OpenAI’s ChatGPT Transforms from Homework Hack to Classroom Helper

OpenAI and Instructure collaborate to incorporate AI into classroom instruction.

The Canvas app from Instructure will make use of AI to increase student engagement and teaching.

Assignment creation, student evaluation, and administrative management will all benefit from AI tools.

Students frequently used the artificial intelligence chatbot to cheat on homework assignments when ChatGPT took the world by storm in 2023. After two years, the company behind ChatGPT, OpenAI, is officially involved in education.

On Wednesday, OpenAI and edtech company Instructure announced a partnership that brings generative AI into the heart of classroom instruction.
The company behind Canvas, a learning app that is utilized by numerous colleges and thousands of high schools, is Instructure. If you're a parent, like me, you've probably seen your kids checking for homework assignments and grades in this app on their phones.

Going forward, AI models will be embedded within Canvas to help teachers create new types of classes, assess student performance in new ways, and take some of the drudgery out of administrative tasks.
According to Melissa Loble, chief academic officer at Instructure, this gives students a way to use AI for schoolwork without worrying about being accused of cheating. In an interview, she added, "Students actually do want to learn something, but they want it to be meaningful and applicable to their lives." "This allows them to use AI in an interesting way in a class to help them be more engaged and learn more," it says. There are a lot of players in the edtech market incorporating generative AI into workflows. Last year, Khan Academy, a pioneering online education provider, launched Khanmingo, an AI powered assistant for teachers and students that uses OpenAI technology.

The LLM-enabled assignment

A new kind of assignment is at the center of the Canvas transformation. It's called the LLM-Enabled Assignment by Instructure. Educators can use OpenAI's large language models, or LLMs, to create interactive, chat-based experiences within Canvas with this tool. The platform will assist in crafting an intelligent conversation that is tailored to each student's needs. Teachers can describe their targeted learning goals and desired skills in plain language.

Leah Belsky, VP of Education at OpenAI, stated, "With Instructure's global reach and OpenAI's advanced AI models, we'll give educators a tool to deliver richer, more personalized, and more connected learning experiences for students, and help them reclaim time for the human side of teaching." Instructure and OpenAI want to create a learning environment that is similar to conversations with ChatGPT but grounded in academic rigor, better suited to how students today interact with technology.

For instance, a teacher could conjure up an AI chatbot in the form of John Maynard Keynes, powered by OpenAI GPT models. Students can chat with this AI economics avatar and ask questions such as what might happen if more supply is added to a particular market.

AI in student assessment

Students' conversations are compared to the teacher's specified objectives as they work through these AI-powered experiences and prompts and fed back into the Gradebook, providing real-time insights into student comprehension. Instead of relying solely on students' final responses, this provides educators with more information to evaluate the learning process. The Gradebook in Canvas is a centralized tool that enables instructors to monitor, manage, and evaluate student performance throughout a course's assignments, quizzes, discussions, and other activities.

Some educators and parents may be perplexed by the inclusion of OpenAI models in the assessment process. However, according to Loble, teachers will have complete control over assessments and grades, and there will always be a human in the loop.

Help with scheduling and parent questions

Additionally, Instructure has developed an AI agent that aids teachers in handling Canvas's heavy administrative tasks. For instance, if Porsche broke her ankle while riding her horse and requests more time to complete her homework, her teacher could ask the digital agent to enter the app and extend the deadlines for all of Porsche's classes.

This AI agent can even assist educators in responding to questions from parents. Why did Porsche pass her economics exam with a B? On a Tuesday night at 10 p.m., her parents might want to know. Teachers can use the Canvas agent to summarize parent questions like these, potentially spotting patterns and similarities within the pertinent parents.

Again, a human is always in the loop: In this instance, the instructor would review the agent's message and edit or rewrite it before sending it.