ChatGPT and adaptive learning: How can AI technology enhance your business school education?

ChatGPT is an AI program owned by OpenAI that has gained significant publicity over the past few months.  

It’s a controversial topic in higher education, with several universities and business schools, such as Sciences Po, Oxford and Cambridge banning the use of the AI tool due to concerns of plagiarism. Italy has become the first Western country to completely block the chatbot, blaming privacy concerns. 

However, some business schools are encouraging their students to use AI tools such as ChatGPT and Bard. NEOMA Business School in France says higher education providers shouldn’t be shying away from this technology.  

 “As a higher education institution, we should be training our students to master this kind of technology,” said Alain Goudey, NEOMA business school’s associate dean for digital and professor of marketing. 

Training business students to use generative AI  

“Banning ChatGPT is not feasible,” says Goudey. “AI is going to be integrated into every technological tool we use every day, like Office 365, mobile phones and search engines. Even if you wanted to, it’s not possible to ban it.” 

Microsoft has invested billions of dollars into its partnership with OpenAI, the makers of ChatGPT, and has said it will embed a version of the AI technology into several of its Office apps, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook. Microsoft has already added ChatGPT to its search engine, Bing. 

“We can’t say not to use ChatGPT in your learning if you will then be spending 20 or 30 percent of your time using it in your internship, or in your job,” said the director of innovative learning at NEOMA, Haithem Marzouki. 

With this in mind, NEOMA set up workshops with professors and focus groups with students to find the best ways to take advantage of this.  

“My approach is to tell students, ‘use ChatGPT before asking me’”, said Marzouki, “then if you need more clarification, I will explain it to you”. 

However, NEOMA also make sure students are aware of the potential bias of AI models like ChatGPT.  

“Generative AI is based on a data set, which is specific for each model. We are talking about language, and behind language is culture. Behind culture is the vision of the world. There are always biases in culture, and it’s important for students to be aware of that,” said Goudey.  

Once students are made aware of these biases and the tool’s limitations, they can start to use ChatGPT in a productive way.  

Problem-solving through discussion  

ChatGPT is about having a conversation. Unlike Google, where you are simply asking the application a question and getting an answer, ChatGPT will talk you through step by step to help you get to the answer.  

“This approach is what we call prompt engineering. It’s very new to everyone and that’s why we need to train our students to use this kind of technology,” said Goudey. 

But NEOMA’s training doesn’t stop with ChatGPT. “It’s important for all our students to develop the flexibility to jump from one AI tool to the other,” said Goudey. 

Goudey predicts we will see several AI models become popular over the next year. Some, like ChatGPT, will be able to have a discussion about any topic, albeit in a somewhat generalised way; others will be more focused, specialising in a particular industry or subject.  

BloombergGPT™ is one example of this latter model, a large-scale generative AI model built by Bloomberg to support language processing tasks in the finance industry. 

“We want students to combine the different tools, ask questions and have discussions and use these tools to construct a good answer to the question. We don’t want them to copy and paste the answer from a simple question,” said Goudey. 

AI: The future of business education? 

Integrating AI into the curriculum may mean that the way students are assessed may need to change, as well as the way students are taught.  

“You can no longer just memorise the information and get a good mark in an exam. We need out-of-the-box, critical thinking,” said Haithem. 

One way that AI is helping students learn at NEOMA is through adaptive learning.  

Between classes, students are given individual online activities, exercises and assignments to complete online. These are monitored by an AI system which collects data about both the individual and the class as a whole and adapts the content to fit the student’s level. Students can ask the platform for help if they are struggling to get to the answer. 

This helps adjust the pace and content of the course to the student’s skill level and learning speed. 

 “Students can learn where they want, when they want,” said Haithem. “You can prepare for your next session at your own pace, and this means the overall level of the next session will be higher, as everyone will have done the work they need to get to this higher level.” 

It also helps professors monitor which students are struggling with certain concepts, and then offer support.  

On the other hand, students who are finding the content straightforward and are looking for a greater challenge will be able to access additional learning materials that they won’t be tested on. The system has had very positive feedback from students so far. 

“I believe this is the future of higher education: a data-driven pedagogy based on adaptive learning.” said Haithem. “Each of our students comes from a different professional background. These kinds of tools let them start the class with the same knowledge.” 

He added: “We cannot teach students in the same way as their parents were taught. We need to use these tools not only to engage students but also to free up pedagogical teaching strategies that will increase their ability to think, to learn by themselves and how to interact with the others to develop new soft skills for the future.”