2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

An ASEE 2023 paper considered whether student use of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) to write engineering papers constitutes cheating. It was concluded that it depended on specific circumstances, but it was noted that students might potentially undermine their own learning by relying on tools like ChatGPT to answer questions and compose papers. This paper addresses how to enable student use of these tools in a way that students are not cheating themselves. Educators faced a related issue 20 years ago when calculators were introduced into the classroom. As time passed, instructors realized that allowing students to use calculators allowed them to concentrate on teaching concepts, strategies for problem solving and critical thinking. Calculators allowed more individualized instruction and more use of real-world applications. The introduction of calculators into the classroom stimulated discussion on ethical use of technology in teaching. A similar revolution is occurring with the introduction of Generative Artificial Intelligence tools such as ChatGPT, BARD and many others, and a similar set of opportunities is emerging. A key issue is how to use GenAI tools constructively to encourage critical thinking in the solving of engineering problems. The tools can make it easier to differentiate instruction to meet the diverse needs of students and tailor teaching to students with different levels of skills. Using Generative AI tools can help build students’ confidence in their own abilities to function as engineers. For example, students can analyze a problem from a variety of perspectives by varying the prompts they give to their GenAI tool. In this paper, we discuss some actions taken in our classes, including changing the style of assessments, teaching students “prompt engineering” as part of the critical thinking process, teaching students how to use Generative AI effectively in coding, and helping students to acquire the habit of validating outputs from Gen AI tools to eliminate hallucinations and fake references. Students can work at their own pace and explore concepts on their own, as Gen AI tools provide instant feedback. Students can explore a problem from multiple perspectives, including the impact of various ethical considerations by varying their prompts. Using Gen AI to generate simple answers to simple questions could, indeed, cheat students out of the ability to learn important engineering concepts. Using Gen AI to explore alternatives and assess different approaches to an engineering problem, for example asking for code using different Python libraries, can make students better and more effective engineers.