Medicine Hat High School adopting artificial intelligence into classroom

In fact, a Medicine Hat High School teacher is teaching students how to use it, and encourages computer students who are facing a problem, to ask GPT.

“In the context of a computer science class, there’s a lot of questions around coding and errors, so when a program they are writing doesn’t work, typically the compiler flags an error message, and those can be confusing for students,” said Michael Jarred, a computer sciences teacher.

“But if you put that into CHATGPT, it may ask you a few more questions but typically it helps them solve the program and debug the program they are writing,” said Jarred.

“Part of their process now is to ask GPT what the answer would be,” he said.

In addition, after CHATGPT generates an answer, the classroom then reviews the answer, evaluating how good or bad the robot’s response was.

However, since the robots are creating relatively quality work, there’s concern that students could become too dependent on the software.

But Jarred believes the technology can’t be banned or pushed aside.

“I think it can certainly be beneficial. I just don’t know how you would actually ban it for any significant period of time. Over the course of this next year, the changes and the rate of increase is going to be massive, and so even the idea of being a year or two late, to interact and use it, I think that could be equally problematic,” said Jarred.

Corey Sadlemyer, the Associate Superintendent of Learning, says the school system doesn’t require teachers to incorporate AI. However, Sadlemyer and the teachers wanted to find a way to enhance students’ learning.

“Seeing others use it it’s really like having your own digital assistant beside you that you can ask questions, that if you need to build something, it can do it a lot faster than you would. And I don’t know that people take anything right now as a finished product – they use it as a framework of something that they might use in other ways,” said Sadlemyer.

Currently, teachers are discussing how other classes may be impacted and have decided to co-pilot all computers.

Jarred says this “allows kids to actually partner with AI and develop softwares and programs, which is certainly the future. It’s a challenge, but he’s looking forward to it – it’s a lot of fun. I think the quality of the work has already improved. We’re going to be able to do a lot more.”

by Angela Kazmierczak

Medicine Hat High School adopting artificial intelligence into classroom

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