\n<\/p>\n
Instead of generating answers, Study Mode asks students questions about what they know.<\/p>\n
Photo illustration by Justin Morrison\/Inside Higher Ed | SDI Productions\/E+\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
When classes resume this fall, college students will have access to yet another generative artificial intelligence tool marketed as a learning enhancement. <\/p>\n
But instead of generating immediate answers, OpenAI\u2019s new Study Mode for ChatGPT acts more like a tutor, firing off questions, hints, self-reflection prompts and quizzes that are tailored to the user and informed by their past chat history. While traditional large language models have raised academic integrity concerns, Study Mode is intended to provide a more active learning experience. It mimics the type of Socratic dialogue students may expect to encounter in a lecture hall and challenges them to draw on information they already know to form their own nuanced analyses of complex questions. <\/p>\n
For example, when Inside Higher Ed<\/em> asked the traditional version of ChatGPT which factors caused the United States Civil War, it immediately responded that the war had \u201cseveral major causes, most of which revolved around slavery, states\u2019 rights, and economic differences,\u201d and gave more details about each before producing a five-paragraph essay on the topic. Asking Study Mode the same question, however, prompted it to give a brief overview before asking this question: \u201cWould you say the war was fought because of slavery, or about something else like states\u2019 rights or economics? There\u2019s been debate over this, so I\u2019d love to hear your view first. Then I\u2019ll show you how historians analyze it today.\u201d<\/p>\n Study Mode is similar to the Learning Mode that Anthropic launched for its chat bot Claude for Education back in April and the Guided Learning version of Gemini that\u00a0Google unveiled Wednesday. OpenAI officials say they hope Study Mode will \u201csupport deeper learning\u201d among college students. <\/p>\n While teaching and learning experts don\u2019t believe such tools can replace the value faculty relationships and expertise offer students, Study Mode\u2019s release highlights generative AI\u2019s evolving possibilities\u2014and limitations\u2014as a teaching and learning aid. For students who choose to use it instead of asking a traditional LLM for answers, Study Mode offers an on-demand alternative to a human tutor, unbound by scheduling conflicts, payment or feedback delays. <\/p>\n But in an economy where generative AI\u2019s ability to gather and regurgitate information is threatening the future of entry-level office jobs, students will need to understand what they\u2019re trying to get out of their college coursework if they want Study Mode to deliver on its promise to foster deeper learning. <\/p>\n \u201cOver all, it does represent a significant departure from how people are normally encouraged to use generative AI, given that the value proposition of this technology is largely couched in the concept of efficiency, speed and offloading things that are not as important,\u201d said Trey Conatser, assistant provost for teaching and learning at the University of Kentucky and director of UK\u2019s Center for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning. \u201cBut Study Mode actually asks us to stick with it for it to work, take some time to sit with the friction of learning and be patient with the practice and feedback.\u201d <\/p>\n The release of Study Mode comes nearly three years after the debut of ChatGPT\u2014and the many other large language models that have followed\u2014set off ongoing concerns among educators that college students\u2019 increased reliance on traditional LLMs to write papers or solve math problems may erode their critical thinking skills. <\/p>\n There\u2019s not yet a consensus on if generative AI helps or hurts critical thinking, but at least two studies published in the last year found that adults, including college students, who use LLMs to research and learn about a subject exhibited weaker reasoning and analytical skills. And those may be the exact types of skills the roughly two-thirds who are already using generative AI tools like ChatGPT will need to make Study Mode reach its full potential.<\/p>\n While ChatGPT\u2019s Study Mode is programmed to query students rather than generate answers, the users themselves also need to be prepared to push the LLM to ask deeper, more nuanced questions. At least, that was Conatser\u2019s experience when he tested out Study Mode over the weekend and asked it to help him study for a hypothetical quiz on Romantic poets from 1780 to 1820. <\/p>\n First, the LLM asked him more about his education level and the focus of the quiz. He told it that he\u2019s a college junior whose quiz will focus on historical context and specified that he wanted help studying William Wordsworth\u2019s poem \u201cThe Prelude.\u201d <\/p>\n The following conversation, which Conatser shared with Inside Higher Ed<\/em>, ensued: <\/p>\n Study Mode:<\/strong> Wordsworth described \u201cThe Prelude\u201d as \u201ca poem on the growth of my own mind.\u201d What exact subtitle did he eventually attach to the poem that captures this idea?<\/p>\n (Give it a try, and we\u2019ll check your answer before moving on.)<\/p>\n Conatser:<\/strong> That\u2019s not so much what I will need to answer. It will be open book, but I will be asked to provide some interpretations to historical context and literary traditions.<\/p>\n After some more dialogue asking Study Mode to focus on historical context, it generated the following question<\/em>: <\/p>\n Study Mode:<\/strong> \u201cBliss was it in that dawn to be alive\u00a0\u2026\u201d Based on that word, \u201cbliss,\u201d what general emotion do you think he felt when he first encountered the early French Revolution\u2014excitement, fear or apathy?<\/p>\n Conatser:<\/strong> That seems like an obvious question<\/p>\n Study Mode:<\/strong> Understood\u2014let\u2019s turn up the difficulty. In \u201cThe Prelude\u201d (Book X), Wordsworth writes of \u201chow in my heart a dreary weight \/ Fell, and I turned away\u00a0\u2026\u201d\u2014a moment that marks his break with the revolution he once celebrated. <\/p>\n Question (one step): <\/strong>Which single, headline-making event in France during 1793 does this passage point to, and why did that event feel like a betrayal of the revolution\u2019s original ideals for many sympathetic British observers?<\/p>\n Although it took some prodding to get the LLM to ask the type of questions Conatser wanted to see, \u201cI\u2019m still in the driver\u2019s seat with Study Mode,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s where students are going to need to be when they\u2019re using it.\u201d <\/p>\n Knowing when to push back against Study Mode when it\u2019s not asking the types of questions that will help students master material will be key to helping them get the most out of its ability to foster critical thinking, Conatser said.<\/p>\n \u201cIf someone is going to be totally passive with Study Mode, it may not drive them to where they need to go and they\u2019ll still need to be thinking about how they\u2019re supposed to be studying, what kind of assessment they\u2019re leading up to and what kinds of skills will be more important for that assessment,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you don\u2019t know what you don\u2019t know, then you won\u2019t be very effective at using these tools even if they have the types of guardrails that Study Mode has.\u201d <\/p>\n And if a student isn\u2019t motivated to use Study Mode to its full potential, they can prompt it to generate complete answers, just like a traditional LLM, according to Christian Carmody, a senior researcher at the Research Institute for Learning and Development, who also tested it out this week. <\/p>\n \u201cFor a current events assignment, I prompted Study Mode right away and told it, \u2018Before we engage, I do not want your help with this or [to] encourage me to think through this. I do this on my own another time. I\u00a0really just want the answers,\u2019\u201d Carmody recalled. \u201cIt did exactly that.\u201d<\/p>\n The ability for students to easily manipulate Study Mode could add more pressure to colleges and universities that are facing growing skepticism from students about the value of degrees in the age of AI.<\/p>\n \u201cStudents should be able to think about why learning is valuable to them and why they should be able to engage with material in a way that\u2019s challenging and force deep thinking,\u201d he said. \u201cUntil a student has that mindset, I\u2019m not confident that they are going to use this study and learning tool in the way it\u2019s intended to be used.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Instead of generating answers, Study Mode asks students questions about what they know. Photo illustration by Justin Morrison\/Inside Higher Ed | SDI Productions\/E+\/Getty Images When classes resume this fall, college students will have access to yet another generative artificial intelligence tool marketed as a learning enhancement. But instead of generating immediate answers, OpenAI\u2019s new Study<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14585,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[6623,5238,585,2067,188,6275],"class_list":{"0":"post-14584","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-chatgpts","9":"tag-fuels","10":"tag-learning","11":"tag-mode","12":"tag-study","13":"tag-understanding"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14584\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Critical Thinking in Age of AI<\/h2>\n