Teachers in the age of AI should be...

Confusion and concerns are going on with teachers/mentors about how can they validate student submissions when AI-based tools like ChatGPT are available in public to make quality writing easier. The chance to misuse these tools for plagiarism on assignments is real. 

At the same time, to a certain extent, these tools can even outperform teachers in preparing notes. So it is the right time for teachers to start adopting these tools to make their teaching experience even better. Apart from that, teachers should start to appreciate students who are using technology for better outcomes. Moreover,  teachers can even train students to use technology for self-learning and improvement. There are many public contents in social media that can be taken as references to achieve this goal.

To motivate teachers to see the impact of this adoption, I would like to narrate a personal childhood story with a teacher that shaped my personality and eventually my career. It happened in my 8th standard(2011), Arabic teacher asked everyone to write a poem. I was not good at language and never knew how to form sentences in Arabic. The language was never my interest but a compulsion of the school curriculum. But writing a poem fascinated me so I decided to write a poem in English and go to my mother to help me to translate. As a computer guy, after completing the poem, I felt like trying it in google translate. Then I approached my mother to validate the google translated version of my poem. She made some corrections and validated it as good to submit.

But I felt guilty about cheating on the assignment. The next day, I was under pressure when the teacher asked one by one to read their poems. I was unable to read it well due to stress. The teacher took my book and go through it, then asked, "Did you write it yourself"? I had enough of the pressure and told the truth. I was expecting a punishment after that. But, I got huge applause in my class for thinking out of the box and doing differently. This event improved my self-esteem and motivated me to think outside the box whenever I get an opportunity.

Right now on the edge of finishing graduation, I have attained a very handful of experiences by solving problems and automating the business processes for clients in India and abroad. All of it started when a teacher decided to be different than other teachers and appreciate positivity in my actions.

In conclusion,  AI-based tools like ChatGPT have the potential to transform the teaching experience if embraced and appreciated by teachers. I believe that this can help students to think more creatively and develop the skills they need to succeed in the future.