From Chalkboards to Chatbots: Can Education Keep Up?

Except where otherwise noted, content of these slides is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 international license (CC BY-SA 4.0) From Chalkboards to Chatbots: Can Education Keep Up? Pierre Poulain [email protected] Laboratory of Theoretical Biochemistry teach my students P. Poulain | CC BY-SA 2 Topics not covered today Source: The Guardian, 2024 Source: Joule, 2023. Source: Time, 2023. Source: DALL.E, 2024-07-10, prompt: ”Make a picture of a surgeon” Source: DALL.E, 2024-07-10, prompt: ”Make a picture of a nurse” P. Poulain | CC BY-SA 3 The ChatGPT (r)evolution From a research result to a mass-market product Source: arXiv, 2017 P. Poulain | CC BY-SA 4 Students are already using gen. AI / LLMs Survey: “Provide or punish? Students’ views on generative AI in higher education” (UK, 02/2024, 1250 students) More than half of students (53%) have used generative AI to help them with assessments. The most common use is as an ‘AI private tutor’ (36%), helping to explain concepts. Source: HEPI, 2024. P. Poulain | CC BY-SA 5 Students are already using gen. AI / LLMs Enquête : “IA et Enseignement Supérieur : Formation, Structuration et Appropriation par la Société” (FR, 04/2025) 19k étudiant.e.s, 6k enseignant.e.s, 7k personnels support Source: https://mission-ia-sup.forge.apps.education.fr, 2025. P. Poulain | CC BY-SA 6 Students are already using gen. AI / LLMs Source: https://mission-ia-sup.forge.apps.education.fr, 2025. P. Poulain | CC BY-SA 7 Technology and education: promises and threats Books will soon be obsolete in the public schools. Scholars will be instructed through the eye. It is possible to teach every branch of human knowledge with the motion picture. Our schools system will be completely changed inside of ten years. -- Thomas Edison, 1913 Source: Thomas Edison, interview to The New York Dramatic Mirror, 1913. Source: Push-button education, Arthur Radebaugh, The Chicago Tribune, 1958. P. Poulain | CC BY-SA 8 Technology and education: promises and threats Source: Twitter/X, 2023 P. Poulain | CC BY-SA 9 Is ChatGPT the new calculator? "Generative text is something we all need to adapt to," he said. "We adapted to calculators and changed what we tested for in math class, I imagine. This is a more extreme version of that, no doubt, but also the benefits of it are more extreme, as well." -- Sam Altman, 2023 Source: interview: StrictlyVC in conversation with Sam Altman, part two (OpenAI), 2023. P. Poulain | CC BY-SA 16 ChatGPT 5 08/10/2025 Correct answer: 61,728,394,938,271,605 From chatterbox to bullshitter…. P. Poulain | CC BY-SA 17 Read the small print! P. Poulain | CC BY-SA 18 Source: poster of the movie Lost in Translation. -------------- Education P. Poulain | CC BY-SA 19 How could we take advantage of LLMs to improve learning and teaching (social) experiences? Source: College Teaching, 1993 P. Poulain | CC BY-SA 20 The homework apocalypse "To be clear, AI is not the root cause of cheating. Cheating happens because schoolwork is hard and high stakes. And schoolwork is hard and high stakes because learning is not always fun and forms of extrinsic motivation, like grades, are often required to get people to learn." -- Ethan Mollic Source: Post-apocaliptic education, 2024 P. Poulain | CC BY-SA 21 Why students “cheat” Source: Inside Higher Ed x Generation Lab. July 2025. 1,027 students P. Poulain | CC BY-SA 22 Illusion of competence Source: figshare, 2025 P. Poulain | CC BY-SA 23 Dunning-Kruger effect Source: wikimedia, 2022, CC BY-SA P. Poulain | CC BY-SA 24 Illusion of competence… and weight lifting Source: The effortful educator, 2025 P. Poulain | CC BY-SA 25 Illusion of competence… and running on a treadmill Source: Rhett Allain. 2025 P. Poulain | CC BY-SA 32 How teachers adapt? Source: https://mission-ia-sup.forge.apps.education.fr, 2025. P. Poulain | CC BY-SA 33 AI workout Targeted mentoring: leverage AI to reword assessment items for improved clarity. Use AI to provide explanations of code snippets. Guided exploration: encourage AI to propose a variety of possible solutions to a problem, fostering divergent thinking. Critical evaluation: compare AI-generated outputs to detect possible gaps or inaccuracies. P. Poulain | CC BY-SA 34 Develop critical thinking "30 minutes to ask questions to ChatGPT 'to generate a conversation that repeats what was said in class the week before' and that requires them to have understood and 'to ask the right questions to get the right answers'; 20 minutes then to work on the text's bibliography and verify the accuracy of ChatGPT's responses." -- Antonio Casilli Source: Le parisien étudiant, 2023. P. Poulain | CC BY-SA 35 Course chatbot Source: Inside Higher Ed x Generation Lab. July 2025. 1,027 students Source: https://koro-ai.com/ P. Poulain | CC BY-SA 36 Course chatbot ●+400 pages ●27 chapters https://python.sdv.u-paris.fr/ P. Poulain | CC BY-SA 37 P. Poulain | CC BY-SA 38 https://biopyassistant.sdv.u-paris.fr BioPyAssistant LLM@UPCité: ●D. Janiszek ●S. Bottani ●PP Development: ●E.Touami P. Poulain | CC BY-SA 39 BioPyAssistant P. Poulain | CC BY-SA 40 BioPyAssistant From 70 M1/M2 students in 2024-2025... ...to 400 L2/L3 students in 2025-2026 P. Poulain | CC BY-SA 41 AI-valuate student productions? Grading student papers written by AIs Asking an AI to grade student papers written by AIs. Source: Twitter/X, 2023 Source: Les Echos, 2025 Source: France Info, 2024