How AI promotes collaborative learning for young students

Tomás Galguera, professor of Northeast education, designed a project in which students worked in small groups with ChatGPT and found that it had a positive effect.

OAKLAND — Artificial intelligence can help create more collaborative learning environments and help students build thinking skills, researchers at Northeastern University say.

Working with fourth- and fifth-graders at the children’s school at Northeastern’s Oakland campus, education professor Tomás Galguera designed a project this fall in which students discussed in small groups whether controlled burns were good for forest health.

This activity – called constructive controversy – is common in classrooms for students in this age group because it appears to encourage more complex learning and collaboration. But these students had an additional debate partner: ChatGPT.

Two students represented one side of a controversial issue and two more represented the other side. Each side researched, presented its position and answered clarifying questions. The students then switched sides and added more evidence to the original side’s positions.

Galguera, whose department at the Oakland campus works directly with the children’s school and their teachers on action research, wanted to know how AI would fit into the mix.

“The geeky side of me was curious to see if ChatGPT had what it took,” he said. “Don’t just ask clarifying questions, but then switch, represent the other side and get involved in the entire process.”

Working with Lindsay Schaeffer, lead teacher of the combined fourth and fifth grade class, he wanted to observe how fourth and fifth graders would think about working with AI and how their feelings changed over time. Galguera also wanted to find out how using ChatGPT affects the way students work with each other and the impact AI has on their thinking skills.

After analyzing their observations and data, Galguera and Schaeffer will write a paper documenting the project and its results. However, the results so far show that students who were initially afraid of working with AI got used to it very quickly. Significantly, Schaeffer said, it was also clear that incorporating ChatGPT into the process had a positive impact on the way students worked together.

“There was that layer removed, a layer that could sometimes lead to misunderstanding or frustration among peers,” she said. “They practiced the skills of listening and synthesizing.”

During the project, students chatted with each other and with ChatGBT, asking questions of the AI ​​app, which in return asked students clarifying questions, Schaeffer said. In the third round, her language became clearer and more precise.

“They became clearer,” she said. “They became more detailed. They introduced language that could have been asked in the clarifying question. So it was really important.”

It also became clear, she said, that students were more receptive to feedback and questions when asked by ChatGPT.

When students hear presentations from each other, there’s usually a chance that interpersonal dynamics will get in the way, she said. Students may react defensively when questioned by their peers. But when an AI debate partner asks questions or offers information, students hear it differently.