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  • 1.  Curious how folks are using chatbots for teaching

    Posted 04-18-2023 21:26
    Hi everyone,

    I was just curious how folks are using chatbots for teaching (if at all).I for one have been implementing some of Ethan's blog wisdom in my classes ��...

    Here's some of the ways I've used them so far:

    1. For ideation exercises in combination with gamified word association challenges.
    2. For opportunity evaluation exercises combining the tools with existing worksheets.
    3. For a research seminar where students have to write an academic paper on a topic of their choosing. Here I have the students use chatbots to help create "researcher portfolios" to socialize them with the literature/scholars active in the field. 

    Cheers,
    Sid

    Siddharth Vedula
    Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship
    Technical University of Munich
    School of Management
    Arcisstraße 21, 80333, München, Germany
    (e) siddharth.vedula@tum.de
    (w) https://www.professoren.tum.de/en/vedula-siddharth


  • 2.  RE: Curious how folks are using chatbots for teaching

    Posted 04-26-2023 08:11

    Hi Siddharth,

    A couple comments:

    I have a class session in my venture creation course dedicated to 'storytelling', as not only reflecting a form of 'emotional capital', but also as a tool useful for persuading investors.  However, when I ask my students to create a basic story to include in their 5-minute presentation, or I ask them to create a 30-second script of a commercial, many of them don't know how to begin... I've found that ChatGPT is quite good at crafting a story or a commercial.  The students can just type in a brief description of their venture idea, ask ChatGPT to create a story or commercial, and ChatGPT will do it.  Of course, as with all the rest of us faculty, this is the first full semester where we can see this AI capability.  It's pretty amazing.  The students appreciate the headstart that ChatGPT offers in creating the story.  And in fact, if multiple students input the exact same story prompt, you can get different stories!  I encourage other entrepreneurship faculty to share this idea with their students, in their venture creation courses.

    My other comment is a bit of a warning against using something like ChatGPT to help students "socialize with the literature/scholars" active in the field.  On multiple occasions in my own experience, ChatGPT has 'hallucinated' and manufactured fictitious citations.  As in, it uses real journal names and real scholar names, and creates fake article titles with fake publication dates and fake page numbers.  For now, it's a very real serious problem, and all students should be coached to double-check whatever citations and scholars ChatGPT mentions. (Can google "AI hallucination" to get a basic understanding of this phenomenon.)

    Regards, -cm  (chsieh.com)




  • 3.  RE: Curious how folks are using chatbots for teaching

    Posted 04-26-2023 21:17
    I have also been following Ethan Mollick's AI guide for the classroom, and it has worked wonders. This comes with its problems; for instance, I had a student writing his entire essay using chatGPT and turning it in without any changes. This was entirely against the syllabus rules on AI and thus was an automatic zero (I tried reporting it to the ethical board, but they wouldn't take it because there was no proof AI wrote it, but that is a different story for another time).

    Regarding your issue with AI hallucinations, add a statement, "Do not make things up" or "replace make up information with blanks." It works wonders. I also found that creative stuff, like writing pitches and scripts for commercials, can be a great starting point, but it needs a more emotional feeling (or a soul). Some scripts can be added to improve the humanness of it, for instance, "write it in a more humane tone," "add this or that emotion," "write it with a causal but professional tone," and so on.

    Best,

    Pedro Tonhozi de Oliveira | Ph.D.
    Entrepreneurship & Innovation
    Fundação Getúlio Vargas

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  • 4.  RE: Curious how folks are using chatbots for teaching

    Posted 05-03-2023 12:53
      |   view attached

    Great question. We created ProfBot to help counter quit quitting and get our students back into 1 on 1 dialogues about course material.  

    ProfBot is a AI-powered chatbot that helps university students become better learners by providing personalized feedback in real-time.   With ProfBot, students can study anytime, anywhere, and engage more with their education directly to improve academic performance significantly. ProfBot is available 24/7 on any device, so students can access it whenever and wherever they need it.

    Find out more and join the waitlist at www.ProfBot.ai



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    Dr. Sean Wise | BA LLB MBA PhD
    Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship,
    Ryerson University
    (416) 995 9017
    sean.wise@ryerson.ca
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