CanadaEducation2023 – ongoingUniversity of British Columbia
ChatGPT and GitHub Copilot in engineering physics teaching
UBC's engineering instructor reported fewer basic questions for human teaching assistants after introducing AI tools
Problem
Students needed help outside teaching hours. Basic questions also limited the time human teaching assistants could spend on harder problems.
Approach
An engineering physics instructor explicitly directed students to use ChatGPT and GitHub Copilot for code and homework. Students submitted their AI conversations and explained their use during weekly oral updates. Human teaching assistants remained available for difficult questions.
Results
No published figures
Takeaway
The instructor paired access to AI answers with checks on students' understanding. Reported improvements in teaching capacity were qualitative.
Categories
- Size
- Large enterprise
- Industry
- Education
- Business function
- Production and quality
- Innovation type
- Process innovationOrganization and work practices
- AI technology
- Generative AI
- Adoption
- Off-the-shelf tool or platform
- Evidence
- Company's own claim
Sources
Source summaries
UBC described AI tools used by engineering physics students for assignments and questions. The instructor reported less congestion around basic questions and described oral updates and conversation submissions used to check understanding.
Full details are in the original sources.
