What Do Teachers Think About ChatGPT?
New York City Public Schools was the first school district to ban ChatGPT in January 2023.
In the last few weeks, school districts in the following states have followed suit: California, Washington, Maryland, Alabama, and Virginia. With the growing national debate on ChatGPT's utility in education, Study.com wanted to understand teacher sentiment on this emerging technology. We asked over 200 K-12 teachers how they feel about ChatGPT, its benefits and drawbacks, and if it should be used in school.
Which States Have School Districts That Have Banned ChatGPT?
Takeaways
- 80% of teachers have heard of ChatGPT.
- 43% of teachers think ChatGPT will make their jobs more difficult.
- 26% of teachers have caught a student cheating using ChatGPT.
- 72% of teachers have not received any faculty guidance on ChatGPT.
- 67% of teachers do not believe ChatGPT should be banned in schools.
While one-third of teachers surveyed believe all schools should ban ChatGPT, twice as many said it should be allowed. These K-12 teachers' viewpoints are consistent with college professors, 66% of which said ChatGPT should not be banned at schools or universities. ChatGPT can be leveraged as a helpful tool in many different scenarios, and with the release of Open.ai's new classifier, identifying AI-generated text has never been easier. This latest tool from the creators of ChatGPT will catch cheating in students' writing and hopefully also help to deter it.
In the meantime, teachers are optimistic that ChatGPT can help students build skills in problem solving, critical thinking, and creativity, which are critical for success in academic subjects like math, science, and English as well. As students and educators continue to explore ChatGPT’s capabilities, they will find new ways to learn – or to cheat – in subjects ranging from chemistry to U.S. history or marketing to trig. The release of ChatGPT-4 may increase ChaqtGPT’s popularity in the classroom since it is capable of answering test question with high accuracy. In fact, ChatGPT-4 got a 23% better result in SAT exam compared to ChatGPT-3.5.
Methodology
Study.com surveyed 203 K-12 teachers about the use of ChatGPT in an educational setting. They also collected headlines on ChatGPT to determine where across the U.S. ChatGPT has been banned in schools.
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