Experimenting with using ChatGPT as a simulation application

How might we use generative AI tools in higher education?

Many address this issue by focusing on chatbots as writing apps, trying to think through what the technology means for teaching writing. While this is obviously a major part of the topic, I think we need to explore other, emerging issues of tools like ChatGPT. For example, talking ChatGPT into playing simulation and role-playing games.

Lately I’ve been experimenting with the research of a Wharton professor. Ethan Mollick writes about getting the chatbot to create and run what he describes as “deliberate practice,” simulations preparing learners for further academic study and real-world work.

As a longtime fan of simulations and gaming, I approved of this approach. I then decided to try it out myself, using examples and making adjustments of my own.

Here’s a sample. I started with Mollick’s language, which orders ChatGPT to do certain things, addressing it as “you.” For the simulation subject, I offered a history class. Here’s my prompt:

I want to do deliberate practice about how to teach a college history class. You will be my teacher. You will simulate a detailed scenario in which I will am a professor for this class. You will fill the roles of different students in the class, while I will play the role of instructor. You will ask for my response to in each step of the scenario and wait until you receive it. After getting my response, you will give…