Math is Figure-Out-Able with Pam Harris

Ep 137: ChatGPT Artificial Intelligence in Math Education

January 31, 2023 Pam Harris Episode 137
Math is Figure-Out-Able with Pam Harris
Ep 137: ChatGPT Artificial Intelligence in Math Education
Show Notes Transcript

The world is changing, and artificial intelligence is going to replace teachers! ...Or not. In this episode Pam and Kim discuss how teaching Real Math is more important now than ever, and we don't have to be afraid of those pesky robots.
Talking Points:

  • How Chat GPT is different from AI like Photomath
  • A teacher's paradigm will influnce how much AI will change the way we teach math
  • Will the future of AI change the way we think about grading and homework?
  • Does the future if AI promote answer getting or deeper understanding?
  • Why Real Math is so important
  • Teachers are going to need a support system to navigate the change.

Try out Chat GPT here: https://chat.openai.com/chat

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Facebook: Pam Harris, author, mathematics education


Pam:

Hey, fellow mathematicians! Welcome to the podcast where Math is Figure-Out-Able. I'm Pam Harris.

Kim:

And I'm Kim Montague.

Pam:

And we found a... And you found a place where math is not about memorizing and mimicking, waiting to be told or shown what to do. But it's about making sense of problems, noticing patterns, and reasoning using mathematical relationships. We can mentor students to think and reason like mathematicians. Not only are algorithms not particularly helpful in teaching mathematics but rotely repeating steps actually keeps students from being the mathematicians they can be. And now, you're really clear that we actually re-record this intro every time we do it. And hey, we're here today. Hi, Kim, how's it going(unclear)?

Kim:

Hi, Pam, how are ya?

Pam:

I'm good. I'm totally thinking about this episode because my brain is just exploding about what we're about to talk about. Yeah.

Kim:

So, let's clue the listeners in. So, you and I have been talking about something that has you really fired up, and when you mentioned it to me, we both kind of got a little fired up on... I want to say opposite ends.

Pam:

I was going to say opposite sides of the discussion. Yeah. Well, you know, it's interesting because you and I have... We have a... What's the word? We have a fabulous professional relationship in that we don't let each other slide on stuff.

Kim:

Yeah.

Pam:

Maybe more you than me. Like, I will say something and you'll go, "Um... I'm not clear on that." And you'll push back, and you'll ask for clarification. And, in fact, when we were deciding... Go ahead.

Kim:

Well, and I also don't let you make like general statements.

Pam:

Or broad, sweeping generalizations.

Kim:

(unclear) comments. Right, I'm like, "Wait, what? Say more about that?"

Pam:

Yeah, "Clarify that one, please?" When we were deciding the topic for today's podcast, we beat it out a bit. And at some point, I said, "Okay, like, are you trying to talk me out of this?" Or no, I think I said,"Well, when I thought you were trying to talk me out of it." And you go, "Well, yeah, I actually was." I was like, "Oh, okay." So, it's not... Like, it's an honest push back. Like, you were like. And I think we're going to get into why you were pushing back so hard. That was one of the reasons. So, let's dive in.

Kim:

Okay.

Pam:

Listeners, you might have heard of a new thing out there called ChatGPT. So, I'm just going to talk about it a little bit. It is a specific Chatbot. It's an artificial intelligence program that's running out there. I'm thinking about I've got computer scientists sons who are probably listening to me talk about this. They're going to call me and push back and go,"Well, good try mom. You missed a little bit of the verbiage there." But, we're recording this not too long after I had just spent some time with my kids. And they were chatting and going on, and they had found this ChatGPT thing. Which I'll tell you, I went to get on it this morning, and they are at capacity, so it's a very popular, very timely, a lot of people are talking about, a lot of people are trying it. It is artificial intelligence like we might not have seen coming. Maybe in some Sci-Fi movies and things, but it's doing some things that I think we better pay attention to in education. And I want to do this episode because I think teachers out there that are hearing about this are going to have some questions. I think it should cause some reflection. I think we need to consider what we're doing and how this artificial intelligence could and should, and might, and will impact the way that we teach anything, that specifically will stay with the way that we teach mathematics. We've had some artificial intelligent things ish out there like Photomath. So, if you're not familiar with Photomath, it's an app out there that you can get on the computer, and you can take a picture of the problem that you've been asked to solve. It uploads it, it reads. You know, and you can fix it if it doesn't read it correctly. And then, it can give you an answer. It can give you the steps to solve the problem. And that should impact the way that you think about homework, the way you go about grading steps, the way that you think about grading right answers only, the way... That should have already been.. And maybe we should have done a whole episode just on that, but I'd like to dive into the how ChatGBT is different than Photomath because you'll be like, "Oh, Pam, you know, we've heard..." Maybe you've already thought about that, and you've already kind of come to grips with how that impacts your class. Maybe you haven't. So, this could be an opportunity for us to just sort of, you know, bring up some of the things that could impact, should, that will. I'm going to say will impact the way that we teach. There are people out there right now, as I've been looking at social media that are saying, "Whoa, this is going to change dramatically the way I teach." And I wonder if that might have a little bit to do with the way you teach.

Kim:

Yeah, yep.

Pam:

(unclear). But if I were to go into a specific classroom and sort of notice the paradigm of the teacher, what does that teacher belief about thinking and learning? I think that will help me predict how they're going to feel about this ChatGPT, how they're going to feel about artificial intelligence and kids. "Feel" is not the right word. But maybe how it's going to impact what they do?

Kim:

Impact, yeah.

Pam:

Go ahead.

Kim:

I was going to say, I think that's well said because as you and I were beating things out, I gained some clarity that what you're saying is, this is here, right? It's coming. And it's relevant to teachers, but maybe will impact some more than others.

Pam:

Yeah, yeah. And maybe I'll just give you the punchline at the end of the episode is, if you are teaching Real Math and your goal is to mentor students to think and reason like mathematicians, this new artificial intelligence will affect you less, if at all. So, maybe what I really want to do is let everybody that's. If your a listening to the podcast, and you're trying to do all the things that we're suggesting, take a deep breath and relax a little bit. Like, you can just be like, "Sweet!" Because in a way, I think it will only help what you're doing. I think it will be a resource for your kids to even think, and reason, and learn even more. I don't think it's going to take you out of a job. Like, a lot of things that I'm reading on social media is"Oh my gosh! Teaching is over!" And, "We're not even going to have a job anymore!" And, "No one's going to need teachers!" And, "Ah! What does this mean for me?" And I'm like, "Well, maybe for you it does, but for.,," And I'm not trying to be glib. I think anybody is honestly, when I've seen what it can do, I'm honestly going okay, let me think about this. So, it's not trivial. But I do think if our goal is to create, help students develop their mathematical reasoning, and brains, and the way they think, and the the paradigm they have for mathematics, I think we're good that it will only be a help to us. But it is worth talking about. Let me maybe... I'm doing all the talking about the results and everything. Let me talk about what it is. So, it is an artificial intelligence that you can ask it questions. Now, we already kind of have that right? We can say "Hey, Siri." You know, "What's the weather today?" Oh, my phone's going to talk to me. Let me. It's sitting right next to me, it's going to answer. You know, we can ask Alexa questions and stuff. But those are not quite the way this ChatGPT is. Let me give you some examples. So, you can go... In fact, I'm going to give you a specific example." My sons are writers, of all the things. They're computer scientists, but they also like to write. They like to write fiction. They're Brandon Sanderson fans. There's a plug for. We all like Brandon Sanderson. He's a Sci-Fi, fantasy writer, and we all like him. And so, one of my sons over Christmas said, "Oh, yeah, check out what I'm doing." And so, he would put in a request into the ChatGPT. He would say something like, "Write me a short story where Santa Claus is really Odin and gifts are really... Oh, and see now I'm not going to. He's listening to this, he's going to, "Mom, what are you talking about?" There's something built into the this particular chatbot that you can't ask it to do something unethical. And so, he would try to... It's almost like he's trying to break the video game. These are my kids. When my kids would play, I remember specifically they had a video game where they would try... The game was all about skateboarding and trick skateboarding and stuff, and you know, you would be on a course and everything. And my kids would take the skateboard, and they would go off the course as far as they could, and jump on the truck that was in the background. You know, you were never supposed to. The truck was just like supposed to provide ambiance to the game, but they would try to break the game. They would try to see where they could get in the corner of the studio to, you know like, can I climb the wall with the skateboard? (unclear) they would do all these kind of funny things. And so, in a huge way, that's kind of what he was trying to do was like, "How close can I?" I'm getting into the weeds. Basically, what he would say is, "Hey, ChatGPT, write me a story that has these details, and this ending." And, ya'll, it would write a story. Like, it would write a story that was coherent, that sounded like a story, that had a beginning, and a middle, and an end, and it would have the characters that my son was suggesting that would go in there. And you might be thinking, "Pam, why are you talking about this with math?" Well, I was over, I was listening to their conversation, so it wasn't about things they were doing with math. But I think you could say to this ChatGPT. Now, this is what I haven't had a chance to try yet. When I went to try it in preparation for this podcast, that ChatGPT has gotten so popular that it's now at capacity, and so you can't ask any more at the moment. I wanted to ask it questions like, "Hey, solve this problem?" "What would a ratio table solution look like, or a solution using the Over strategy with a ratio table look like?" Now, it can't... I don't know if it can do that yet because I didn't have a chance to ask it, but it will soon because the way these things work is they go out to the internet, and they gather all this information, and when you ask it questions, then they look in that database, and they find something like it, and then using artificial intelligence, pull together the best of those answers, and give you and answer. So, it might not be correct. It might not be exactly right. But it's going to be more than maybe we thought was possible. Now, that's me sort of guessing about what's kind of coming up and happening. But what's happening right now is you can ask it amazing questions, and it gathers, and correlates, and composes. And I think it should cause all of us that ever give homework pause.

Kim:

Mmhmm.

Pam:

The whole idea of grading homework for correctness, if students are able to go out and just say to this A.I., "Hey, here's the question, write me an essay that has these bits in it. Write me..." So, that's, you know, for non-math, though it could be math. "Here's the word problem I have to answer, show the solution on an area model using smart partial products." Or you know, like. And you're like, "How will it know what..." Maybe using Doubling and Halving, and you might say, "How will it know what Doubling and Halving is? Well, because maybe it read my website. If its database includes my website, well then it's going to know what Doubling and Halving is.

Kim:

Yeah.

Pam:

So, Kim, one of the things that you pushed back on me was about grading and homework. Do you want to say?

Kim:

Yeah, so one of the things that when we were talking I was thinking a lot about is, you know, the... We've talked about homework before, and I'm not a big proponent of homework. I did homework when I was told I had to give homework, but I was real choosy about what I gave. And so, you know, it doesn't bother me as a 3-5 teacher who doesn't love homework to say, "This is going to greatly impact my students having to go home and do homework because, you know, they're going to be able to ask this chatbot and get, you know, the quote, unquote answers. And even if I'm really specific..." That doesn't bother me. It doesn't affect me, but I understand how somebody who relies heavily on homework, if their worldview is, "I'm going to do some things with my students in class, but a good portion of their learning..." If I believe that a good portion of their learning is to then go practice what I've told them to do, I can understand why that would be even traumatic for them because then that whole portion is gone.

Pam:

Because the student can take that homework.

Kim:

(unclear). Yeah.

Pam:

And get not only an answer but an explanation. And, you know, it's all. They can turn in something that looks like they put an awful lot of work into it and didn't do any, and that's troubling if your grading system is based on that. It's also troubling if you think to yourself, "So, does that mean that now kids are going to have perfect homework scores but their test scores are going to be terrible because, you know, they literally just throw it into this A.I. They get, you know, perfect homework, they get perfect essays, they get..." You know, like things that I can't tell that it's been plagiarized, quote, unquote. I don't even know if "plagiarism" is the right word, lifted from the internet. "And then, so now they didn't really learn it, and so, you know, what are their test scores going to look like..." I think there's lots of questions that arise. Like you said, if your paradigm is we're going to do some stuff, I'm going to tell you what to do, now you go home and in order to learn quote, unquote, you've got to do 1 through 29 odd, 29 times. Now you've got to you know, got this procedure down. How will that affect kind of what's happening?

Kim:

Yeah, the other thing that you and I kind of went back and forth a little bit on was... The only experience that I have. You know, I don't use these chat things, and I'm aware of Photomath. But the only experience that I have is with my oldest son, who has at times come home and said, "We talked about this thing in math." You know, he has a fairly traditional teacher, and...

Pam:

He's in high school, we'll say that.

Kim:

He's in high school. And so, we've talked about this thing, and I've got some examples or whatever, but it doesn't really make sense to me quite yet. And so, what he will do is get on YouTube, and he'll watch a video, or we'll talk about it, or I'll call you or whatever. And his perspective is, "There's this thing, this concept, whatever that I want to make sense of, and I want to see how it connects to this other thing that I understand, so that I can more deeply understand it." And so, what I said to you was, "If I'm about relationships, and connections, and problem solving. Like, that's fantastic. That's what we want to create in our students. And so, I'm not really all that concerned about this ChatGPT because if a student like Luke is going to go get the answers or whatever, but then he's going to make sense of it, he's going to use that tool to more deeply understand something then..."

Pam:

The reason he's going to the YouTube videos, or to you, or to me or whatever is because his perspective of math is that he wants to understand, he wants to reason through problems, he wants to develop his brain as a mathematician because he understands what math is. He knows it's figure-out-able. So, what I'm hearing you say is, you're perfectly. It's funny because I'm like, "Kim, you let your kid just go get answers on Photomath?!" And you're like,"No. What I let my kid do..." Let. "...encourage my kid to do is to actually understand what's going on, not just mimic the three examples that were shown in class, or the two that are in the book or whatever." Right? So, I'm guessing well... I'll just ask you. Are you willing to let your son... When ChatGPT comes back online, are you willing to let him get on there and get these full paragraph answers and explanations? And I think he'd have a blast.

Kim:

Well, what I was going to say is, In the attempt to support him in a subject that I love, but in a topic that I don't have as much experience with, particularly because he's in a situation where, you know it's pretty traditional. So, I want to provide him with whatever support that I can provide him with, so that then we can have a discussion and maybe, you know, this particular chat will give me some better understanding. So, you know, we'll give it a go.

Pam:

Yeah, (unclear) play around with it. Because your outcome is to actually understand what's happening, to actually gain the relationships. Yeah, I think that's huge. So ya'll... Oh, keep going.

Kim:

I was going to say one more thing. The other thing that I think we wrestled with a little bit was that you have a very global perspective about changing the way that people view math. Which is so important, right? Like, it's a big kind of view. And my perspective is maybe a little bit smaller. But I think it's really about how are we helping the people who are listening today? And so, we kind of answered a little bit about the fact that I was like, "So, what's the punchline? Like, how does this affect people who are listening? How does that help them?" And so, we got there eventually, but.

Pam:

Yeah, as we were arguing, that's what we were arguing about. Because I'm like, "We got to do an episode on ChatGBT!" And you were like, "How does that help our listeners? "And I was like, "Because..." And you were like, "How does that help our listeners?" And I think it was super helpful for me when you kind of helped me think about the fact that I really am about, this is a global issue. This is something that's going to affect teaching as a profession. And so, I want to raise this issue, and I want to start the conversation. And you were like, "How does that help our listeners?" I'm like, "Kim!" And, you know, we're better together, right?

Kim:

Yep.

Pam:

Because you do. You hold that kind of. And I wouldn't say small, but you hold that individual perspective. It's not that I don't think about individual teachers, but you're right, I'm really thinking globally. I actually, I really want to revolutionize the way that we teach math, so it's so important to me. And you're like, "And let's make sure that it's, you know, relevant to the teacher who's listening today." So, yeah, I think that's totally, totally important.

Kim:

Well, and because it's going to probably affect some people more than others, right? You mentioned this earlier. The punchline is, if you already are teaching in such a way that you are looking for what we call Real Math, and that you are really about building kid's brains and helping them become problem solvers, and... We don't need a bunch of computers anymore, right? We have a computer. So, really, people can either undertake that shift slowly because it's going to be a shift that's going to need to happen. And they can own it and understand it. But we need a support system for that because this is a brand new situation. You're not going to be able to just snap your fingers and make it happen, right? It's not going to be like an instant shift for people to go straight from. That was not my worldview to instantly my worldview is now students are thinkers and reasoners. People are going to need a community of support. And we are like minded people who know that a shift is coming, and is needed, and it's here, and it's crucial.

Pam:

Yeah, that was really well said. And we offer to you that there's some other ways you can gain support besides just this podcast. So, thank you for listening! We're so glad that you're here! Keep listening. We'll keep offering you as much support as we can in that shift. But we also have some other ways that we support you. So, we have online workshops that are...we call them deep dive workshops...that dive deep into content, like Building Addition for Young Learners for teachers Pre-K through 2, Building Powerful Multiplication for anybody who teaches multiplication grades three and up, Building Powerful Division for anybody who teaches division grades three, four, and up, Building Powerful Proportional Reasoning for middle grades teachers grades five and up, Building Powerful Linear Functions for anybody who teaches functional reasoning, probably grades eight and up. We offer those deep dive workshops. We only offer registration three times a year, and that's open. And anybody who wants some extra support and things like writing Problem Strings, then check out JourneyPLUS where you get our signature support system that we call Journey, plus access to a workshop of your choice for an entire year. And if I could tell you what one of our workshop participants just put in our workshop message board. Yvonne said, "This course of yours comes as a huge breath of fresh air. Your course is so helpful, making so much sense, and helping me sort out concepts and make more sense than ever! Can't wait to have full access to all the lessons." Because in Building Powerful... Sorry, this is me, Pam. Because in Building Powerful Linear Functions, we have a whole... I can do it. What do I call a... Sequence. There we go. Boy, the word came to me. We have a whole sequence of lessons that you get at the end of that particular workshop. So, back to Yvonne's message he said, "So main message here, I can see how helpful your course on teaching Real Math is for teachers in regular settings, but it's also a great addition to my toolbox as someone working with disabled students." So, thanks, Yvonne. I really appreciate that. He's in Quebec and appreciate that comment. And if you're interested in getting help like that, check out our online workshops. We only open registration three times a year, and this is one of them. Check out those at mathisfigureoutable.com. If you're listening to this podcast at a different time, you can still go to mathisfigureoutable.com and get all sorts of information, see when our next registration period is coming up. There's also tons of free stuff that we offer there. You can check that out. Thank you for tuning in and teaching more and more real math. To find out more about the Math is Figure-Out-Able movement, visit mathisfigureoutable.com. Let's keep spreading the word that Math is Figure-Out-Able!