Post-AI Assessment
Some initial observations + a ChatGPT prompt to get you started
After the initial wave of of banning ChatGPT in the classroom and, later, circumnavigating plagiarism risks by returning to pen and paper essays and exams, in the last couple of months or so more and more educators are exploring if and how they might embrace AI tools like ChatGPT to:
Improve their students’ AI literacy.
Deliver better learner outcomes.
I’ve done some research into how educators are using AI in their classrooms and how they’re adapting their assessment methods to embrace ChatGPT and other AI technologies. Here’s what I’ve learned so far.
Flipped Learning 4.0
Broadly speaking, those who have been able and willing to embrace AI in the classroom are using it as a tool for the delivery of a flipped pedagogical model.
This model is simple and well-established: when our students are working on their own (be that at home or in the classroom), their job is to get to know a concept, a process, a theory, a thesis or similar through personalised exploration.
Using tools like YouTube, Khan Academy and now ChatGPT, learners engage in self-led learning to develop an understanding of a core concept, process etc.
Then, in the magic of the connected classroom, we collectively do our “homework” together. Specifically, we:
Challenge our students to discuss what they’ve read or learned.
In real-time, teach them to not only create arguments but to get confident enough to critique and refute them.
Raise important questions about the reliability and bias of our sources.
In this scenario, not only can the teacher ask a student questions, but groups of students can ask each other questions, leading to improved memorisation and deep understanding.
By using this model, students can use ChatGPT and other tools to formulate where we begin, but the actual work - and the highest leverage part of the learning experience - is in figuring out the reliability, meaning, significance and potential application of the content we have sourced and the understanding we have developed.
Post-AI Assessment
In a post-AI world where tools like ChatGPT can generate very high-quality essays and short answers, we need to rethink how we assess our students’ learning.
In the Flipped Learning 4.0 classroom, students are assessed not on their ability to recall & restate information (assessment of knowledge recall) but instead on their ability to research, evaluate and analyse factual information (assessment of knowledge, understanding, skills & behaviours).
What we’re witnessing here is the rise of enquiry-based approaches to teaching and learning which assess and grade not only knowledge acquisition but also skills development and the methods, processes & behaviours executed during the enquiry process.
This often involves designing more applied, so-called “performance-based” assessments which require learners to demonstrate their competence in a more tangible way than an essay, exam or multiple-choice questioning.
Research shows that these assessments provide a more comprehensive and authentic evaluation of a learner's abilities compared to traditional assessments like as exams and multiple-choice questioning.
Experimenting with Post-AI Assessment
Shifting to performance-based assessment takes time and practice. Here’s a step by step guide to help you get started:
Step 1: Review your learning objectives.
Step 2: For each objective, develop a project, problem statement or scenario. Frame the objective as a problem to be solved or a challenge to be addressed. Choose a real-world scenario, project or or problem statement related to the objective which puts the project into a real world context that will make sense to your learners.
Example:
Objective: “Using ChatGPT and other sources, you will research and explain the process of photosynthesis.”
Project: "Your team has been hired by a local greenhouse to optimize their plants' growth and productivity. Investigate the process of photosynthesis and develop recommendations to improve plant growth."
Step 3: For each project, develop a three-part assessment:
Knowledge assessment: identify the core concepts that the learner needs to recall and understand and assess how well has the learner has recalled and understood the concept in their project.
Skills assessment: identify the skills that the learners to demonstrate in the process of their. This might also include research skills, evaluation skills, writing skills, presentation skills etc.
Process assessment: review each project and identify the enquiry methods, processes and/or behaviours that learners need to demonstrate. This will typically include the ability to correctly prompt, assess and validate the output of ChatGPT.
Try it for Yourself, with Some Help from ChatGPT!
If you want to imagine what your teaching and assessment might look like in a post-AI world try the following prompt.
Here’s a copy and paste version 👇
You are an expert teacher and instructional designer.
Step 1: For each of the following objectives below, develop a project, problem statement or scenario. You must choose a real-world scenario, project or or problem statement related to the objective which puts the project into a real world context that will make sense to my learners. My learners are [paste information on learners’ age, levels of ability etc].
Example:
Objective: “Using ChatGPT and other sources, you will research and explain the process of photosynthesis.”
Project: "Your team has been hired by a local greenhouse to optimize their plants' growth and productivity. Investigate the process of photosynthesis and develop recommendations to improve plant growth."
Step 2: Then, for each project, design specific learning activities. For each project, plan a series of activities that will guide learners through the enquiry process. The process must have five steps as follows:
Stage 1: Gather information
Stage 2: Analyse both the reliability and information contained in the data
Stage 3: Propose an evidence-based solution, recommendation, prediction, hypothesis etc
Stage 4: Where possible, allow learners to present, compare and iterate their responses in small groups (Peer Instruction)
Stage 5: Resolution [teacher-led]
For each step, define what the learners must do and how. Scaffold each project by including milestones, supporting resources, templates, or checklists, as well as a list of probing questions to generate debate. Only include reliable, well-cited resources which have over 100 citations on Google scholar.
Objectives: [paste objectives]
You can download and share the prompt here.
Happy designing!
Phil 👋