AI for Teachers
It feels like AI is everywhere (and it is!), and as a teacher you’re likely wondering how AI will impact your classroom. No matter what grade you teach, AI is important for us to understand as teachers, because our students are going to encounter and use it frequently.
AI and other technology-related topics are sometimes approached from a reactive, and fearful, place in schools. (eg. How do we stop students from using AI?) And while this isn’t wrong, and we do need to keep kids safe, there are many productive ways for us to look at AI, and it’s strengths, to think about how it can impact the classroom in positive ways. Let’s learn and understand AI, both because it’s useful and because we’ll be better able to teach our students about its impacts.
Today I’m going to focus on ChatGPT as a tool that teachers can use to make better use of their time. As teachers, our time is valuable, and there are many competing demands. I’m going to share 3 ChatGPT prompts that you can use to help you save time and be more efficient with your class!
Have ChatGPT individualize student content.
Do you have students reading on many different levels, but you want them all to encounter the same content? You can ask ChatGPT to: Take the following article and rewrite it at the following levels (insert reading levels that your school/class uses).
Now you’ll still need to use your human brain to make sure that all of the newly-written articles make sense and that the important content has remained, but it’s a huge time-saver!
Have ChatGPT create class-specific content for your students.
Are you working on a particular skill/topic and you want students to have additional practice that feels a bit more personalized? You can ask ChatGPT to: Write 5 math story problems for (your grade) about the following concepts, using the following names, about the following topics: Concepts: (insert concepts your class is covering) Names: (insert student first names) Topics: (insert topics that students would find interesting)
Again, you’ll still need to use your awesome teacher brain to make sure these problems fit with your curriculum, but it’s hard to beat customized math problems created in under 5 seconds.
Have ChatGPT brainstorm new ways to teach your content.
Do you ever wonder if there’s another way to teach one of the topics or units that you cover with students? You can ask ChatGPT to: Brainstorm ten hands-on project ideas for a 9th grade classroom that has students practice applying their understanding of prokaryotes and eukaryotes.
This is such a great way to see if there might be another way to teach or assess students that you hadn’t thought of yet. Additionally, you can customize the prompt above to only create projects with the materials that you have available.
AI in general, and ChatGPT specifically, have so much potential to help teachers in their classrooms. One of the best ways to learn and understand these tools is actually use them ourselves.
The additional benefit of using the tools is that when we start teaching AI to our students, and when we’re talking about boundaries and how to use these tools safely, we can do so without fear and with a full understanding of the ways that AI can impact our lives, and the lives of our students.
