King's College London

Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a technology with an enormous potential to transform teaching and research, provided it is embraced and not feared. This belief led to me require the use of ChatGPT in my module “Policymaking in non-democracies” and, in this pedagogy focused proposal, to seek funding to cover (1) the costs of a ChatGPT-4 subscription for my students for three months, and (2) to finance incentives (coffee vouchers) to participate in a focus group exploring lessons from this project. 

 My main objective is to make the students confident with using ChatGPT, overcoming what might be an initial fear of the technology. Because generative AI is so new, exploring its full potential requires experimentation that can be encouraged by building student confidence and curiosity. This familiarity is then crucial to further learn how to best to “talk” to the AI and explore its features – a skill transferable to most jobs requiring written communication. 

 I am planning to build this confidence in two ways. First, I will require at least weekly engagement with the tool in varied ways as a part of seminar activities (counting for 10% of the grade, involving: 

• text editing to match appropriate style,  
• translation of websites written in a foreign language,  
• graphics creation (using DALL-E 3),  
• designing prompts to lead the learning process, and  
• basic data exploration (using the Code Interpreter tool).  

The repeated exposure and the variety of tasks are explicitly designed to build confidence and curiosity, respectively. Some of these tasks can only be performed using ChatGPT-4 subscription. 

Second, I am incorporating the use of generative AI into a small (20% of the total grade) assignment (a policy brief matching a pre-specified template) combining substantive knowledge with a reflection on the usefulness of ChatGPT for this task. The reflexive aspect of the assignment will encourage the students to explore the usefulness and weaknesses of ChatGPT in drafting a policy brief. This is meant to couple the confidence in the use of AI with awareness of its limitations. 

 The students will act as participants and evaluators of the project. To check how the project met my objectives, I will rely on surveys and a focus group. First, I will conduct entry and exit surveys of all the students in my module. The surveys will ask about the students’ existing experience, confidence and circumstances surrounding their use of ChatGPT. Comparing the results will allow me to evaluate whether the students feel more confident around the use of ChatGPT, how they plan to use it outside of the classroom and what are the characteristics of the students who have benefitted the most. Additionally, I want to deepen lessons from the survey by conducting a focus group that can reveal unanticipated response, e.g., any innovative ways in which the students used ChatGPT that can be incorporated into the future seminar activities. To reward the participants, I want to offer incentives (coffee vouchers)