2024 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Recent developments in machine learning have impacted the professional and educational worlds. Most notably, chatbots like ChatGPT have made it possible to produce answers to complex questions and perform a limited set of professional tasks. While these tools are far from perfect, they can act as semi-competent assistants for engineers. We should expect these results to improve over time and allow engineers to produce more advanced work in a shorter time. However, this calls for an effective approach to work with AI while cultivating the ability to think critically and the ability to ask the right questions. Engineering educators are expected to adapt the pedagogies to educate students on how to use AI effectively and ethically.

This paper describes the use of chatbots in undergraduate courses to enhance student abilities with sample scenarios. A survey of student learning was conducted, which revealed that Chatbots supported programming courses the most. Meanwhile, such tools were effective as a starting point of developing a solution, while further verification and revisions by the students were essential. Interestingly, through such verification procedures, the students took on the role of almost a Teaching Assistant to assess and correct the flawed work of undergraduate AI students. This procedure put the students to learn in the metacognition mode, enhancing their learning. The faculty and students also acknowledged that the present AI tools still lacked the ability in complex system modeling, analysis, and calculation. Using such tools effectively requires the faculty and students to cultivate the skills in prompt engineering and critical thinking.