Learning to Navigate Generative AI

This is the seventh lesson in a unit designed to help teachers have conversations with students about media literacy in a critical, reflective and constructive way. Use these lessons to help students reflect on the changing media and information landscape; understand how this landscape impacts individuals, communities and society; and consider how they can thoughtfully and responsibly engage with content they encounter online and in print. This learning can also help them become conscientious content creators. Supporting students to develop as critical consumers and creators of information is vital for their well-being, their relationships and our democracy.

In this two-part lesson, students explore what generative AI is and the impact that it can have on both education and society. In the first part of this lesson, students reflect on inventions, learn about generative AI and consider how it can be used in schools. In the second part, students reflect on how they verify information, consider the potential for generative AI to spread misinformation, and learn about steps to verify information they see online. They finish the lesson by exploring how generative AI can impact the world of visual media.

Before teaching this lesson, please review the following information to help guide your preparation process.

Activity 1 Reflect on the Impact of Inventions

Explain to students that in today’s lesson they will be reflecting on generative artificial intelligence (AI) and its possible impacts on society.

First, you would like them to think about the impact of inventions. Ask students to reflect on the following statement made by Sophocles, an ancient Greek playwright, who was alive during the fifth century BCE. 

‘Nothing vast enters the life of mortals without a curse’ ¹

1. What do you think Sophocles’ statement means? 
2. How far do you agree with his statement? 
3. Can you think of inventions that have changed the world in both positive and negative ways?
4. How, if at all, does this statement relate to the Internet and social media? 

For younger students, you might wish to give them the statement ‘All new inventions can have positive and negative impacts on the world’, and adapt the questions accordingly.

Ask students to share their thoughts in pairs, before inviting some to share their ideas with the rest of the class. 

Activity 2 Learn About Generative Artificial Intelligence

Next, explain to students that they will be reading some information and watching some short videos on generative artificial intelligence. As they read and watch the content, ask them to think about the potential benefits and downsides of generative AI and the impact that it can have on society.

Artificial intelligence (AI) refers to ‘computer systems that can absorb information, process it, and respond in ways similar to humans’. ² Generative AI is a subset of AI that can learn to create entirely new images, audio, video or text using vast amounts of training data. The public can now access generative AI programs that can create totally fabricated content instantly: ChatGPT, for example, creates text in response to questions and prompts, while DALL-E creates images. 

While AI-generated content may resemble art or speech created by humans, AI programs are not conscious. They are trained to detect patterns in data and use that ‘learnt’ information to create content in response to questions and prompts. Generative AI has the capabilities to create essays, articles, artwork and a broad range of other tasks. However, the information it generates is not always accurate. 

Generative AI programs can also be used to personalise content for different audiences. For example, an organisation could generate one version of an image for younger viewers and another for older viewers. People consuming media can also use generative AI to alter the content they see. For example, a reader could prompt a text-based generative AI program to alter the reading level of a news story.

Then, play the following two videos:

• Generative AI explained in 2 minutes (KI-Campus, 2:02)
• Show 0:00–1:07 of Generative AI Is About To Reset Everything, And, Yes It Will Change Your Life (Forbes) 

After students have read the text and watched the videos, ask them to discuss the following questions using the Think-Pair-Share strategy: 

1. What are the potential benefits of generative AI?
   • The potential drawbacks?
2. In what ways might generative AI change society? 
   • The information landscape?
3. What impact do you think generative AI could have on schools and the way people learn?
   • How might it impact people’s abilities? Their imagination?
4. What, if any, questions do you have? 

Lead a short class discussion inviting students to share their responses. You may choose to collect the questions and see if they are answered over the course of the lesson and/or use them to inform future learning and understand what information your students would like to know about generative AI.

Activity 3 Discuss the Use of Generative AI in the Classroom

Place students in small groups and distribute the handout School Approaches to Generative AI or project each approach one by one on the board. Ask students to read through each approach that schools could take in relation to generative AI, and to discuss the questions that follow. 

• Approach 1: Students should be banned from using generative AI. 
  
  Teachers could use the following strategies to enforce this policy:
  • Use AI detection programs and penalise students who use generative AI to complete assignments;
  • Create assignments that generative AI programs can’t complete, for example, by asking students to include personal connections in their writing or artwork;
  • Ask students to complete all writing or creative assignments under supervision during class time.
     
  1. What are the potential benefits of this approach?
  2. What are the potential downsides?
      
• Approach 2:  Students should be allowed to use generative AI for specific purposes, but not to complete entire assignments. 
  
  Teachers should specify acceptable uses (for example, writing an email or brainstorming ideas for an assignment), as well as unacceptable uses (for example, using text generated by an AI program in an essay). Teachers could use strategies listed in the first approach for preventing students from using generative AI when it is not allowed.
   
  1. What are the potential benefits of this approach?
  2. What are the potential downsides?
      
• Approach 3: Students should be allowed to use generative AI as they choose, as long as they disclose when they use it and take responsibility for the content it creates, including verifying all information.
   
  1. What are the potential benefits of this approach?
  2. What are the potential downsides?

When students have finished discussing each approach in their small groups, lead a short class discussion asking students to share their responses. You might also ask students to vote on which approach they think is preferable and/or to share alternatives.

Activity 4 Explore How Generative AI Can Stimulate Learning

Next, distribute the handout The Impact of ChatGPT in the Classroom. Read the article as a class and ask students to discuss the following connection questions in pairs or small groups:

1. What was the connection between ChatGPT’s solutions for the case study and the students’ solutions? 
   • How did this make the students feel? 
2. How did the students ultimately respond to the situation? 
   • How did ChatGPT stimulate creative thinking? 
3. What does this article suggest about how ChatGPT can be used in learning spaces?
   • How can it be used to solve societal problems? 
4. The writers of the article believe that AI can be ‘a tool to transform the way we think, work, and act, reflecting back to us what we will most probably say the first time around and inviting us to try again and again’. ³
   • How far do you agree with this assessment? 
5. How, if at all, has this article impacted your views on generative AI and learning?

Then, lead a short class discussion inviting students to share their views. 

Activity 5 Reflect on How Generative AI Can be Used in the Classroom

Finally, invite students to complete the following 3-2-1 prompt: 

1. Note down three things you have learnt about generative AI.
2. Note down two ways generative AI could be used in the classroom.
3. Note down one policy you think your class/school should adopt. 

• 1This statement is used at the opening of the docudrama The Social Dilemma, which explores the impact of social media on those who use it and on society.
• 2Ong, Great Decisions High School: Artificial Intelligence, p. 2.
• 3Dana Karout and Houman Harouni, ‘ChatGPT Is Unoriginal—and Exactly What Humans Need’, Wired, 14 June 2023.

Activity 1 Reflect on How You Verify Information

Inform your students that in this lesson they will be reflecting on the impact that generative AI can have on the information landscape.

Ask students to reflect on the following questions in their journals:

1. In your opinion, what can you trust more: images, videos or text? Explain your answer. 
2. How do you check that the information you are consuming is accurate? 
3. How, if at all, will generative AI change the process of verifying information? 

Lead a short class discussion, inviting students to share their responses with the class.

Activity 2 Discuss the Impact of Generative AI on the Information Landscape

Share the following text with students, asking them to discuss the connection questions in pairs: 

Generative AI models are able to create content instantly that convincingly mimics human-generated texts, images and videos. AI generators, however, cannot always distinguish between fact and fiction. This means they can create extremely convincing content that is actually false. People can also use these programs to intentionally create false information, such as photo-realistic images and videos, and texts, like new stories, that are not based in reality. 

The public does not have access to the full list of sources that generative AI models such as ChatGPT are trained on. These models draw on their vast amounts of training data to create texts, so their responses often cannot be traced to individual sources. When asked, ChatGPT will share citations for its responses, but these citations may not be the actual sources of the information it shared, and may even be made up.

Connection Questions: 

1. What impact might generative AI have on the content people consume, both online and offline?
2. Why does it matter what data is used to train generative AI models? 
   • What does it mean that the public does not have access to this data?
3. How might generative AI be used to spread false information?

Activity 3 Consider How to Evaluate AI-generated Texts

Next, ask your students to read and evaluate two sample texts. Inform them that one was created by ChatGPT and mimics the style of an academic article, and the other is an excerpt from a real, published academic article. Distribute the handout Evaluating Texts.

Ask students to read the passages in their groups and discuss the connection questions:

1. Which text do you think comes from a genuine published article? Why? 
2. Which aspects of the content make it seem trustworthy? Assess this for each passage.
3. What steps could you take to verify these articles? 
   • What content would you research? 
   • How would you go about doing this? 

Ask students to vote on which passage they think came from a published article, inviting one or two to explain their thinking. 

Share the answer with your students: Passage 1 is from an academic article ‘Influenza vaccine coverage and predictors of vaccination among aged care workers in Sydney Australia’, which was published in the journal Vaccine. Passage 2 was generated by ChatGPT and references a fictional study.

Then, lead a short class discussion asking students to share their responses to question three. 

Next, share with your students the following three steps they can use to check information they come across online. Explain that steps are useful for detecting misinformation created by generative AI, but are also helpful for checking human-generated content.

1. Research the organisation that published the content.
2. Verify key information in the text. Copy and paste passages/data into search engines.
3. Check any citations included in the text.

Walk through the three steps together as a class for both of these passages. 

Finally, ask your students to discuss the following question using the Think, Pair, Share strategy:

How, if at all, does the information you learnt in this activity change the way you think about and/or engage content you see online or on social media?

Activity 4 Delve Further: How Generative AI Can Impact Visual Media

Inform students that they will be reflecting further on how generative AI works. 

Share one of the following videos with students – one explores AI art and the other explores deepfakes:

• AI art, explained (Vox, 13:32)
• The incredible creativity of deepfakes — and the worrying future of AI (TED, 13:07)

As students watch the video, ask them to take notes on the following questions: 

1. What do you learn about how this type of generative AI works?
2. What do you find surprising, interesting and/or troubling about the content this type of generative AI model can create? 
3. What opportunities does this generative AI model provide?  
4. What would you want to know about an AI-generated image or video you saw online? 
5. Should AI-generated content be labelled? Explain your view? 
6. Generative AI models are trained on content and data that is available online and the model has not gained direct permission to use. What are the ethical implications of this? 
7. What norms should govern the creation of AI-generated images and videos? 

Then, lead a short class discussion inviting students to share their views. 

If there is time, you might invite students to share one thing they are taking away from the lesson in a Wraparound.