (note: never use a real student’s name), ChatGPT can provide customized materials that are tailored to their specific learning needs and preferences. This can help to improve student engagement and learning outcomes by providing materials that are more relevant and useful to the individual student.

Furthermore, ChatGPT can be integrated in a way that allow educators and instructional designers to create content in a more efficient way. For example, for rapid content creation such as creating volumes of quiz or test questions. Since the model can generate multiple options for each question, it can also be used to create question banks that can be used to create options for formative assessments.

Another important application of ChatGPT in education is creating student feedback by generating personalized and meaningful feedback on student work, which can help to improve student engagement and learning outcomes. For example, it can be used to automatically grade written responses, providing constructive feedback and identifying areas where the student needs further support. Educators can even provide their assignment rubrics for accurate assessment feedback.

It's important to note that ChatGPT is not a replacement for human educators, but it can be a valuable tool for supporting their efforts. Every interaction with AI needs to be reviewed and edited by a human educator to ensure that the content is accurate, relevant, pedagogically sound, and maintains the human touch that is important in education. Ultimately, educators and course designers will always need to ensure that their educational offerings provide the best outcomes and mastery for their students.

ChatGPT is a powerful tool that has the potential to revolutionize the way course content is created in education. It has the ability to quickly and easily generate high-quality, articulate, and human-like text, making it an ideal tool for creating various types of course content such as learning objectives, lesson plans, syllabus, lecture notes, quizzes, class activities, and student feedback. Additionally, it can be used to personalize the materials to the specific needs and learning styles of individual students, making the content more relevant and useful. However, it is important to keep in mind that ChatGPT is not a replacement for human educators and it should be used in a way that complements and supports their efforts. This workshop will explore the capabilities and limitations of ChatGPT in the context of creating course content and discuss potential implementation strategies.