Today Jesse Miller came to our class to discuss social media and mobile technology. It was a super helpful lecture and I learned a lot about the important role teachers have in the media world. One of the topics that really stood out to me was the use of AI. Jesse talked about the use of AI as a support tool and/or companion for teachers and students. He discussed how teachers can use it for lesson planing and how students may use it as a way to aid their learning. I decided to go and experiment with ChatGTP. I asked if it could make me a lesson plan on early operations of multiplication for Grade 3 Students in Canada, British Columbia. ChatGTP provided me with a well-laid-out, easy-to-follow lesson plan that included how the lesson should flow, how much time to spend on certain activities, and made connections to the curriculum. I think this is a great tool to use as a starting point and then go in and make adjustments based on your students needs and other things you would like to include. Or as a way to brainstorm and get some ideas while preparing your own lesson plan.
After Jesse’s presentation, I talked with some of my teacher friends. I asked them if and how they use AI as a tool in their teaching career. They told me they often use AI to create rubrics for assignments and assessments, as well as to help them write report card comments. They put in the information they want as part of the assignment, assessment, or comment, and AI generates a rubric for them or a comment they can add to their student’s report cards. This saves them a lot of time that they can then spend on creating lessons for their students and avoiding burnout. Another way they use AI is to turn their teaching notes into a PowerPoint. They just upload their notes and AI creates a nice PowerPoint with all of the main points they would like to talk about.
From what I have explored, I think that AI can be a really powerful and helpful tool for teachers. I know some people view AI as cheating or being lazy, but I think using AI to your advantage is smart and efficient if it’s being used responsibly. One of my biggest worries going into the teaching profession is teacher burnout. Teaching is not an easy job and it involves a lot of planning, marking, assessing, and more. I feel very fortunate to have AI as a tool I can use to help me in teaching and hopefully save myself some time here and there to help prevent burnout. Students are likely not going learn best from a burnout teacher, so not only could AI help me, but it could also help my students as they would have a teacher who feels good and engaged!
Here are some sites I found that give you access to some AI tools: