ChatGPT - The Future of the Classroom Webinar

ChatGPT allows instructors to create rich interactive educational materials, ranging from interactive games to virtual laboratories to discussion forums that can automatically respond to posts and pose follow-up questions. This talk will go far beyond the discussions of ChatGPT's impact on student test taking and look at the exciting possibilities of using this technology to create educational experiences that were difficult or impossible before. The talk will explore how ChatGPT can be used to support independent learning, personal growth, and retraining. We will also explore the unique ways that ChatGPT is being incorporated into Vanderbilt educational experiences.

Vanderbilt panel

Dr. Jules White
Associate Dean for Strategic Learning Programs Associate Professor of Computer Science

Dr. Jules White is a National Science Foundation CAREER Award recipient. His research has won multiple Best Paper Awards. He has also published over 160 papers. As Dean of Strategic Learning Programs, he led the online MS in Computer Science at Vanderbilt to the #1 ranking by Fortune for online MS in Computer Science degrees. Dr. White's research focuses on cyber-security and mobile/cloud computing in domains ranging from healthcare to manufacturing.

Jesse Spencer-Smith
Chief Data Scientist, Data Science Institute
Professor of the Practice, Department of Computer Science

Dr. Spencer-Smith leads a team of data scientists who collaborate with researchers across the university and with industry partners applying AI technologies to problems in research, teaching, and business. He teaches a course on Transformer models, the AI model on which ChatGPT and other AI chatbots are built. He has a PhD in Cognitive Psychology and Cognitive Science, and has been working on applications of AI technologies both in industry at the country's largest healthcare company as Director of Data Science, and in academia at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Vanderbilt University.

Dr. Douglas Schmidt
Cornelius Vanderbilt Professor of Engineering, Professor of Computer Science, Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Associate Chair of Computer Science

Dr. Schmidt's research covers a range of software-related topics, including patterns, optimization techniques, and empirical analyses of frameworks and model-driven engineering tools that facilitate the development of mission-critical middleware for distributed real-time embedded (DRE) systems and intelligent mobile cloud computing applications. He has published 650+ technical papers and books that have been cited 39,000+ times, his h-index is 90, and he has mentored and graduated over 40 Ph.D. and Masters students.