How Students Can Use ChatGPT to Study for Exams
Can AI be a useful tool in your student’s learning strategies tool kit?
I’m a bit surprised to say, my answer is, Yes!
I first was exposed to the idea that ChatGPT could be a tool to improve students’ study skills back in March of 2023, when I was consulting at a medical school, coaching students and training teachers. ChatGPT had just hit the scene a few months prior, but I had been too busy with my consulting gig (and surgery prep) to pay much attention.
In one of my coaching sessions, a tired, young mother who was learning to be a radiologic technician told me, “I don’t really know how to study for this exam, though I did use ChatGPT, and it was helpful.”
“Oh, how did you use it?!” I asked.
“I asked it questions about terms that I hadn’t memorized yet. My textbook was in a different room, and I had my sleeping baby in my arms, but I had my phone with me, so I just asked it questions and read the answers.”
I was fascinated!! How amazing that she was able to use the resources at hand to help her take advantage of a few minutes of “downtime” to study for her exams. And how cool that ChatGPT was top of her mind as a go-to resource.
It was then that I realized that AI was also going to change the world of studying, and at some point I would need to get on board.
It’s eight months later, and I'm finally there!! My successful jaw surgery and the intense recovery is behind me, and this morning I was thinking about the impending midterms and/or final exams for many students around the world. I got curious about how students can use ChatGPT to study for their final exams right now, and decided to make a YouTube video to capture my initial research.
Specifically, I was curious about how to use ChatGPT to help students practice retrieval.
After all, retrieval practice has proven to be the most effective and efficient way to study. If students have done nothing else to prepare for midterms, they ought to use their precious time practicing retrieval. For context about why, you might like to check out my YouTube video on the Study Cycle, which is my consolidation of the complex science of learning into 3 steps that every student can easily remember and apply. Retrieval practice is step 2 of the Study Cycle.
In other words, retrieval practice is the art of quizzing yourself to see what you do and don’t know. Ideally, all semester long your students would have been making their own quizzable study tools to help themselves practice retrieval right before final exams. However, if they haven’t done that, ChatGPT can be a decent last minute offering to help them quickly quiz themselves, as well as assess themselves, to see what they do and don’t know.
So let’s look at some ways ChatGPT can help your students practice retrieval. Let’s start with a scenario in which they have a list of terms they need to have memorized, and they have a study guide that lists those terms. Maybe it’s a guide you’ve given them or created with them, or one they’ve created on their own.
Following these steps will help your students use ChatGPT to effectively practice retrieval.
Feel free to walk your clients through the process, or copy these instructions into a document you share with them so they can walk through it on their own. (For ease of the latter, I’ll write the instructions to the students.)
Study in the manner of the test: Is the test going to be multiple choice? Short answer? Will they need to know definitions? Or be able to identify examples of each of the key terms? The more clear you can be about what form the test is going to be, the better they can use ChatGPT to help you study for that specific style of test.
Copy and paste the list of terms from the study guide.
In ChatGPT, type a prompt like “Please write a multiple choice test based on these terms:“ and then paste the list of terms into the prompt. (Remember, they need to ask ChatGPT to create a test in the style YOUR test will be!)
Decide if you want to see the answers right away, or if you want ChatGPT to hide the answers at first. You might add to the prompt “without answers” if you want to wait to see them. Note: To do true retrieval practice, you want to be able to truly pull the answer out of your mind without any hints, which includes not accidentally seeing a list of answers. So I highly recommend asking it to withhold the answers. But you can play around to see what works best for you, too.
Hit return, and watch as ChatGPT generates the list of questions for you.
Take some time to actually take that test! Write the answers down on a white board or a sheet of paper.
Then, ask ChatGPT “show me the answers” and take a moment to evaluate your responses, to see what you got right or wrong.
Make a list of the terms you got wrong, and then you’ll need to figure out how to study those in a new way. This is re-encoding…the third step in the Study Cycle.
This is just one method of practicing retrieval using ChatGPT. But there are hundreds of others! Another one I address in the video is as follows:
Look at your study guide to identify a short answer question that your teacher undoubtedly wants you to be able to answer on the test.
Practice typing the answer to that question into ChatGPT in complete sentences,
Add the prompt “Is this correct?” and hit enter.
ChatGPT will comment on the accuracy of your answer, telling you where you got it right and where you got it wrong.
If you got something wrong, make a note of that so that you can come back to it later to learn it in more detail.
A warning and a suggestion--educators, be sure to include this is in the instructions you share with students:
Don’t just assume that ChatGPT knows what it is talking about! Have your other learning resources out so you can double check ChatGPT’s accuracy.
Be as specific as possible about what you’re looking for. Feel free to tell ChatGPT that you want questions “at an 8th grade level” or “at an 11th grade level.” Maybe play around with both. Even if you’re at an 8th grade level, try answering the 11th grade questions first. After all, the more effort the brain exerts (without confusing or exhausting itself), the better you’ll learn it. If you find the more complicated question is too complicated, ask for a simpler one.
Additional Communication Tip
I always like to end these reflections with a specific tip for how to communicate effectively with your students about the topic at hand. Today I offer you this question to ask students before you dive into the subject:
“Would you be open to learning some ways to use ChatGPT for good and not evil when you study?”
Why do I recommend this question? There are a few reasons:
I’m a big believer in consent culture, which includes how adults talk to students about their learning. I call my process for building consent into conversations with the students “The Consent Burger.”
The more we can invite students to consent to learning whatever we want to teach them, the better.
The phrase for “good and not evil” is both amusing and points to an important reality ––students can use chatGPT and AI to hurt their learning as well as to help it.
If you are a classroom teacher, you can adjust this question as follows: “Everyone hold up your hand. Please show me using your fingers how curious you are to learn some ways to use ChatGPT for good and not evil when you study?”
If you would like more information about the Study Cycle or the Consent Burger, I have free resources all about them in my learning library. Go grab those here.
Are you a classroom teacher or an academic coach who has taught your students other ways to use ChatGPT to study? I’d love to hear about them! Please share in the comments below!
