In a world where college degrees open professional doors, the four (or sometimes more) years of the undergraduate experience should provide time and space to develop critical thinking skills.
Last semester, and admittedly somewhat late to the game, I discovered how my mostly sophomore and junior students were using ChatGPT. I’ve been teaching the required introduction to research methods course to public health students twice a year for around six years. Driven by staffing constraints and no teaching assistant, I reduced the number of my labor-intensive, hand-graded assignments to let technology help. I instituted a weekly quiz that students could take at their own convenience on Fridays through our Canvas platform.
Students did well on these quizzes, consistently averaging around 9.3 out of 10 points. I wondered how my more absent students were doing so well. In the term’s eighth week, my suspicions were confirmed when I saw identical responses to an open-ended question asking the quiz taker to explain findings presented in a published table. A 20-year-old family friend showed me how he could easily take a screenshot of my quiz page and within seconds have a beautifully constructed and correct answer.
Announcing my concern to the class, the following Wednesday, I gave an in-lecture paper-and-pencil version of the previous online quiz; the class average was a 3.8. It was the middle of the semester, and my students could not read and critique data. Despite a successful 30-year track record and commitment to authentic pedagogy, I felt I had failed as a teacher. The only positive result was striking data for an upcoming correlation lecture!
A recent MIT Media Lab study offers a peek at what is going on when people use Large Language Models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT, rather than Internet tools or only their own brains. Working over four sessions, researchers recorded brain activity and tested participants’ ability to recall essays that they had written minutes prior. The results were shocking and call into question academic reliance on LLMs. Among those randomly assigned to the LLM group, neural connectivity patterns were significantly scaled down. Those who used Internet tools or only their brains were much better able to recall what they had written than those who had used LLM. This study, which is still in the peer-review process, highlights that cutting and pasting curated information is not the same as engaging with the same material.
Young people are concerned about how to maintain a decent GPA, get the ideal summer internship and subsequently land that perfect — or any — job after graduation. At the same time, many are struggling, suffering from historic levels of anxiety. American education is in crisis, and we are not providing a solid platform upon which a student can build. The college campus should serve as a respite, with time to explore, converse and make sense of material. If not, is there any value to thousands of dollars in tuition? College is a time to grapple, in and out of the classrooms. It is a critical setting but one we must offer to all students, and especially this cohort, who had a global pandemic interrupt their secondary education.
I don’t deny that LLMs are part of the current and future toolset and information environment. The college student must learn digital citizenship where they critically and ethically understand prompts and outputs. Structured seminars can prepare youth on technological innovations, which are constantly evolving. The typical professor has little clue or training on the use of LLMs; no instructor in today’s world focused their doctoral degrees on how to create and assess ChatGPT. Guidance is needed. On most U.S. campuses, faculty are told to use their own discretion or preferences for how students employ LLMs. The diverse approaches are confusing and problematic. In one course, it is integrated and allowed; in another, it is banned. In others, it isn’t even addressed.
Technology so often outpaces institutions. We in academia are overdue in addressing what could be considered a crisis of critical thinking. We cannot wait any longer: We must rethink much of our pedagogy to create policies and spaces where we are promoting reflection and intellectual thought, where students’ minds are expanding, not contracting.
Dina Borzekowski is a research professor at the University of Maryland’s School of Public Health.
