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The New Reality Roundup | Week 156
It is week 156 of our new reality, and state legislative sessions are heating up across the country while advances in AI are upending how teachers teach and students learn around the world.
After years of hype and countless science-fiction movies, AI has finally arrived in the classroom.
“I don’t need to start this post with the usual predictions that AI will transform our classrooms. It is obviously happening,” writes Ethan Mollick, a professor at the Wharton School of Business, in a new article outlining his latest research on the best strategies for leveraging AI in teaching.
A recent Vox profile of Ethan and his wife Lilach gives a sense of what’s possible. “Neither Ethan Mollick nor Lilach, his equally AI obsessed research collaborator at Wharton and his spouse, are AI experts by background. Ethan researches and teaches entrepreneurship, while Lilach works on developing interactive simulations meant to help students try out scenarios like job interviews, elevator pitches to investors, running an early-stage startup, and more,” writes Dylan Matthews.
“With astonishing speed for non-specialists, they’re embracing generative AI and using it to remake their own jobs,” Matthews explains. “Beginning in December, Ethan used ChatGPT to devise a syllabus for an introductory course on entrepreneurship, come up with a final assignment, and develop a grading rubric for the final assignment. He used it to produce a test submission for the assignment and to grade that submission, using the rubric the AI had created previously.”
Lilach Mollick “was already on the more innovative end of what modern classrooms have to offer… She’s started playing around with having ChatGPT or Bing run the simulation: sending it a version of a sample pitch she wrote (pretending to be a student) and having it give feedback… according to a set rubric.”
Here at 50CAN, we’re also testing out new ways to use ChatGPT, including putting it through the paces as our editor for this week’s newsletter.
Last time, we put the spotlight on the Summer Boost learning initiative and shared promising work in supporting English language learners in Connecticut. This week, we take a closer look at the promise of AI with John Bailey and explore how the Land of Enchantment is leading the way forward on the science of reading.
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