Last week, I shared the guidance I gave to my IB Theory of Knowledge students for using ChatGPT (see HERE’S THE GUIDANCE I GAVE TO STUDENTS ABOUT USING CHATGPT – HELP ME MAKE IT BETTER).

It’s generally been well-received by both my students and other teachers alike.

Students are continuing work on their “practice essay” for IB (next year’s official prompts don’t come out until late August).  I specifically recruit students who are not taking any other IB classes (including a fair number of intermediate ELLs), so some are finding it particularly challenging because of language issues and just lack of experience with these kinds of prompts.

So, I’ve just shared this new piece of guidance:

In addition to my giving approval to your using ChatGPT to correct your grammar and to asking it for suggestions on how to make your points more clear, I am adding a third approved way to use ChatGPT:

You may use it to help develop your outline, but only if you use it in the exact way I describe here.

Type this into ChatGPT:

Create an outline for an essay answering this question: (then, type your prompt here).

ChatGPT will then generate an outline.  It will not be exactly in any of the three outlines that I have provided for your choice.  It may, however,  give you some good ideas.

Then, copy and paste the entire ChatGPT outline into the bottom of your outline document.

Next, copy and paste any of the sentences from that outline that you are going to use in the appropriate section of our outline form. Put it in a different color. 

Then, next to it, and this is a requirement, put the ChatGPT sentence in your own words and put your words in bold.

 

We’ll see how it goes.

What do you think?

 

ADDENDUM: I’ve been having students use old IB prompts when they’ve been writing practice essays.  Next year, in light of Artificial Intelligence, I will be writing my own prompts (in IB style).  In them, I will be asking students to primarily discuss activities we’ve done in class and their personal experiences to support their claims.