By now you might have received a paper from your kid's school, asking you to pledge that he or she not use AI in homework. But here is a task that can be used with AI, while demonstrating your student has learned something. It's an AI scavenger hunt!
Ask your favorite AI to write a short passage about whatever the class studied this week — the Missouri Compromise, photosynthesis, the causes of the Dust Bowl. Have the chatbot plant three deliberate factual errors in the passage, and then create a separate answer key. Copy the passage and keep the key for yourself. In a new window (it has to be a new window) explain the game to the chatbot: tell it the passage below contains three errors, that it should not reveal them, and that your student will find them and discuss them. Then paste the passage. Now have your student try to find the errors and discuss them with the chatbot.
The idea is older than chatbots. Researchers writing in the journal Computers in Human Behavior put 208 middle school students through a lesson on decimals. One group hunted down and explained errors in a fictional student's work. The other solved equivalent problems and received feedback. The error hunters did better on a delayed test, and better at judging whether their own answers were right.
The same study turned up something else worth knowing: the students who simply solved problems enjoyed the lessons more. Error hunting is less fun but works better.
The most useful errors are the ones not open to interpretation, and they should be suited to your student's age. Experiment with the error passages to find a good selection.
No one can hunt errors in a passage about the Missouri Compromise without knowing something about the Missouri Compromise. The game is a test wearing a costume.
One caution. Chatbots are unreliable at counting their own errors. Asked for three, one will occasionally plant four and insist it planted three.
Rick Good spent ten years in the newspaper business, including with The News & Observer (Raleigh, NC) and The Greenville News (Greenville, SC). He co-wrote, with Melinda Coleman, Rutledge to Riley: Governors of South Carolina, 1776–Present (Published by The Greenville News), and is the author of Mind Games Trivia #1 (Amazon). He has recently spent 15 years creating original trivia content through Sounds Good Mobile Entertainment and continues that with his new company, SGME Software. He edits The Smart Reader’s money, real estate, and business coverage.
