Bechem, thank you yet again for actionable guidance. I assume [appropriate caveats here] that you encourage your clients to explore and experiment using your approach. In keeping with the theme of the article, it would be interesting to have students who have tried your approach write a case study of their experiences, possibly contrasting the exercise to their conventional learning experience.
Another exercise category might be the King Eurystheus Challenge. Rather than pitting Hercules against the hydra, they could formulate a prompt that could be asked of several AI assistants. I tried this a few weeks ago with the latest versions of Claude, Gemini, ChatGPT, and Perplexity. Gemini and ChatGPT either declined to respond to the prompt or lectured me. After the standardized first prompt, I took the challenge to the fourth level of dialogue with each, keying off their initial response. Interesting. The purpose of this exercise is to help the students uncover bias, evaluate comprehension, clarity/accuracy of response, etc. It will should also teach the students that they shouldn’t unquestionably accept an AI assistant’s responses. By developing a standard prompt, they can submit it to newer revs as they’re introduced.
Mortimer Adler (see The Paideia Proposal) would be proud of your work.
Just focussing on the theory, I love your suggestions on using AI to encourage critical thinking and identifying gaps in their own knowledge and articulation. There’s so much more to come and we have to be ready to make the most of it!
Bechem, thank you yet again for actionable guidance. I assume [appropriate caveats here] that you encourage your clients to explore and experiment using your approach. In keeping with the theme of the article, it would be interesting to have students who have tried your approach write a case study of their experiences, possibly contrasting the exercise to their conventional learning experience.
Another exercise category might be the King Eurystheus Challenge. Rather than pitting Hercules against the hydra, they could formulate a prompt that could be asked of several AI assistants. I tried this a few weeks ago with the latest versions of Claude, Gemini, ChatGPT, and Perplexity. Gemini and ChatGPT either declined to respond to the prompt or lectured me. After the standardized first prompt, I took the challenge to the fourth level of dialogue with each, keying off their initial response. Interesting. The purpose of this exercise is to help the students uncover bias, evaluate comprehension, clarity/accuracy of response, etc. It will should also teach the students that they shouldn’t unquestionably accept an AI assistant’s responses. By developing a standard prompt, they can submit it to newer revs as they’re introduced.
Mortimer Adler (see The Paideia Proposal) would be proud of your work.
Just focussing on the theory, I love your suggestions on using AI to encourage critical thinking and identifying gaps in their own knowledge and articulation. There’s so much more to come and we have to be ready to make the most of it!