Embrace the A.I. Revolution
As an educator, it is time to address the elephant in the room: A.I. Undoubtedly, it is one of the most fascinating, frightening, and weirdest inventions since the formation of the internet. I would have never thought to imagine that I could type into a chat box the size of an iMessage box and it would spit out my weekly lesson plans for me (more to come at the end on this!). Nor would I ever imagine that I could just ask a chat bot to differentiate and modify worksheets for my classroom in under 30 seconds (I will show you this as well!). Yet, here we are.
And I highly doubt that a powerful tool such as A.I. will be going away anytime soon. I also do not think that it will be replacing educators at any point in our life times (imagine ChatGPT managing a classroom??). So, what do we do with it? Do we ignore it and continue on our merry ways? Do we acknowledge its existence as a power tool that we could not possible grasp or utilize without extensive knowledge? Or do we embrace the time saving and amazing opportunity that it provides us as educators? I would think the latter.
Today, I want to talk about the use of A.I. in education, specifically in your classroom. How you can use it as a teacher, how I have been using it as a teacher, and sharing a platform that I have been using consistently with my students for wonderful results.
What does A.I. provide me as a teacher?
Saving time and convenience. As teachers, time is our most valuable asset during the school year. Having a 45 minute plan during the day to cram in lesson planning, grading, printing, phone calls, etc. is very difficult. Add on the layer of constantly having to look for great materials that are specific to what you are doing in class then you are already up creek with no paddle.
Furthermore, we want our class periods with students to be spent with students. I do not want to give up learning time or relationship building with students during class because I have to create the PowerPoints and worksheets for the following day. I want to be present, helping students learn.
Luckily for us, A.I does it all. It does lesson plans, it creates worksheets, quizzes, and tests, and it even will create your PowerPoints for you. It also does it at an extremely high level. A common misconception is that since we asked A.I. to create an educational material for us that it will not be good enough quality for students. That is far from the truth. Here is an example of me asking an A.I. tool (I will share at the end) to make some problems on exponential functions about memes.
And that is not even the cool part!!! We can also ask it to format the questions, add modifications, and make the problems progress from easier to harder. Here is what it looks like after I did all of those things.
It literally took me less than 30 seconds to perform all of that. And it does all of this with worksheets, lesson plans, quizzes, tests, and more.
Of course, it is not perfect. Sometimes I find that it will not do the exact scaffold that I want, format I prefer, and on occasion it will get a problem incorrect or give false information. However, it is a tool that works with a high level of reliability and accuracy. As long as we put in effort to review, read, and check its output, there is no reason to have incorrect information in front of students.
Magic School A.I.
Thus far, I have found Magic School A.I. to the be most helpful for me as a math instructor (it is what I used in the examples above). I utilize the Raina chatbot in order to create most of the worksheets and problems. However, it is not limited only at worksheets. I have used it to brain storm ideas, help me write my lesson plans, and make some fun jokes for my class. It is free, and super easy to sign up with a school email. I was recommended to it by a colleague at my school, and it has literally transformed the way that I prep everyday. I hope that you are able to find some use of it, especially as we transition into the cold months ahead.