When ChatGPT first emerged about a year and a half ago, there were concerns among professors that students might use it as a shortcut for their writing assignments. The worry was that students would rely on the chatbot to generate responses instead of engaging in the critical thinking required to craft their own essays.
However, two English professors at Carnegie Mellon University, Suguru Ishizaki and David Kaufer, saw the technology differently. They recognized an opportunity to enhance students’ writing skills using this new tool.
While they acknowledged the potential for misuse by students, they devised a plan to create a unique teaching tool that could assist students in expressing their ideas effectively in their assignments, without getting bogged down in sentence formatting.
Instead of fearing that AI would overshadow students’ writing abilities, Kaufer recalls their perspective: “If we can control AI, it can streamline the writing process, allowing students to focus more on the content of their writing.”
The professors named their approach “restrained generative AI” and developed a software tool, called myScribe, which is currently being tested in 10 courses at the university.
With years of experience building writing tools, particularly their previous software called DocuScope, Ishizaki and Kaufer introduced a feature called “Notes to Prose.” This feature translates students’ bullet points or rough ideas into coherent sentences or paragraphs with the help of ChatGPT.
Ishizaki explains, “Generating sentences from ideas is often a challenging task and can be mentally taxing. Our tool aims to alleviate this cognitive load for students.”
For novice writers, the process of converting thoughts into sentences while adhering to grammatical rules can be overwhelming. This tool aims to simplify that process, allowing students to focus more on developing their ideas.
Kaufer points out that inexperienced writers often spend too much time perfecting sentences prematurely instead of focusing on the overall structure and organization of their writing. By using AI to quickly draft language, students can refine their thinking process more efficiently.
The professors’ research, based on writing studies from the 1980s, highlights that skilled writers dedicate a significant portion of their early writing time to planning and organization rather than sentence construction.
Taming the Chatbot
Developing the “notes to prose” feature presented its challenges, as the professors worked to train ChatGPT to adhere strictly to students’ input without introducing new ideas or information.
In contrast to other educational AI tools, myScribe solely relies on the student’s notes for content generation, ensuring a more personalized and controlled writing experience.
Stacie Rohrbach, an associate professor at Carnegie Mellon, sees the potential of such tools in aiding students’ writing processes by emphasizing thorough outlining and clarity of thought.
She acknowledges the misuse of AI by students and advocates for responsible AI use in learning environments to prevent the creation of nonsensical text.
John Warner, an education consultant, raises concerns about AI-generated text losing sight of the original ideas and emphasizes the importance of human oversight in AI-powered writing tools.
Kaufer and Ishizaki assure that their tool operates within defined parameters to minimize errors and discrepancies in the content generated. While complete elimination of AI errors may not be feasible, they strive to guide AI effectively to enhance writers’ revision process.
They envision their tool as a step towards the future of writing technology, aiming to empower writers while maintaining the essence of human creativity in the writing process.
While AI continues to evolve and shape the writing landscape, Kaufer emphasizes the need for responsible AI practices to uphold the integrity and authenticity of student writing.
