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Artificial Intelligence and the SAMR Model

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A.J. Juliani | Why I’m Still Scared Of An A.I. Future

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It’s here, and I’m concerned. I could even argue, a bit scared. Artificial Intelligence is no longer a science-fiction predicted future. It is our reality at this very moment. Sitting on the hinge of history is a weird place to be, especially when you realize it is truly a technological advanceme

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A.J. Juliani | The BIG Problem with Using A.I. for Assessment

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Just as Scantron cornered the market for cheaper, easier, and more efficient ways to grade student assessments, we now have A.I. entering the chat (see what I did there). It’s no secret the SAT ,  ACT ,  AP  exams, and numerous  state   tests

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A.J. Juliani | A.I. isn’t the thing. It may be the thing that gets us to the thing.

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Ultimately, we want kids to learn by acquiring foundational knowledge and developing key skills that will help them in the present and the future as they grow older. The knowledge and skills they develop in K-12, Vocational, and Higher Ed situations should lead to transfer in both work and life.

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Since November 2022, when ChatGPT exploded onto the scene, plenty of teachers (including myself) have been using the term "AI-Resistant Practices" in looking for activities, tasks, assignments, assessments, and project-based learning experiences that would not be easily answered by Artificial Intelligence.

In my last article I shared 10 different AI-resistant practices you can use in the classroom. But, only focusing on AI-resistant activities, leaves many learning experiences out of the classroom.

There are plenty of times we'll want students to be using AI at some part of the assignment or task. See my previous post about The Traffic Light Strategy for some examples.

We need activities and learning experiences that are compatible with an AI world, and make sense now that students, and adults, have access to these AI tools.

For example, giving students 20 math questions to do for homework, and having them do it at home with all AI tools available (that can show their work and steps) is not really AI-compatible.

As a sidenote, many students who had parents, or tutors, helping them with their homework had an advantage in doing this work for years.

However, having students screencast 2-3 math problems, share how they are solving them on the screencast, and explain each step till they get an answer (right or wrong) is much more AI-compatible (something https://snorkl.app/ does really well). So, let's dive into some REAL examples of how we can make learning compatible with an AI world!

#1: 11-Minute Essay

Chances are if you teach writing (and most subjects and grade levels do) you've used some version of this before. I love the versions of the 11-Minute Essay shared by Erika San Miguel and Gretchen Bernabei on their websites.

Here's how they break it down:

This is the basic structure for every 11-Minute Essay:
Essentially, the minutes are broken down like this:

✅ Students react to the truism = 1 minute

✅ Students connect their belief about this truism to something they've read = 3 minutes

✅ Students connect their belief about this truism to something they've seen in a movie or show = 3 minutes

✅ Students connect their belief about this truism to something they've personally experienced = 3 minutes

✅ Students elaborate on the significance of this truism = 1 minute
My favorite thing about the 11-Minute Essay is that it really only requires two things:
Students must write in short, timed bursts.

Students must be given a structure in which to write.

Here is a great list of visual prompts and truism's that Gretchen Bernabei created.

This works for two reasons. First, the writing is happening in front of you in the classroom and in a time-constrained period. Second, after the initial burst you can use A.I. to edit, revise, adapt if need be. The teacher can work with the students and use AI as a tool, or not use it depending on your purpose of the lesson.

#2: Project-Based Sprints

Project-Based Learning is a fantastic way to run AI-resistant and AI-compatible experiences in and out of the classroom. The reasons I love "Sprints" as a truly AI-compatible practice is two-fold.

First, a Project-Based Sprint is about the learning process (not the final product). Students research, create, and iterate in short, time-constrained bursts.

Second, a Project-Based Sprint can leverage A.I. for research help, feedback, ideas, and quick prototyping. It can serve as a creative learning partner during the sprint (which is one of my favorite use cases for artificial intelligence in the classroom).

I've written about this approach extensively, but a simple way to start at Project-Based Sprint is by using the three step process below:

#3: Guided Bot Conversations/Discussions

For HS teachers this has been one of my favorite examples of integrating AI into your writing assignments, by the IB English Guys
Leverage Your Personal Learning Assistant
Sure, we could refer to LitCharts, Sparknotes, or some other website to learn more about the play. That gives us a nice overview. But what do you really want to know and discuss? It's time to take control of your own learning and leverage ChatGPT as your personal learning assistant.
Instructions:

Enter the following prompt or similar into ChatGPT.

"I am an IB English student. I just read the Prologue and Episode 1 of Antigone for homework. I would like to have an academic conversation that helps me understand the key elements of these sections. My teacher asks that this conversation last 15 minutes and provide comprehensive coverage of the content and form of the text. Please begin."

1. Engage in a meaningful conversation for 15 minutes.

2. Refer to your teacher's model conversation 1 and model conversation 2 to better understand the possibilities and power of generative AI and personalized education.

Link the conversation in your Learner Portfolio after 15 minutes.

Note: This link and conversation is an important part of your learning evidence.

1. Use the reflection sentence stems and write a meaningful reflection on key learnings from the session.

2. Upload the reflection to your Learner Portfolio.

#4: Defend Your Learning

Let's say students are doing science or math homework. They have questions to answer and should explain or show their work.

Maybe it's a Lab Report or a few Word Problems. In either case, we typically would hand these to the teacher, who would grade the final product, turn it back to the students, and move on to the next assignment or activity.

This isn't just how my classroom works. It's how most classrooms work, and many curricula and scope/sequences are built on this premise.

Now that artificial intelligence tools exist to help students master these types of assignments in no time, it can become difficult for a teacher to really understand whether or not the students have a solid understanding, or if they are using AI tools to assist.

Here's where we can use "Defend Your Learning".

This is my favorite way to use this strategy. During the assignment or homework, students will use Loom (or any other screencasting tool) to record their work and explain/defend their steps, answers, and thinking.

The benefit of this strategy is that we get to see and hear what the students are thinking and their process.

It can also be "AI-Resistant" because the explanation and defense are done by the actual students in their voice.

Better yet, when students share their defense with their peers they can get comments, emoji responses, and feedback right inside the Loom video that is sent to their email.

Teachers can comment as well, or respond with a video of their own as a follow-up!

#5: Real-Time Feedback

SchoolAI is quickly becoming my favorite artificial intelligence tool for teachers and students to use.

Imagine the power of ChatGPT, but with real guardrails you can set as a teacher, a focus for the AI powered chat and feedback that you've crafted, and the ability to see the entire conversation between students and SchoolAI bot!

That's what it is like to run a SchoolAI "space", in which students interact with a AI powered chat that you've built from scratch, or you can use one of the free pre-made "Spaces" from SchoolAI.

The fastest way to get started is to create an account and log in. Then navigate to the "Sidekick" option. There are more detailed ways to create your own Space, but Sidekick is the easiest way to go about it.

After setting up some specific guidelines for Sidekick, you can make the bot work in ways that you want for that class at that time:

The best aspect of SchoolAI is how it can be used alongside any meaningful learning task as a Guide, providing real-time feedback.

Create your Sidekick or Space to be an "AI Assistant" to help students navigate the project-based experience, help with research, collaborate on ideas, give feedback on each step, and serve as a mentor.

As a teacher, you are able to pop in and out of conversations, go talk with students based on the feedback they are getting, and manage it in ways you never could if they were using ChatGPT or another LLM tool.

Check it out and let me know how it goes!

#6: Bot-Assisted Creative Tasks

​ is easily one of my favorite AI tools for educators.

If you have ever used Nearpod, Peardeck, or even Kahoot - then Curipod is something you'll really enjoy (and it will save you a ton of time).

Curipod is free for educators and has a ton of functionality.

It helps you plan and deliver interactive (key word) lessons on any topic. Whether you want to make a full interactive slide presentation (like a Nearpod or Peardeck), or create an Exit Ticket - Curipod has you covered.

I was recently working with a 2nd-grade classroom, and we used Curipod to assist the students in creating their own "Fairy Tale Story".

First, I used the "Co-Write A Fairy Tale" prompt on Curipod, and set up a lesson for the students to join with a code (or link in their LMS/Google Classroom).

Next, we focused on the the theme of "Friendship" (something they had been spending time on in the classroom).

Students had time to enter in key details about their main character (most chose themselves). We also prompted them to add some details about the scene, plot, and anything else that they liked.
Note: They did not need to write in full-sentences. This was words or phrases and we walked around the classroom helping during this process.
Afterwards we had the "co-writer A.I." turn their details into a Fairy Tale story. This is where things got exciting!

The students could see how their details formed the base for the story, and were able to read (or be read to) all about their tale.

Next, we had students draw a picture of one of their favorite scenes with crayons, colored pencils, and paper.

Finally, we took those pictures, uploaded them to ChatGPT and asked it to turn the picture into a anime, cartoon, or Pixar scene depending on the students' preference. The end results were awesome!

Final Thoughts and #7: An A.I. Collaborative Task

The worst thing we can do right now is act like AI doesn't exist or impact the learning in our schools and classrooms. Thankfully, most folks have accepted this new era we are living in.

But, as Matt Miller has said, "How do we teach now that we know this exists?" I'm hoping a few of the ideas above resonated with you and maybe can spark some new ways to engage learners.

The big shift I see happening in 2024 and beyond is teachers beginning to master when/where to use A.I. depending on the learning purpose/goal. This is something I spend a lot of time on in my workshops - how do we craft an intentional learning experience that uses A.I. as a collaborative tool in the process.

I'll end with an example that I share worked for me as an instructor:

Day 1:

Class comes in and I tell them we are "RED" for the next 15 minutes. They are going to brainstorm topics for their next written assignment/essay based on the text we just read. Their goal is to come up with a few unique ideas for a thesis and outline.

After I pair them up with a partner to get some feedback and choose two ideas they want to flesh out into an outline. For this task students will be in "YELLOW" and can use A.I. if they need it as long as they run it by me first.

We end the day with every student having two outlines fleshed out and ready for a rough draft.
Day 2:
Students start the day again in "RED". They have a 30-minute Hemingway style writer's workshop where they are taking one of the outlines and creating a rough draft. No editing, no revising. Just writing for 30 minutes as a brain dump using the outline as a guide.

We end with a speed-date peer review where they share their outline and rough draft with a few of their peers and see what other folks are writing as well to get some ideas.

For HW we are going to be in "GREEN". They are going to take these rough drafts and turn them into a Final Draft using SchoolAI. They'll have to share tomorrow how the A.I. helped, what went well, what didn't go well, and what their process looked like.
Day 3:
Students come in and immediately are put into small groups. They are going to share their final drafts and with the SchoolAI save feature, show their process they went through to use A.I. to help them and reflect on it.
Note: You've never seen kids talk more about their writing than when they are able to talk about how A.I. helped or didn't help. It has been the best kind of "peer review" I've seen in 20 years.
Final 30 minutes of class we are back in "RED". Now they are going to take their final drafts and add their own unique voice back into the paper. Highlighting what makes it sound and feel like they wrote it vs an A.I. bot.
Day 4:
We spend the beginning of class in "RED" continuing from the previous day, then finish in "GREEN" so they can run their papers through Grammarly to check for spelling and grammatical errors before turning in their assignment.

Their final piece is to be in "RED" and write a reflection on the process and their use of A.I. to hand in with the paper that shares their whole process of use.
How are you using A.I. for good in your classroom? Please share!

Since November 2022, when ChatGPT exploded onto the scene, plenty of teachers (including myself) have been using the term "AI-Resistant Practices" in looking for activities, tasks, assignments, assessments, and project-based learning experiences that would not be easily answered by Artificial Intelligence.

In my last article I shared 10 different AI-resistant practices you can use in the classroom. But, only focusing on AI-resistant activities, leaves many learning experiences out of the classroom.

There are plenty of times we'll want students to be using AI at some part of the assignment or task. See my previous post about The Traffic Light Strategy for some examples.

We need activities and learning experiences that are compatible with an AI world, and make sense now that students, and adults, have access to these AI tools.

For example, giving students 20 math questions to do for homework, and having them do it at home with all AI tools available (that can show their work and steps) is not really AI-compatible.

As a sidenote, many students who had parents, or tutors, helping them with their homework had an advantage in doing this work for years.

However, having students screencast 2-3 math problems, share how they are solving them on the screencast, and explain each step till they get an answer (right or wrong) is much more AI-compatible (something https://snorkl.app/ does really well). So, let's dive into some REAL examples of how we can make learning compatible with an AI world!

#1: 11-Minute Essay

Chances are if you teach writing (and most subjects and grade levels do) you've used some version of this before. I love the versions of the 11-Minute Essay shared by Erika San Miguel and Gretchen Bernabei on their websites.

Here's how they break it down:

This is the basic structure for every 11-Minute Essay:
Essentially, the minutes are broken down like this:

✅ Students react to the truism = 1 minute

✅ Students connect their belief about this truism to something they've read = 3 minutes

✅ Students connect their belief about this truism to something they've seen in a movie or show = 3 minutes

✅ Students connect their belief about this truism to something they've personally experienced = 3 minutes

✅ Students elaborate on the significance of this truism = 1 minute
My favorite thing about the 11-Minute Essay is that it really only requires two things:
Students must write in short, timed bursts.

Students must be given a structure in which to write.

Here is a great list of visual prompts and truism's that Gretchen Bernabei created.

This works for two reasons. First, the writing is happening in front of you in the classroom and in a time-constrained period. Second, after the initial burst you can use A.I. to edit, revise, adapt if need be. The teacher can work with the students and use AI as a tool, or not use it depending on your purpose of the lesson.

#2: Project-Based Sprints

Project-Based Learning is a fantastic way to run AI-resistant and AI-compatible experiences in and out of the classroom. The reasons I love "Sprints" as a truly AI-compatible practice is two-fold.

First, a Project-Based Sprint is about the learning process (not the final product). Students research, create, and iterate in short, time-constrained bursts.

Second, a Project-Based Sprint can leverage A.I. for research help, feedback, ideas, and quick prototyping. It can serve as a creative learning partner during the sprint (which is one of my favorite use cases for artificial intelligence in the classroom).

I've written about this approach extensively, but a simple way to start at Project-Based Sprint is by using the three step process below:

#3: Guided Bot Conversations/Discussions

For HS teachers this has been one of my favorite examples of integrating AI into your writing assignments, by the IB English Guys
Leverage Your Personal Learning Assistant
Sure, we could refer to LitCharts, Sparknotes, or some other website to learn more about the play. That gives us a nice overview. But what do you really want to know and discuss? It's time to take control of your own learning and leverage ChatGPT as your personal learning assistant.
Instructions:

Enter the following prompt or similar into ChatGPT.

"I am an IB English student. I just read the Prologue and Episode 1 of Antigone for homework. I would like to have an academic conversation that helps me understand the key elements of these sections. My teacher asks that this conversation last 15 minutes and provide comprehensive coverage of the content and form of the text. Please begin."

1. Engage in a meaningful conversation for 15 minutes.

2. Refer to your teacher's model conversation 1 and model conversation 2 to better understand the possibilities and power of generative AI and personalized education.

Link the conversation in your Learner Portfolio after 15 minutes.

Note: This link and conversation is an important part of your learning evidence.

1. Use the reflection sentence stems and write a meaningful reflection on key learnings from the session.

2. Upload the reflection to your Learner Portfolio.

#4: Defend Your Learning

Let's say students are doing science or math homework. They have questions to answer and should explain or show their work.

Maybe it's a Lab Report or a few Word Problems. In either case, we typically would hand these to the teacher, who would grade the final product, turn it back to the students, and move on to the next assignment or activity.

This isn't just how my classroom works. It's how most classrooms work, and many curricula and scope/sequences are built on this premise.

Now that artificial intelligence tools exist to help students master these types of assignments in no time, it can become difficult for a teacher to really understand whether or not the students have a solid understanding, or if they are using AI tools to assist.

Here's where we can use "Defend Your Learning".

This is my favorite way to use this strategy. During the assignment or homework, students will use Loom (or any other screencasting tool) to record their work and explain/defend their steps, answers, and thinking.

The benefit of this strategy is that we get to see and hear what the students are thinking and their process.

It can also be "AI-Resistant" because the explanation and defense are done by the actual students in their voice.

Better yet, when students share their defense with their peers they can get comments, emoji responses, and feedback right inside the Loom video that is sent to their email.

Teachers can comment as well, or respond with a video of their own as a follow-up!

#5: Real-Time Feedback

SchoolAI is quickly becoming my favorite artificial intelligence tool for teachers and students to use.

Imagine the power of ChatGPT, but with real guardrails you can set as a teacher, a focus for the AI powered chat and feedback that you've crafted, and the ability to see the entire conversation between students and SchoolAI bot!

That's what it is like to run a SchoolAI "space", in which students interact with a AI powered chat that you've built from scratch, or you can use one of the free pre-made "Spaces" from SchoolAI.

The fastest way to get started is to create an account and log in. Then navigate to the "Sidekick" option. There are more detailed ways to create your own Space, but Sidekick is the easiest way to go about it.

After setting up some specific guidelines for Sidekick, you can make the bot work in ways that you want for that class at that time:

The best aspect of SchoolAI is how it can be used alongside any meaningful learning task as a Guide, providing real-time feedback.

Create your Sidekick or Space to be an "AI Assistant" to help students navigate the project-based experience, help with research, collaborate on ideas, give feedback on each step, and serve as a mentor.

As a teacher, you are able to pop in and out of conversations, go talk with students based on the feedback they are getting, and manage it in ways you never could if they were using ChatGPT or another LLM tool.

Check it out and let me know how it goes!

#6: Bot-Assisted Creative Tasks

​ is easily one of my favorite AI tools for educators.

If you have ever used Nearpod, Peardeck, or even Kahoot - then Curipod is something you'll really enjoy (and it will save you a ton of time).

Curipod is free for educators and has a ton of functionality.

It helps you plan and deliver interactive (key word) lessons on any topic. Whether you want to make a full interactive slide presentation (like a Nearpod or Peardeck), or create an Exit Ticket - Curipod has you covered.

I was recently working with a 2nd-grade classroom, and we used Curipod to assist the students in creating their own "Fairy Tale Story".

First, I used the "Co-Write A Fairy Tale" prompt on Curipod, and set up a lesson for the students to join with a code (or link in their LMS/Google Classroom).

Next, we focused on the the theme of "Friendship" (something they had been spending time on in the classroom).

Students had time to enter in key details about their main character (most chose themselves). We also prompted them to add some details about the scene, plot, and anything else that they liked.
Note: They did not need to write in full-sentences. This was words or phrases and we walked around the classroom helping during this process.
Afterwards we had the "co-writer A.I." turn their details into a Fairy Tale story. This is where things got exciting!

The students could see how their details formed the base for the story, and were able to read (or be read to) all about their tale.

Next, we had students draw a picture of one of their favorite scenes with crayons, colored pencils, and paper.

Finally, we took those pictures, uploaded them to ChatGPT and asked it to turn the picture into a anime, cartoon, or Pixar scene depending on the students' preference. The end results were awesome!

Final Thoughts and #7: An A.I. Collaborative Task

The worst thing we can do right now is act like AI doesn't exist or impact the learning in our schools and classrooms. Thankfully, most folks have accepted this new era we are living in.

But, as Matt Miller has said, "How do we teach now that we know this exists?" I'm hoping a few of the ideas above resonated with you and maybe can spark some new ways to engage learners.

The big shift I see happening in 2024 and beyond is teachers beginning to master when/where to use A.I. depending on the learning purpose/goal. This is something I spend a lot of time on in my workshops - how do we craft an intentional learning experience that uses A.I. as a collaborative tool in the process.

I'll end with an example that I share worked for me as an instructor:

Day 1:

Class comes in and I tell them we are "RED" for the next 15 minutes. They are going to brainstorm topics for their next written assignment/essay based on the text we just read. Their goal is to come up with a few unique ideas for a thesis and outline.

After I pair them up with a partner to get some feedback and choose two ideas they want to flesh out into an outline. For this task students will be in "YELLOW" and can use A.I. if they need it as long as they run it by me first.

We end the day with every student having two outlines fleshed out and ready for a rough draft.
Day 2:
Students start the day again in "RED". They have a 30-minute Hemingway style writer's workshop where they are taking one of the outlines and creating a rough draft. No editing, no revising. Just writing for 30 minutes as a brain dump using the outline as a guide.

We end with a speed-date peer review where they share their outline and rough draft with a few of their peers and see what other folks are writing as well to get some ideas.

For HW we are going to be in "GREEN". They are going to take these rough drafts and turn them into a Final Draft using SchoolAI. They'll have to share tomorrow how the A.I. helped, what went well, what didn't go well, and what their process looked like.
Day 3:
Students come in and immediately are put into small groups. They are going to share their final drafts and with the SchoolAI save feature, show their process they went through to use A.I. to help them and reflect on it.
Note: You've never seen kids talk more about their writing than when they are able to talk about how A.I. helped or didn't help. It has been the best kind of "peer review" I've seen in 20 years.
Final 30 minutes of class we are back in "RED". Now they are going to take their final drafts and add their own unique voice back into the paper. Highlighting what makes it sound and feel like they wrote it vs an A.I. bot.
Day 4:
We spend the beginning of class in "RED" continuing from the previous day, then finish in "GREEN" so they can run their papers through Grammarly to check for spelling and grammatical errors before turning in their assignment.

Their final piece is to be in "RED" and write a reflection on the process and their use of A.I. to hand in with the paper that shares their whole process of use.
How are you using A.I. for good in your classroom? Please share!

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A.J. Juliani | 7 AI-Compatible Practices For the Classroom

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In my last article I shared 10 different AI-resistant practices you can use in the classroom. But, only focusing on AI-resistant activities, leaves many learning experiences out of the classroom. There are plenty of times we'll want students to be using AI at some part of the assignment or task.

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#1: Paper/pencil In-Person

The easiest, and most basic way to go AI-resistant is to keep any learning activity or assessment, both in-person...and paper/pencil.

An in-person assessment that is paper-pencil is very AI-resistant. So is an in-person essay, in-person math problems, and even an in-person brainstorming session.

None of these are bad practices, as some would try to make them seem to be. You can use these practices for a variety of purposes, and mostly to see what your students are thinking, and able to do on their own. It's simple. Effective.

Using only these practices presents a number of problems, especially in terms of attention, engagement, and long-term transfer. The remaining practices are more geared towards a world in which students are engaged in learning, not compliant in the process they are forced to go through.

#2: Discussion Game

My students rolled into class like any other day, and not much was changed. The tables were still set up in small groups, the projector was on with their "Do Now" activity on the board. And, the Homework for the week was written for each day.

The only difference was that each seat had a white envelope on it, filled with five cards of all different colors.

Here's the basics. Each student gets a number of different colored cards to use throughout the discussion. They must play each card once, but can play the question card multiple times after using all other cards.

Red Card = I think Blue Card = I know (because) Yellow Card = Pose a Question Green Card = I feel Orange Card = Connect (to yourself, to the world, to another text/idea/subject)

Each card is worth a point (if you want to grade this activity, completely up to you and your classroom/school) and the goal is to replace assessing only the final product (quiz) and instead the process of learning (having an active discussion).

This scaffolds the student-centered classroom in two ways.

First, the game is centered on your subject, concept, content, text for the lesson. Students have to be engaged with that content in order to respond with the above answers and questions (I think, I know because, I feel, Connect, etc).

Second, it models the many ways you can contribute to an active learning discussion. This helps the students who may be shy or want to hide during the discussion.

#3: Debate

Another simple, and effective, practice. This can work in any subject area. Students are given some time in-class to prepare to take on a "side" or "perspective" in a debate.

Explain the structure and rules of the debate to your students. A simple format might include:

Opening statements from each side (1-2 minutes per team)

Rebuttals (1-2 minutes per team)

Open discussion (moderated by the teacher, 5-10 minutes)

Closing statements (1 minute per team)

Split the class into multiple teams, one for the proposition and one for the opposition. Each team should have an equal number of students. If the class is large, you can have multiple debates with smaller groups or assign roles such as researchers, speakers, and note-takers within each team.

Give students time to research their topic and prepare their arguments. During the debate, set up the classroom with teams facing each other. As the moderator, keep the debate on track by following the structured format you introduced. Ensure each student has an opportunity to participate and that the debate remains respectful.

After the debate, hold a reflection session. Ask students what they learned, how they felt about the experience, and what skills they improved. Discuss the importance of understanding multiple perspectives and how to use debate skills in other areas of their lives.

#4: Fishbowl

After a structured debate or playing the discussion game a few times, students began to get into discussions and own the conversation. Yes, they were prodded into answers and asking questions, but the goal of the first step is to get them talking (and have me talk way less).

It worked for our class and for many in our school. But, it was not the final goal. I'd rather not have the carrot (or stick) be the only reason students are talking, so we had to continue moving away from that reason, and also change up the format to one that is less scripted by the cards.

Fish Bowl Prep: Students are to have read, learned, or already delved into a specific text or content before the start of class. This, however, does not need to be homework. It could be learning that happened in a previous lesson or experience. The key is that the students are not learning something "new" during the Fish Bowl, they are instead going to learn from each other during the discussion and share their insights and questions (much like the discussion game).

Classroom Setup: Set up your classroom with two sets of circles. One big circle will be on the outside and then on the inside there will be a smaller circle of four-to-five chairs (depending on class size this could also be three or six chairs).

How it Works: When students come into class they will grab a seat. Don't worry where they sit as all students will eventually get into the middle of the circle (The Fish Bowl) for the discussion. The inside circle does the talking and discussing. They should be prepared but focus on having an active conversation using the techniques learned in the discussion game. The outside circle takes notes on the inner discussion. This could be scaffolded by the teacher to focus on specific areas of the conversation, or more wide open like taking notes during a lecture. Depends on your situation for how you want to prep students for the outside not taking.

Every five minutes you'll want to replace the inner circle with new students to discuss. They can pick up where the previous discussion left off, or start new.

Two keys to making this work. First, as a teacher, you must not prompt or get students talking. The goal is for them to have a productive struggle in the beginning and then get into a flow. Second, depending on your class you may want to pick the fishbowl groups ahead of time to get a good mix of students for the discussion. This, of course, is your preference as the teacher.

Finally, you can assess this conversation in a few ways, but I'd focus more on the active discussion part than what was said at first. Then as you do it more often and students become comfortable you can change a rubric to have different assessment pieces that reflect the content of the discussion.

#5: Finish My ____

Divide students into small groups of 3-5. Grouping can be done randomly or based on ability levels, depending on your goals.

Clearly explain the rules and objectives to the students. There are three variations you can use:

A. Finishing Each Other's Sentences (Writing Activity)

1. Starting the Story: Give each group a piece of paper and a sentence starter. For example, "Once upon a time, in a land far away..."

2. Writing in Turns: The first student writes a sentence to continue the story, then passes the paper to the next student, who adds another sentence. This process continues until everyone in the group has contributed multiple times.

3. Sharing the Stories: Once the stories are complete, have each group read their story aloud to the class. Discuss the different directions each story took and what made them interesting or creative.

B. Finishing Each Other's Insights (Critical Thinking Activity)

1. Starting with a Statement: Provide each group with a thought-provoking statement or question. For example, "The best way to solve environmental problems is..."

2. Adding Insights: The first student writes their insight or answer, then passes the paper to the next student, who adds another point, elaborates on the previous one, or offers a different perspective.

3. Group Discussion: After everyone has contributed, the group discusses the combined insights. They can summarize their thoughts and share them with the class.

C. Finishing Each Other's Math Problems (Math Activity)

1. Starting the Problems: Give each group a worksheet with several multi-step math problems, with each problem's initial step completed.

2. Solving in Steps: The first student completes the next step of the problem, then passes the paper to the next student, who continues with the subsequent step. This continues until the problem is solved.

3. Reviewing Solutions: Once all problems are solved, groups can check their answers together. Discuss any discrepancies and the steps taken to arrive at the solutions.

After the activity, hold a class discussion to reflect on the experience:

What did students learn from working together?

How did they handle any disagreements or challenges?

What strategies did they find most effective?

This no-tech activity promotes collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity among students-and is super-flexible in how you structure it, depending on your grade level and subject-area.

#6: Skit

This was one of my favorite ways as a teacher to get kids thinking, creating, and using their hands, bodies, and expressions.

Acting out a "skit" for something you are working on, reading, or trying to learn about helps in many ways.

Allow groups time to brainstorm ideas and plan their skits. Encourage them to think creatively about how to convey their understanding through dialogue, actions, and props. Provide guiding questions such as:

What are the key points we need to cover?

How can we make the skit engaging and informative?

What roles will each group member play?

Have each group write a script for their skit and begin rehearsing. Encourage them to include:

Introduction: Briefly introduce the topic or setting.

Body: Develop the main content, showcasing their understanding through dialogue and actions.

Conclusion: Summarize the key points or provide a resolution

Allow students to gather or create simple props and costumes that enhance their skits. Make it fun! Then set up a performance area in the classroom. Each group takes turns performing their skit in front of the class.

You can do this in multiple subject areas.

Science: Demonstrating a scientific process or concept, such as the water cycle or photosynthesis.

History: Acting out a famous historical event, or a key moment from various vantage points.

Literature: Performing a scene from a novel or play, or creating an original skit that explores a theme from a book they've read.

Math: Illustrating a mathematical concept, such as fractions, geometry, or solving word problems through a real-life scenario.

By acting out skits, students can engage deeply with the material, demonstrate their understanding in a dynamic way, and develop important skills in communication, collaboration, and creativity.

#7: Outdoor/Explore - Found Learning

Another simple practice. Get outside.

Explore how nature connects to your subject area.

Create poems with "found" poetry/words.

Do a class challenge.

The list goes on. All of the outdoor learning options are AI-resistant and great for the mind, body, and soul!

#8: Defend Your Learning

Let's say students are doing science or math homework. They have questions to answer and should explain or show their work.

Maybe it's a Lab Report or a few Word Problems. In either case, we typically would hand these to the teacher, who would grade the final product, turn it back to the students, and move on to the next assignment or activity.

This isn't just how my classroom works. It's how most classrooms work, and many curricula and scope/sequences are built on this premise.

Now that artificial intelligence tools exist to help students master these types of assignments in no time, it can become difficult for a teacher to really understand whether or not the students have a solid understanding, or if they are using AI tools to assist.

Here's where we can use "Defend Your Learning".

This is my favorite way to use this strategy. During the assignment or homework, students will use Loom (or any other screencasting tool) to record their work and explain/defend their steps, answers, and thinking.

The benefit of this strategy is that we get to see and hear what the students are thinking and their process.

It is also AI-Resistant because the explanation and defense are done by the actual students in their voice.

Better yet, when students share their defense with their peers they can get comments, emoji responses, and feedback right inside the Loom video that is sent to their email.

Teachers can comment as well, or respond with a video of their own as a follow-up!

#9: Hands-On Experiments

Another practice we should do even MORE of while living in a world of artificial intelligence is hands-on experiments.

These are often saved for Science classes, but let's make sure we are getting hands-on in all different subject areas.

You could learn fractions with pizza, geometry with string, or dive into programming with design sprints.

Create a poetry walk, use story dice, or start map-making.

The list is endless!

#10: Ask MagicSchool.ai (or any LLM) for suggestions

What if we used artificial intelligence to come up with AI-Resistant activities and assessments?

Yes! I do this all the time and you should as well. MagicSchool has a specific prompt that walks you through this process.

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A.J. Juliani | 10 AI-Resistant Practices for the Classroom

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I want to dive a bit deeper into what it looks like to have A.I.-Resistant activities and assessments (and why). This post will share 10 practices that support A.I.-Resistant learning, and in my follow up article later this week, I'll be sharing 10 practices that support A.I.-Compatible learning.

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I've been consistently curious about how artificial intelligence will impact my own individual learning and creative pursuits. I've been just as intrigued about its impact on education and society as a whole.

I see how transformational it can be to save time, develop engaging experiences, and usher in a new era of what learning can look like.
But, there has been something that's bugging me.
It's not necessarily the bias and ethical implications we see with all kinds of artificial intelligence. That is a known issue, and something many folks are already aware of and working on improving in updated models.

It's not the sheer amount human-power and energy that is needed to run LLM models. This is also something that has been widely discussed, analyzed, and has a roadway to improve.

And, it's not the privacy piece. We live in a world where privacy is already compromised in so many facets, this also why I believe Apple may come out on top with AI security/privacy built into their devices.

As with any new technology, it is going to have positives and negatives. It's pros and cons. It's cheerleaders and detractors.

Every time I talk about artificial intelligence, my first comment is, I'm not "pro" or "anti" AI. I understand that it is a hinge of history and here to stay. We can learn to use it for good, or not. That is up to us.

However, as someone who thinks, writes, and focuses on learning, what is really bugging me is something different.

The Elephant In The Room

I remember "Classrooms for the Future". A state grant in Pennsylvania that brought 1-to-1 devices in some of our classrooms via Macbook computer carts.

It was one of the early highlights of my teaching career to be able to harness the power of technology with my students. Writing in a Google Doc for the first time felt like magic. Collaborating with peers and students in real-time completely changed how I taught and how my students learned.

We used Web 2.0 tools like Wordle, Glogster, Blogger, and so many others.

Sometimes it was worth it to use this new technology, and other times it was not.

But, we were learning together, trying new things, and seeking out new and better ways to create engaging learning experiences.

Flash forward a year or two, and I was in the middle of a department meeting. We were discussing upcoming changes to our curriculum when our 1-to-1 initiative came up.

The conversation went all over the place, but one of my colleagues made a comment I'll never forget.

She said, "Does anyone else feel like sometimes we are using these laptops as teenage pacifiers?"

The room was silent. But, everyone was on the same page.

We knew what she was referring to: Instead of using the technology for new and better learning experiences, I would often use it for compliance-based learning. Because the technology was still in it's honeymoon phase, the students would go through the motions, using the tech, and would be "well behaved" in class during these activities.

The next day as my students were using their laptops to edit their essays, I wondered: Is this meaningful? Is it relevant? Is it engaging? Or am I happy because the class is easy to manage due to these "teenage pacifiers"?

Old Things In New Ways

This is what is bugging me with artificial intelligence in the classroom.

Are we using this technology for new and better learning experiences, or to do old things in new ways?

One of my favorite AI tools that I share all the time is Magic School.

Tools like it will save teachers hours of time and - as Sal Khan has said - may eliminate almost 90% of administrative tasks that take up so much of our day in schools.

That should leave time for creating, designing, making, and problem-solving with our students.

It should open up new curricula opportunities for meaning and relevant learning experiences.

It can usher in a new era of project-based learning that connects to the local community and global network.

Or...it can help us create more worksheets, multiple choice tests, and boring compliance-based activities.

The Elephant in the AI Classroom, is much like any technology, what are we going to use it for?

The answer, might just decide the future of what education looks like.

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A.J. Juliani | The Elephant in the A.I. Classroom

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I see how transformational it can be to save time, develop engaging experiences, and usher in a new era of what learning can look like. But, there has been something that's bugging me.

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Note: This is a four-part series on "Teaching and Learning in The Era of Distraction". Each post is an excerpt from my upcoming book, Meaningful and Relevant: Engaging Learners In An Era of Distraction.

We are distracted. More than ever.

The chances you finish this article are very slim.

The chances you finish this article without getting distracted by your device are extremely small!

Kids are distracted by constant notifications for their attention.

You already know this. Because you are also distracted.

We live in an era of distraction.

Now, try teaching in this era. It is difficult.

And it looks nothing like it did when we were in school.

This is happening at all levels of education.

A national study conducted by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln revealed that college students are increasingly distracted by digital devices in class. On average, students checked their phones and other digital devices over 11 times a day while in class. They estimated spending about 20% of their classroom time on digital devices for non-class activities, such as text messaging, emailing, web-surfing, and checking social media. This behavior led to reduced attention, missed instruction, and potentially lower grades. However, most students indicated an unwillingness to change their behavior, citing a desire to stay connected and not miss messages. The study highlighted a growing need for both students and faculty to adapt their practices to this reality.

This isn't only universities. And it isn't only in the United States.

In August 2018, research from the UK's telecoms regulator, Ofcom, reported that people check their smartphones on average every 12 minutes during their waking hours, with 71% saying they never turn their phone off and 40% saying they check them within five minutes of waking. Both Facebook and Instagram announced they were developing new tools designed to limit usage in response to claims that excessive social media use can have a negative impact on mental health.

The big issue that arises during these moments of distraction is not the actual distraction itself. We've become fairly good at being distracted and still getting "work" or "school" done.

The real problem is CPA:

Continuous partial attention - or CPA - was a phrase coined by the ex-Apple and Microsoft consultant Linda Stone. By adopting an always-on, anywhere, anytime, any place behaviour, we exist in a constant state of alertness that scans the world but never really gives our full attention to anything. In the short term, we adapt well to these demands, but in the long term the stress hormones adrenaline and cortisol create a physiological hyper-alert state that is always scanning for stimuli, provoking a sense of addiction temporarily assuaged by checking in.
( https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/oct/14/the-lost-art-of-concentration-being-distracted-in-a-digital-world)

The sense of addiction to checking in is real. This impacts:

1. What we can learn.

2. How we learn.

3. When we pay attention (and have commitment).

4. Why we pay attention (and to "who" we pay attention to).

Teachers and parents are struggling with students right now. And this is across the board in every area:

The vast majority of parents believe social media is a major distraction for students, according to a new nationwide study. The online study, conducted in November and December, surveyed a nationally representative sample of more than 10,000 parents of K-12 students. An overwhelming majority from across racial groups - African American (70%), Asian (72%), white (75%), Hispanic/Latino (70%) - agreed that social media is a distraction. Parents of children who attend private schools (82%) were more likely to see social media as a distraction than parents of children in public schools (73%) or charter schools (73%) or those being homeschooled (67%). Interestingly, parents with children in high school (74%), middle school (73%) and elementary school (73%) were equally concerned about the issue. School leaders are also worried. In January 2023, Seattle Public Schools sued the tech giants behind TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and Snapchat, claiming they've created a youth mental health crisis.

The students also recognize this about themselves and their peers.

According to an Omega poll taken by 243 students, 78.4 percent reported seeing students being distracted more often in their classes. Additionally, 60.9 percent of students said they personally are feeling less able to concentrate this school year than in years past.

So what can we do? Ban it? Get rid of the devices?

A few big issues arise when we look at learning from that angle. The main issue is that suing social media companies is not going to be very helpful in the long run:

"Suing social media companies or banning cellphones in classrooms may be trendy, but is unlikely to help students," said Cellphone usage and social media browsing is ingrained among school-age children, he argues. A (https://news.rice.edu/news/2023/3-out-4-parents-say-social-media-major-distraction-students-according-new-study) Pew Research Center study of teens found more than 95% have access to a cellphone, 94% use the internet almost constantly or several times a day and 54% say it would be hard for them to give up social media. Vikas Mittal, a professor of marketing at Rice's Jones Graduate School of Business, who conducted the 2022 Collaborative for Customer-Based Execution and Strategy (C-CUBES) K12 Parent Voice Study.

The New Reality of Distraction

I have to be honest.

For years I believed that phones should not be banned in classrooms.

But, after looking at the research, and my interactions with students and my own children, I started leaning heavily in the direction of removing phones from all learning environments.

I'm not one to change my beliefs lightly, but I'm also not going to hold onto a belief when research and reality are showing me I'm wrong.

That is where the initial research for my book, started.

From a place of a frustrated Dad, teacher, and school leader wondering how we can possibly teach in such an era of distraction.

What I found in the research and studies over the last five years has surprised me.

The main issue with banning technology is about our connection to these devices-even when we don't have them. Edutopia shared a 2017 study that focused on what happens when we put the cellphones away:

Students who split their attention between a learning task and However recent research from the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research suggests that cell phones might have a negative "upstream" impact on learning, too. The authors propose that the mere presence of a cell phone, even when it is silenced and stored out of sight, might be undermining our ability to focus. texting on their cell phones or accessing Facebook, for example, perform poorly when compared to students who are not dividing their attention.

We live in a world in which most of our lives, and the lives of our kids in school, happen in person-and online.

The research time and time again brought me to a realization, and one that the entire book is built upon:
Merely "eliminating" distractions will not solve our engagement problem.
And in a world of distraction, we'll have to double-down our focus on meaningful and relevant learning opportunities.

How we do this varies on all kinds of factors.

But it starts with rethinking our current practices, strategies, structures, and curriculum.

What's working well? Let's do more of it.

What's not working well? Let's replace it.

What could lead to more meaningful learning? Let's try it.

What could lead to more relevant connections? Let's do it.

In the second part of this series, we'll take a look from a student's perspective on how learning in an era of distraction is very different from the learning experiences we are used to, and what the research is telling us (from the last few years) is working right now in that reality.

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Reality Check: Teaching In The Era of Distraction - A.J. Juliani

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Note: This is a four-part series on "Teaching and Learning in The Era of Distraction". Each post is an excerpt from my upcoming book, Meaningful and Relevant: Engaging Learners In An Era of Distraction. We are distracted. More than ever. The chances you finish this article are very slim.

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There's no doubt that Artificial Intelligence has already been transforming classrooms around the world. We've seen the stories from students, teachers, parents, and school officials. You've probably dealt with these tools, apps, and other AI-powered technology in your class and school this year already.

So, how do we manage it?
On the one side, we can say: Shut it down.
The problem is that AI is now built into almost all the tools we are already using for teaching and learning. While last year you may have worried about students going to ChatGPT to help write an essay or answer a discussion question, now that technology is built directly into Google Doc's "Help Me Write" feature.
On the other side, we can say: Embrace it completely.
The problem is that we still want kids to think for themselves, learn how to write and use language effectively, solve problems, come up with their own questions, and be challenged by work that matters. When AI is used to do this work FOR students, it limits learning and hinders growth.

If you are like me (and most of the teachers and schools I've been working with all summer long around Artificial Intelligence), you probably fall somewhere in between.

You realize:

a) This is the world we live in and AI is not going away.

b) There are going to be times when your students should use this technology for learning purposes.

c) There are going to be times when your students should NOT use this technology for learning purposes.

How do we navigate this reality?

Traffic Light Protocol

Earlier this spring/summer I was working with Sam Mormando (Director of Technology, Innovation, and Online Learning), and his team at Garnet Valley School District in PA, leading an Artificial Intelligence seminar for many schools trying to get a handle on this technology and its role in learning.

One of the strategies they were using this past spring in the classroom (and heading into the new school year) made so much sense.

The premise was simple. Sometimes we want to allow and use AI in the classroom, sometimes we don't. How can we make a simple visual for students (and parents) on when to use AI?

Enter the Traffic Light Protocol.

Red Light: NO Artificial Intelligence use allowed on this assignment/activity/project.

Yellow Light: Get Permission to Use Artificial Intelligence on this assignment/activity/project.

Green Light: Encouraged to Use Artificial Intelligence tools on this assignment/activity/project, but let's discuss how you plan on using it.

Mormando put it this way when talking about how his staff and colleagues embraced change: "It's a mindset change for us from years ago. Our teachers are all in. For the first time, they see a tool that can take work off their plates. While at the same time, it's a tool that they can work with students on to better personalize their learning."

I love this strategy because it sets up expectations for learning, actively shares your reasoning and purpose of the assignment, and still includes the teacher as a learning partner to discuss use before students use AI tools for learning purposes.

Real Scenarios In The Classroom

Scenario #1: You are a math teacher working with students on a new concept.

For the first part of class, you are in RED mode. Students are working with you and each other on solving equations, as you are demonstrating. Next, you move to GREEN. They can use AI tools like Photomath, Wolfram Alpha, or Khanmigo to help navigate new problems and be their guide showing steps when they are struggling. It's being used as a learning partner in much the same way you would use a tutor. Finally, you end the class in RED again, students are demonstrating their own understanding of the concept as an exit ticket so you can prepare for tomorrow's class based on where they are right now. For those that need extra practice, they'll be in YELLOW mode creating a short screencast video where they answer 2-3 problems, share their process, and work (only using AI if they get stuck) and highlighting where/when they are using AI if that is the case.

Scenario #2: You are a fifth-grade teacher working through a unit on the rainforest.

Students have been assigned a PBL experience where they are designing a wildlife sanctuary that has the characteristics of a rainforest. You are at the research phase and are in full GREEN. Students are using pre-approved AI tools to research, gather information about the rainforest, and begin to develop a list of characteristics they will use in their design. The following day, as a class you check your research found on AI, and see what was missing, what was wrong information, and what was common across all groups. You then begin creating the sanctuaries in RED mode. Towards the end of the PBL experience, you shift back to YELLOW mode as students are completing their sanctuaries and using AI to design, analyze, and improve their work from an editing perspective.

Scenario #3: You are an English Language Arts teacher working with students on a narrative piece.
Students have been assigned an original narrative, however, the story must take place in the United States during the Great Depression. As part of their information-gathering students are in YELLOW mode using a pre-approved AI tool like Character.ai to have an interaction with an AI "Choose Your Own Adventure" game set in the Great Depression. The class moves into RED mode to brainstorm and create an outline for their story based on three different narrative arcs they can use. They continue in RED as they craft the story in class. Before sharing a rough draft in a Peer review protocol, students go into GREEN mode to use AI to help edit their grammar, spelling, and sentence patterns.

Scenario #4: You are a Social Studies teacher working with students on a research paper.

Students have been assigned a research paper on the impact of the Gutenberg Press. They must include information about Chinese woodblock printing in the 9th century, and Korean bookmaker's use of moveable metal type a century before the Gutenberg model. You begin this process in RED mode, as students research on their own using a variety of sources. After this initial stage, you move to YELLOW, where students use AI tools to help develop an outline for the research paper and identify key quotes from their sources to support their research. They then go into RED to begin writing the paper. Finally, they go GREEN using a tool like Jenni.ai for editing, citing sources, and creating a works cited (or bibliography) page.

Final Thoughts

This is going to look different in every class, grade level, and subject area. Teachers will have to adjust, re-adjust, and rethink a lot of our practices, assignments, and assessments in a world of artificial intelligence.

The Traffic Light strategy is simple, but it starts us down a path of embracing AI when it can be used to help the learning process and as a learning partner. It also provides an avenue for limiting the use of AI if it is impacting learning in a negative way.

Would love to hear more strategies of what's working right now! Keep sharing!

There's no doubt that Artificial Intelligence has already been transforming classrooms around the world. We've seen the stories from students, teachers, parents, and school officials. You've probably dealt with these tools, apps, and other AI-powered technology in your class and school this year already.

So, how do we manage it?
On the one side, we can say: Shut it down.
The problem is that AI is now built into almost all the tools we are already using for teaching and learning. While last year you may have worried about students going to ChatGPT to help write an essay or answer a discussion question, now that technology is built directly into Google Doc's "Help Me Write" feature.
On the other side, we can say: Embrace it completely.
The problem is that we still want kids to think for themselves, learn how to write and use language effectively, solve problems, come up with their own questions, and be challenged by work that matters. When AI is used to do this work FOR students, it limits learning and hinders growth.

If you are like me (and most of the teachers and schools I've been working with all summer long around Artificial Intelligence), you probably fall somewhere in between.

You realize:

a) This is the world we live in and AI is not going away.

b) There are going to be times when your students should use this technology for learning purposes.

c) There are going to be times when your students should NOT use this technology for learning purposes.

How do we navigate this reality?

Traffic Light Protocol

Earlier this spring/summer I was working with Sam Mormando (Director of Technology, Innovation, and Online Learning), and his team at Garnet Valley School District in PA, leading an Artificial Intelligence seminar for many schools trying to get a handle on this technology and its role in learning.

One of the strategies they were using this past spring in the classroom (and heading into the new school year) made so much sense.

The premise was simple. Sometimes we want to allow and use AI in the classroom, sometimes we don't. How can we make a simple visual for students (and parents) on when to use AI?

Enter the Traffic Light Protocol.

Red Light: NO Artificial Intelligence use allowed on this assignment/activity/project.

Yellow Light: Get Permission to Use Artificial Intelligence on this assignment/activity/project.

Green Light: Encouraged to Use Artificial Intelligence tools on this assignment/activity/project, but let's discuss how you plan on using it.

Mormando put it this way when talking about how his staff and colleagues embraced change: "It's a mindset change for us from years ago. Our teachers are all in. For the first time, they see a tool that can take work off their plates. While at the same time, it's a tool that they can work with students on to better personalize their learning."

I love this strategy because it sets up expectations for learning, actively shares your reasoning and purpose of the assignment, and still includes the teacher as a learning partner to discuss use before students use AI tools for learning purposes.

Real Scenarios In The Classroom

Scenario #1: You are a math teacher working with students on a new concept.

For the first part of class, you are in RED mode. Students are working with you and each other on solving equations, as you are demonstrating. Next, you move to GREEN. They can use AI tools like Photomath, Wolfram Alpha, or Khanmigo to help navigate new problems and be their guide showing steps when they are struggling. It's being used as a learning partner in much the same way you would use a tutor. Finally, you end the class in RED again, students are demonstrating their own understanding of the concept as an exit ticket so you can prepare for tomorrow's class based on where they are right now. For those that need extra practice, they'll be in YELLOW mode creating a short screencast video where they answer 2-3 problems, share their process, and work (only using AI if they get stuck) and highlighting where/when they are using AI if that is the case.

Scenario #2: You are a fifth-grade teacher working through a unit on the rainforest.

Students have been assigned a PBL experience where they are designing a wildlife sanctuary that has the characteristics of a rainforest. You are at the research phase and are in full GREEN. Students are using pre-approved AI tools to research, gather information about the rainforest, and begin to develop a list of characteristics they will use in their design. The following day, as a class you check your research found on AI, and see what was missing, what was wrong information, and what was common across all groups. You then begin creating the sanctuaries in RED mode. Towards the end of the PBL experience, you shift back to YELLOW mode as students are completing their sanctuaries and using AI to design, analyze, and improve their work from an editing perspective.

Scenario #3: You are an English Language Arts teacher working with students on a narrative piece.
Students have been assigned an original narrative, however, the story must take place in the United States during the Great Depression. As part of their information-gathering students are in YELLOW mode using a pre-approved AI tool like Character.ai to have an interaction with an AI "Choose Your Own Adventure" game set in the Great Depression. The class moves into RED mode to brainstorm and create an outline for their story based on three different narrative arcs they can use. They continue in RED as they craft the story in class. Before sharing a rough draft in a Peer review protocol, students go into GREEN mode to use AI to help edit their grammar, spelling, and sentence patterns.

Scenario #4: You are a Social Studies teacher working with students on a research paper.

Students have been assigned a research paper on the impact of the Gutenberg Press. They must include information about Chinese woodblock printing in the 9th century, and Korean bookmaker's use of moveable metal type a century before the Gutenberg model. You begin this process in RED mode, as students research on their own using a variety of sources. After this initial stage, you move to YELLOW, where students use AI tools to help develop an outline for the research paper and identify key quotes from their sources to support their research. They then go into RED to begin writing the paper. Finally, they go GREEN using a tool like Jenni.ai for editing, citing sources, and creating a works cited (or bibliography) page.

Final Thoughts

This is going to look different in every class, grade level, and subject area. Teachers will have to adjust, re-adjust, and rethink a lot of our practices, assignments, and assessments in a world of artificial intelligence.

The Traffic Light strategy is simple, but it starts us down a path of embracing AI when it can be used to help the learning process and as a learning partner. It also provides an avenue for limiting the use of AI if it is impacting learning in a negative way.

Would love to hear more strategies of what's working right now! Keep sharing!

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A.J. Juliani | The Traffic Light Protocol: A Simple Way to Manage the AI Classroom

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If you are like me (and most of the teachers and schools I've been working with all summer long around Artificial Intelligence), you probably fall somewhere in between. You realize: a) This is the world we live in and AI is not going away.

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A.J. Juliani | Fighting Apathy and A.I. with Meaning and Relevance

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Imagine, for a moment, you are a student. You just got home after a full-day at school. You took the bus to an away game, played and watched another game, took the bus back. Your parent is out, so you are helping younger siblings get dinner and ready for bed. It’s late, you are tired, and rem

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Although there is a huge amount of interest in generative artificial intelligence (AI) in the consumer world, particularly since the release of OpenAI's free ChatGPT program last November, in the hallowed halls of academia the response has been more wary. Concerns abound about academic integrity. There are also worries about how AI-generated content can be biased, inaccurate, and sometimes contain entirely false information, dubbed "hallucinations."

The cautious response is to be expected according to Houman Harouni, lecturer on education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a former elementary and high school teacher. He has compassion for educators trying to grapple with a rapidly shifting world shaped by machine learning.

"Technology creates a shock," he explains. "This shock is sometimes of a magnitude that we cannot even understand it, in the same way that we still haven't absorbed the sharp shock of the mobile phone."

Harouni has long wrestled with the impact of cutting-edge technology on education, including experimenting in his own classroom, and is convinced that when it comes to teaching "the medium is part of the message." He believes that getting school students and those in higher ed to engage with virtual worlds is essential.

"Where we want to get to is a place where you're dancing with it, dancing with robots," he says.

If the idea of waltzing with a robot creates apprehension for educators, Harouni has some advice :
1) Stop pretending that it doesn't exist
Educators must "help the next generation face the reality of the world and develop instruments and ways of navigating this reality with integrity," Harouni says. Students are well aware that technologies such as ChatGPT exist and are already experimenting with them on their own, but they need guidance about how to use them responsibly.

Teacher education and professional development programs should not ignore generative artificial intelligence either.
2) Use AI alongside your students
Engage with generative AI tools with your students in person, when possible. Otherwise, share AI-generated responses to questions during class time and ask students to consider them or have students experiment with the technology at home, document their experiences, and share them with the class.
3) Teach students how to ask the ChatGPT tool questions
"The educator's job is to understand what opportunities are left open beside the technology," Harouni says.

Teach students to do what artificial intelligence cannot do. For example, unlike robots, we can ask ourselves questions and that is what students need to be trained in: to know how to ask questions and to learn how to critique their own questions, frameworks, and the answers generated by AI, he says.

Students can start with topics and questions that they are interested in and ask ChatGPT for answers, he suggests. The knack is then getting them excited about asking follow-up questions. Harouni uses a personal experience with his 10-year-old stepdaughter and his newborn baby to illustrate his point. When his stepdaughter asked him why he kept telling her to be careful with the baby, Harouni turned to ChatGPT to help her to get to the bottom of her question.

"My creativity as the teacher or the parent at that moment is to say, 'What is it that you're really trying to ask? What is it that you really want to know?'"

While ChatGPT churned out a "whole bunch of answers about the fragility of the baby," with some patience, Harouni helped his stepdaughter discover the question that she truly wanted to ask which was what she could safely do with the new baby. "At the moment that the exploration [with AI] ends with the answer, you know that your work as a teacher begins," he explains.
4) Use generative AI tools to spark the imagination
One frequent concern about generative artificial intelligence is that students will use it to cheat and avoid the hard work of thinking for themselves, but Harouni says that tools like ChatGPT should really challenge teachers and professors to reassess the assignments they give their students.

"You have to stop thinking that you can teach exactly the way you used to teach when the basic medium has changed," he explains. If students can turn to ChatGPT or other AI language models for quick and easy answers then there is a problem with the lesson, Harouni believes.

"We have to create assignments that push [students] to the point where they have to question what is the framework that is being used here and what would it mean for me to radically change this framework," he says.

Harouni recently wrote about how he used ChatGPT to spur higher-level thinking among his students at HGSE when he presented them with a challenging case study that had no easy solutions. The students' initial responses were no better than the chatbot's ideas. Instead "it was after ChatGPT reflected to the students their failure of imagination that they could begin to think of options that they, or any automatic language scrawler, would not have readily reached for," he explained in a co-authored article for Wired.

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Embracing Artificial Intelligence in the Classroom

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Generative AI tools can reflect our failure of imagination and that is when the real learning starts

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To empower people to unlock the joy of discovery, feel the wonder of creation and better harness the world's knowledge, today we're improving how the world benefits from the web by reinventing the tools billions of people use every day, the search engine and the browser.

Today, we're launching an all new, AI-powered Bing search engine and Edge browser, available in preview now at Bing.com, to deliver better search, more complete answers, a new chat experience and the ability to generate content. We think of these tools as an AI copilot for the web.

"AI will fundamentally change every software category, starting with the largest category of all - search," said Satya Nadella, Chairman and CEO, Microsoft. "Today, we're launching Bing and Edge powered by AI copilot and chat, to help people get more from search and the web."

There are 10 billion search queries a day, but we estimate half of them go unanswered. That's because people are using search to do things it wasn't originally designed to do. It's great for finding a website, but for more complex questions or tasks too often it falls short.
The new Bing and Edge - Your copilot for the web
We have brought together search, browsing and chat into one unified experience you can invoke from anywhere on the web, delivering:

Better search. The new Bing gives you an improved version of the familiar search experience, providing more relevant results for simple things like sports scores, stock prices and weather, along with a new sidebar that shows more comprehensive answers if you want them.

Complete answers. Bing reviews results from across the web to find and summarize the answer you're looking for. For example, you can get detailed instructions for how to substitute eggs for another ingredient in a cake you are baking right in that moment, without scrolling through multiple results.

A new chat experience. For more complex searches - such as for planning a detailed trip itinerary or researching what TV to buy - the new Bing offers new, interactive chat. The chat experience empowers you to refine your search until you get the complete answer you are looking for by asking for more details, clarity and ideas - with links available so you can immediately act on your decisions.

A creative spark. There are times when you need more than an answer - you need inspiration. The new Bing can generate the content to help you. It can help you write an email, create a 5-day itinerary for a dream vacation to Hawaii, with links to book your travel and accommodations, prep for a job interview or create a quiz for trivia night. The new Bing also cites all its sources, so you're able to see links to the web content it references.

New Microsoft Edge experience. We've updated the Edge browser with new AI capabilities and a new look, and we've added two new functionalities: Chat and compose. With the Edge Sidebar, you can ask for a summary of a lengthy financial report to get the key takeaways - and then use the chat function to ask for a comparison to a competing company's financials and automatically put it in a table. You can also ask Edge to help you compose content, such as a LinkedIn post, by giving it a few prompts to get you started. After that, you can ask it to help you update the tone, format and length of the post. Edge can understand the web page you're on and adapts accordingly.

With the new Bing, exploring the web isn't just easier, it's also more fun. Ask it things like:
My anniversary is coming up in September, help me plan a trip somewhere fun in Europe, Will the Ikea Klippan loveseat fit into my 2019 Honda Odyssey? I like electronic music and want to go to my first festival this year. Do you have any recommendations or tips for me? Reinventing search with AI leaving from London.
The new Bing experience is a culmination of four technical breakthroughs:
Microsoft and OpenAI - innovating together, responsibly

Next-generation OpenAI model. We're excited to announce the new Bing is running on a new, next-generation OpenAI large language model that is more powerful than ChatGPT and customized specifically for search. It takes key learnings and advancements from ChatGPT and GPT-3.5 - and it is even faster, more accurate and more capable.

Microsoft Prometheus model. We have developed a proprietary way of working with the OpenAI model that allows us to best leverage its power. We call this collection of capabilities and techniques the Prometheus model. This combination gives you more relevant, timely and targeted results, with improved safety.

Applying AI to core search algorithm. We've also applied the AI model to our core Bing search ranking engine, which led to the largest jump in relevance in two decades. With this AI model, even basic search queries are more accurate and more relevant.

New user experience. We're reimagining how you interact with search, browser and chat by pulling them into a unified experience. This will unlock a completely new way to interact with the web.

These groundbreaking new search experiences are possible because Microsoft has committed to building Azure into an AI supercomputer for the world, and OpenAI has used this infrastructure to train the breakthrough models that are now being optimized for Bing.
Live today in limited preview, expanding to millions soon
Together with OpenAI, we've also been intentional in implementing safeguards to defend against harmful content. Our teams are working to address issues such as misinformation and disinformation, content blocking, data safety and preventing the promotion of harmful or discriminatory content in line with our AI principles.

The work we are doing with OpenAI builds on our company's yearslong effort to ensure that our AI systems are responsible by design. We will continue to apply the full strength of our responsible AI ecosystem - including researchers, engineers and policy experts - to develop new approaches to mitigate risk.
Related links:
The new Bing is available today in a limited preview on desktop, and everyone can visit Bing.com today to try sample queries and sign up for the waitlist. We're going to scale the preview to millions in the coming weeks. A mobile experience will also be in preview soon.

We're excited to put the new Bing and Edge into the real world to get the critical feedback required to improve our models as we scale.
Learn more about advertising on the new Bing More information about the announcement
Amy Hood, Microsoft executive vice president and chief financial officer, will host a conference call with investors at 2:30 p.m. PT.

Brad Smith, Microsoft vice chair and president: Meeting the moment: advancing the future through responsible AI

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Reinventing search with a new AI-powered Microsoft Bing and Edge, your copilot for the web - The Official Microsoft Blog

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To empower people to unlock the joy of discovery, feel the wonder of creation and better harness the world's knowledge, today we're improving how the world benefits from the web by reinventing the tools billions of people use every day, the search engine and the browser.

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The Writesonic Blog - Making Content Your Superpower

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ChatGPT has become the way of the world. It is a source of answers for a wide range of topics, from work and leisure to relationships and travel. But ChatGPT can only give you relevant answers when you write a prompt well.

A prompt is a command or an action sentence used to communicate with ChatGPT and other and other AI language models.

This blog post will reveal our little secrets to crafting perfect ChatGPT prompts and becoming a master of this art. These tips come from our internal AI experts, who have extensive experience training AI language models.

What is ChatGPT?

OpenAI's ChatGPT is a cutting-edge AI language model released in November 2022. With the ability to answer any question posed to it, ChatGPT quickly made a name for itself by attracting 1 million users within just five days of its release. And since then, the number of ChatGPT users has continued to grow steadily.

But unfortunately, ChatGPT comes with a few limitations.

It does not know anything that happened after 2021 as it is trained on a huge database with updated data till 2021.

With great popularity comes another ChatGPT limitation. It is either down or at capacity most of the time due to huge traffic. To overcome this, OpenAI launched ChatGPT Plus - a premium subscription.

ChatGPT is strictly a text-only language model and does not generate any AI images.

Here is Chatsonic - the ChatGPT with superpowers to help you deal with the limitations of the popular language model. Additionally, Chatsonic offers multiple features to make your life easy with AI.

First and foremost, Chatsonic generates real-time factual information by your choice. It is directly integrated with Google and does not miss anything.

You can experiment to generate unique AI images to use with your content. Chatsonic uses a combination of Stable Diffusion and Dall-E to produce the best AI art.

How about you speak out your prompts to Chatsonic? Yes, you can do that, and it will also speak to the responses.

Chatsonic API lets you integrate with your favorite tools to speed up the work process. You can learn how to use it effectively with our API use cases.

Do you want to speed up your research process? Use Chatsonic Chrome Extension to avoid toggling between different tabs. Check out other use cases of the Chrome extension.

You can also compare Chatsonic with other ChatGPT chrome extensions to choose wisely.

Chatsonic recently launched a cool ChatGPT App for android for our users who are always in a rush.

Chatsonic offers 10k free words on sign-up, and you can also switch to an unlimited plan at just $16/month.

Why create a perfect ChatGPT prompt?

If language models like ChatGPT and Chatsonic have been trained on databases created by humans, shouldn't they understand the way we talk?

Even though they are trained on human-generated data, they are still machines. You always need to instruct it to get the work done and create quality AI-generated content.

Writing a perfect ChatGPT prompt can result in

Conversations that are meaningful and engaging, like learning more about a particular concept by asking follow-up questions and using these responses effectively.

Accurate predictions and relevant analogies from ChatGPT can be used in your work.

Faster responses boost your productivity and get things done on time.

Improving the perspectives and notions of ChatGPT by maintaining clarity in your prompt.

How to create a perfect ChatGPT prompt

To be honest, writing ChatGPT prompts is not tough. But writing the perfect ChatGPT prompts to get relevant results from the language model is not a cakewalk either.

After using multiple AI tools like ChatGPT and Chatsonic, our AI model training experts have come up with a few tips you can follow to use ChatGPT effectively.

Also do not miss to explore the different chatGPT use cases.

1. Start with an action word.

Do you want AI to take you seriously? Then always start your ChatGPT prompt with action words like Create, Write, Make, and Generate instead of starting with 'Can you'

Here is a quick demonstration of 'Can you' and 'Create'

ChatSonic ChatGPT Prompt without action words: Can you tell me how to become a content marketer?

ChatSonic ChatGPT Prompt with action words: Create a career plan to become a content marketer in 2023.

See the difference! The first response is very generic and does not have any action steps. Whereas ChatSonic - the ChatGPT alternative, gave a step-by-step detailed, and actionable guide to becoming a content marketer.

Learn more about marketing from ChatSonic with our marketing prompts, and SEO prompts.

2. Provide context.

A doctor can better diagnose a patient's condition with a clear context of the symptoms. Similarly, ChatSonic can generate a relevant answer with enough context for your question.

Contextual ChatSonic ChatGPT Prompt: I have 3 years of experience as a software developer. Now I got bored with coding and want to transition to another career. My education qualifications are B. Tech in computer science, and I am well-versed in understanding the business side of software as well. Suggest a list of career options that are easy for me to transition.

We have also changed the current personality to 'Career Counselor' to generate expert answers.

If you looking to explore new careers/ jobs, ChatSonic can help you in your job search.

3. Use role play.

If you cannot find your expert avatar in ChatSonic ( we are adding more soon), you can ask ChatSonic to role-play. For example, you are seeking content marketing advice on improving brand awareness for your newly launched CRM software.

Role-play ChatSonic ChatGPT Prompt: You are a marketing veteran for software products with ten years of experience in the industry. You have built marketing strategies for successful software products like Vimeo, Freshworks, Hubspot, and Zoho. Using your marketing experience, advise me on how to build awareness for my newly launched CRM software product 'Zilio'

ChatSonic has considered itself an expert in marketing and included what works and what does not in the response.

4. Use references.

If you want to mimic the writing style of any celebrity, then ChatSonic can do that, too, if you mention it in the prompt.

Reference ChatSonic ChatGPT Prompt: Write a list of mistakes to avoid in the 20s in Shakespeare style

Isn't it amazing! Now, do you see the power of writing perfect ChatGPT prompts 🔥?

5. Use double quotes.

When speaking to someone or presenting, how do you emphasize the importance of a word?

You either say it loudly, stretch the word's pronunciation so no one misses it, or use air quotes.

You can see the importance ChatSonic gives to double quotes in the first line itself. When not using quotes, it referred to the essay as ' Content Marketing: An Introduction,' but when used quotes, it said ' Content Marketing: The Art of Reaching Your Target Audience. '

6. Be specific.

No one likes being vague because it does not leave any actionable insights to work on. ChatSonic also cannot generate good responses with vague prompts.

It works best when given specific prompts like

Specific ChatSonic ChatGPT Prompt: Write marketing copy to make my email marketing more engaging. The product I am promoting is called X (e.g., company, service or organization). What subject lines would you suggest for a sequence of Y emails?

By adding specific details like subject lines and the number of emails in the sequence, ChatSonic's response was relevant and matched user expectations.

7. Give examples.

Want ChatSonic to get inspired from the existing content piece? Then using examples in prompts can help you get the desired responses.

For instance, you want to write a book review based on an example.
Example-based ChatSonic ChatGPT Prompt:
Here is a book review of <example book>

"<example book review>"

Now write a similar book review for '<book name>'

Now ChatSonic uses a writing style similar to the example provided. What are you waiting for? Input your best examples/ templates and get the desired responses 💃

8. Include the length of the response.

ChatSonic does not know if you want a crisp two lines response or a comprehensive paragraph for your prompt. It would come up with its response length if not mentioned in the prompt. To avoid confusion and regenerations, it is good to specify the response length in the prompt.

Another best use case is asking ChatSonic to elaborate or shorten the text.

ChatSonic ChatGPT Prompt including response length: Elaborate about 'content marketing' in 300 words.

Along with defining marketing concepts, ChatSonic can also help you with content creation strategies.

9. Handhold the AI.

Like we said before, AI is a machine and needs to be instructed clearly on the task, and when we say handholding, we are not exaggerating. In particular situations, it is crucial to tell the AI what to do, what to avoid, and what to prioritize.

Here is an example of a custom diet plan with conditions.

Conditional ChatSonic ChatGPT Prompt: I am a 26-year-old female looking to lose 6 kg in 3 months. Create a 1700 calories Indian diet plan for two weeks. Do not give me non-vegetarian options on Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. It should be a lean protein diet with carbs (30%), protein (40%), fiber (20%), and fat (10%).

ChatSonic has considered my conditions of omitting the non-vegetarian option and responded accordingly.

10. Don't hesitate to refine.

In the above example, a custom diet plan is generated. Now I want to know how many calories each meal has along with macronutrient data.

The first thing to do is toggle the 'enable memory' button to ask follow-up questions.

Refined ChatSonic ChatGPT Prompt: Give me calories for each meal and macronutrient data (carbs, protein, fiber, fat)

11. Specify the tone.

If you are using ChatSonic to write an email or a funny meme, specifying the tone can make a huge difference.

For example, you have a young audience to target and want to share something exciting with your community.

Tone-specific ChatSonic ChatGPT Prompt: Write a post about the new launch of our 'Tnagers' T-shirts. Also, include that these T-shirts will be given away to the winner of the giveaway contest. The contest is they have to share about Tnagers on their social media. The contest winners will be the top 3 people who will get the maximum number of followers.

12. Get summaries after a long chat.

Do you spend hours in AI conversations? Even though that's sweet, you might get lost in the long chat. So to avoid this and have an idea of what you were talking about with AI, you can summarize the long chat.

For more examples of ChatGPT prompts, you can check out our amazing resources of 110 ChatGPT examples and 150 ChatGPT prompts.

Conclusion

The recently-released ChatGPT has generated a lot of excitement and has become a popular topic on social media. To make the most of ChatGPT, it is crucial to craft effective prompts. Writing ChatGPT prompts is a skill that is gaining recognition and is expected to become more in demand. With practice, this skill can be honed to perfection.

However, despite giving world-class prompts, ChatGPT sometimes tends to give outdated and irrelevant responses as it is updated with information until 2021 only. But ChatSonic is directly connected with Google data to generate real-time responses making it an enhanced version of ChatGPT.

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How to write the perfect ChatGPT prompt and become a ChatGPT expert

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ChatGPT's potential is only as good as your prompt. Elevate your AI experience by learning how to write the perfect ChatGPT prompt. Get expert advice on crafting prompts that lead to accurate responses.

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Not only can ChatGPT's AI save you time and improve your teacher workflow, but it can also help you create innovative learning experiences and build easy assessment opportunities.

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By Raisa Masood | August 30, 2023

What is ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is a computer program that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to generate text. Launched by research company OpenAI, it gathers large amounts of data from the internet to create responses on demand. ChatGPT is unique because its answers are in conversational format, similar to how people write and speak. It can write essays and computer code, solve math problems, and much more.

How do you use ChatGPT?

To use ChatGPT, you first create a free account on the OpenAI website. Then you simply type questions or commands in the text box. Your requests can be as basic or elaborate as you can imagine. For example, you could ask it to write a story in the voice of your favorite movie character. Or ask it to give you a recipe based on the food you have at home. The tool allows you to continue to refine the answer by adding more instructions. ChatGPT saves a record of your conversations that you can view or continue at a later time.

Where does ChatGPT get its information?

To craft its responses, ChatGPT copies and remixes information from other places on the internet. It doesn't tell you its sources or who created the original information. As of this article's publication date, it uses internet data created up to 2021 only. The tool is still being developed, so it can make mistakes, spread misinformation, and give inaccurate answers.

Why are schools banning ChatGPT?

Many school districts are blocking ChatGPT on campus networks and school-issued devices. The concern is that students could use it to do their schoolwork for them, from writing papers to solving equations. They could also be turning in work with inaccurate information. Educators are worried the program could affect students' learning if they rely on it. Check with your children's school to see if and how they allow students to use ChatGPT.

Should children use ChatGPT?

OpenAI's Terms of Use state that users must be 13 or older. If you're under 18, you need your parent or guardian's permission to create an account. Keep in mind that kids could come across content that's not age-appropriate. In addition, ChatGPT collects personal information and user data. This info is used to improve the system and can be shared with third parties for things like advertising. Under the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), collecting personal information from children under the age of 13 is illegal without parental consent.

If kids are interested in using ChatGPT, the best option is to use it alongside an adult. Kids could use ChatGPT with a parent or caregiver to get ideas about things they're interested in, like writing code or music. Families can explore the tool together and try prompts that are fun, inspiring, or helpful. Ask it to write a play with parts for everyone, or put together a poem in Yoda's style to read out loud.

Since ChatGPT is a new program, there's a lot we don't know about it. As artificial intelligence tools become more available, it will be important for families to talk with kids about how to use them appropriately and responsibly.

How can I talk to my child about ChatGPT?

If your children use or want to use ChatGPT, consider talking about these topics:

Explain the importance of checking the credibility of a source before trusting the information, and point out that ChatGPT does not give sources for its information.

Help them understand that plagiarism is when you take someone else's work or ideas and present them as your own. Using ChatGPT to do your schoolwork could be considered plagiarism or cheating.

Talk about how you might use ChatGPT as a family to be creative or get inspired. Have it create a list of outdoor activities for kids, or ask it to suggest a craft project to try.

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Guide to ChatGPT for Parents and Caregivers

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Find out how the artificial intelligence (AI) tool works and how to talk with kids about it. Advice from Common Sense Media editors.

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In December 2022, I facilitated an informal workshop on the implications of artificial intelligence (AI) for what and how we teach. After showing a demo of , a social studies teacher, clearly frustrated by the potential for students to misuse the technology by plagiarizing, commented, "Why would they create this? It's like they loaded a gun and just left it there for any student to use." After showing the same demo a few weeks later, a special education teacher remarked, "This is a game changer! It's really going to help my struggling readers."

AI is creating unique challenges for schools and PD providers. From outrage to excitement, the release of ChatGPT-an AI chatbot with advanced language processing capabilities-is eliciting a range of powerful emotions from educators. Furthermore, AI is advancing at a breakneck speed, outpacing traditional forms of PD in which an expert offers advice during a beginning-of-the-year presentation.

Based on my experience as an instructional coach and workshop facilitator on student-centered technology, in order to address these challenges, we must update our model of PD to ensure educators 1) gain enduring insights on how to craft curriculum that is meaningful in the AI era, and 2) build the reflective capacity necessary to update their practices long after they attend a ChatGPT-inspired workshop.

PD providers must create spaces where educators can share their feelings about this disruptive technology, reflect on its implications, and collaboratively identify concrete steps to ensure their curriculum and policies continue to meet the needs of 21st century learners.

Here are the lessons I have learned so far for providing PD that acknowledges both the challenges and opportunities AI is creating in education today.

Prepare with Intentionality

Before or at the start of a workshop, ask participants to complete a brief survey like to learn more about their professional roles, level of familiarity with ChatGPT, and questions or concerns about its use. This information will allow you to strategically create groups and tailor your content to the needs of the educators in attendance.

Start by demonstrating in real-time what ChatGPT can do. More than any explanation of neural networks and large language models, seeing ChatGPT in action will help teachers begin to grapple with how disruptive the technology is. (If you're worried about ChatGPT's servers being overloaded during your workshop, make a screencast of demos beforehand.)

You can use your survey responses to demo ChatGPT prompts that align with the subjects taught by educators in attendance to help them see first-hand the implications of AI on their curriculum.

As just one example-here, tailored to the humanities-I asked ChatGPT to write an editorial:

If you want more ideas on how teachers can use ChatGPT to help design assessments, lessons, and writing supports check out these from the Teaching Channel.

Create Space to Process

Experiencing ChatGPT for the first time almost always generates strong emotions-and it's understandable that teachers who have painstakingly refined lesson plans over many years might initially fear AI.

Encouraging participants to share how they feel establishes a norm of valuing psychological safety and interpersonal risk-taking-two characteristics of highly successful teams, according to by Amy Edmondson, professor at Harvard Business School.

So, we first need to create a space where teachers' feelings about AI are validated in order to get to a place where they can begin to have thoughtful conversations about pedagogy.

Here is a sequence of questions I suggest educators discuss in small groups to help them process emotions, place advancements in AI in the appropriate context, feel secure by identifying curriculum they want to preserve, and, finally, explore how they might begin to shift instruction:

What was your initial reaction to the ChatGPT demo? Curious, frustrated, apprehensive, excited?

To what extent is ChatGPT similar to and different from earlier technological advancements such as Google Translate, WolframAlpha, Wikipedia, etc.?

What can AI now do that we still want students to learn and know how to do? How can we ensure students are, in fact, the ones doing the work?

What skills will be less important in a world of knowledge work aided by AI? Which skills are uniquely human and will therefore become increasingly rare and valuable? How should we shift our curriculum accordingly?

Provide a Lens

It can be tempting to simply give teachers a list of "dos and don'ts" for modifying assignments in the ChatGPT era-and it might even be a necessary Band-Aid if there isn't sufficient time for extended PD. Yet, this temporary fix robs teachers of the opportunity to build their reflective capacity for evaluating curriculum through an AI lens.

Since advances in AI will outpace the frequency with which states update learning standards, teachers must feel empowered to regularly refresh their curriculum while considering:

Do my assessments ensure students are truly engaging in high levels of learning?

Are the skills and content of this lesson still relevant in a world where AI is readily accessible?

To model this process, you can share an example of an assignment and lead a discussion on how educators could modify it by incorporating ChatGPT. For example, below is a discussion board assignment students in my high school economics class completed in the pre-ChatGPT era, circa August 2022:

After the facilitator provides a description of the assignment's purpose and context, educators in small groups could use a protocol like the following-modeled on the Examining Assessments protocol from the Center for Leadership & Educational Equity (aka the School Reform Initiative) - to assess and analyze potential modifications:

Protocol for Analyzing Assessments through an AI Lens

What do you see? Gather information about the assignment without judgment. What learning objectives is this assignment intended to assess?

Complete a part of the assignment. What are the strengths of this assignment?

If this assignment was completed by a student with access to ChatGPT, what would it tell us about what this student knows, understands, and is able to do?

How would you modify the assignment to ensure high levels of student learning were genuinely taking place?

After using a protocol like this one, here is how I modified the assignment in January 2023:

When you compare the assignment from August 2022 to January 2023, you will notice a few changes:

I asked students to identify and explain direct quotes from the reading instead of simply writing a definition of utilitarianism. This pushes students to do a closer reading and increases the likelihood that students did the work themselves.

Instead of asking students to summarize critiques of utilitarianism, I asked them to rank them and defend their ranking. Even if students used ChatGPT to generate the critiques, they would still have to evaluate the relative merit of each one themselves.

I asked students to use examples from our class discussion to ensure they were attentive (and because, to the best of my knowledge, ChatGPT wasn't listening to our conversations). This ensured that students truly understood and could apply the examples to support their position instead of dropping in examples AI generated for them.

After practicing modification on a sample assignment like the "Utilitarianism Reflection" in small groups, teachers can then take turns discussing a lesson of their own that they believe could be updated or enhanced with the use of AI. Intentionally creating groups with a mix of feelings toward and experience with ChatGPT can help teachers consider a range of differing perspectives. After they have discussed the assignments, ask each group to list the suggestions they offered. This will build a knowledge base that every participant can revisit and add to as they continue to try different strategies.

Build a Team

Technology is advancing too quickly for any one person to have all the answers. Nearly every member of the school community will be affected by AI and will need to consider shifts in curriculum, teaching methods, family involvement, and school policies.

To provide a more comprehensive approach to the wide-reaching disruption of AI, plan to conduct a series of workshops with various stakeholders to discuss:

Parents and Community Members

How can we partner with community members to learn how AI is changing their jobs and better understand the future of work?

Librarians

Administrators and School Leadership Teams

Technology Departments

How will we balance equitable access to new AI tools while complying with student protection laws? How can we leverage tools like ChatGPT to between students who have access to tutors and college-educated family members and those who don't? How will we stay current on new AI tools and educate colleagues about their capabilities? (Microsoft has already released ChatGPT-like features in Bing .)

A child born today will graduate from high school in the year 2040. No one knows exactly what schools and society will look like then, but one thing is certain: our students will live, learn, and work in ways that will forever be changed by AI. While the pace of advancements in AI presents real challenges for educators, it's also an opportunity to create schools where each student leaves with the knowledge, skills, and disposition to adapt and thrive in a rapidly changing world.

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Planning Professional Development on ChatGPT

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How to help educators feel heard, supported, and empowered to address the role of AI in education.

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In a recent workshop I was leading, a teacher asked a simple but important question: "What should I do if I want to help my students use and navigate ChatGPT, but I can't because of the age restrictions?"

My answer: "There are way better (and safer) ways to get your started with artificial intelligence then ChatGPT."

For starters, OpenAI's Terms of Use state that users must be 13 or older. If you're under 18, you need your parent or guardian's permission to create an account. Keep in mind that kids could come across content that's not age-appropriate. In addition, ChatGPT collects personal information and user data. This info is used to improve the system and can be shared with third parties for things like advertising. Under the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), collecting personal information from children under the age of 13 is illegal without parental consent.

Even if your students are older then 13, there are a few other tools I like to get started with before jumping in to ChatGPT.

For teachers, same thing applies. ChatGPT (especially Plus) is extremely powerful and helpful for many aspects of teaching, creating, etc. Yet, there are a few other tools I would use first, as an easy way to use these tools with purpose.

SchoolAI is quickly becoming my favorite artificial intelligence tool for teachers and students to use.

Imagine the power of ChatGPT, but with real guardrails you can set as a teacher, a focus for the AI powered chat and feedback that you've crafted, and the ability to see the entire conversation between students and SchoolAI bot!

That's what it is like to run a SchoolAI "space", in which students interact with a AI powered chat that you've built from scratch, or you can use one of the free pre-made "Spaces" from SchoolAI.

The fastest way to get started is to create an account and log in. Then navigate to the "Sidekick" option. There are more detailed ways to create your own Space, but Sidekick is the easiest way to go about it.

After setting up some specific guidelines for Sidekick, you can make the bot work in ways that you want for that class at that time:

Favorite Way To Use This Tool for ENGAGEMENT:

The best aspect of SchoolAI is how it can be used alongside Project-Based Learning as a Guide.

Create your Sidekick or Space to be an "AI Assistant" to help students navigate the project-based experience, help with research, collaborate on ideas, give feedback on each step, and serve as a mentor.

As a teacher, you are able to pop in and out of conversations, go talk with students based on the feedback they are getting, and manage it in ways you never could if they were using ChatGPT or another LLM tool.

Check it out and let me know how it goes!

MagicSchool is the swiss-army knife of AI for teachers. It can do almost anything you need it to do.

Lesson plan? Check.

Modifications and accommodations for IEPs? Check.

Make it relevant suggestions and ideas? Check.

Rubrics? Check.

Quiz, teacher joke generator, differentiation, science lab, 5E lessons, word problems, student feedback, math spiral, text leveling, translation? Check, check, check!

It is much like ChatGPT (or Claude or Bard) but the way it compartmentalizes what you can do, seems to help folks like me focus on a specific task before moving on to the next task.

I put this as #1 for a reason. It's free, easy to use, and they keep making it a better product.

Favorite Way To Use This Tool for ENGAGEMENT:

Ya'll know that I'm a big believer in making lessons, activities, and units both meaningful and relevant (that is what my upcoming book is all about). Sometimes, we are not sure where to start. That's where MagicSchool comes in.

Take a lesson like teaching Prime and Composite numbers to 4th grade students. It's not the most engaging thing to teach, and like one teacher in a recent workshop I led, it can be difficult to make it "relevant".

Went to MagicSchool, clicked on the "Make it Relevant!" tab and entered in the following information:

Grade: 4th Grade

Topic: Prime and Composite Numbers

Student Interests: Soccer and Youtube

Here is what it kicked (get it) out:
As a master teacher in a school who knows the background of a community well, I understand that making the subject relevant to students' interests can greatly enhance their learning experience. Considering the background of 4th-grade students who love soccer and YouTube, here are three unique ideas to make teaching prime and composite numbers more engaging and relatable:
​
1. Soccer Jersey Factoring: Create a hands-on activity where students are given soccer jerseys with numbers on them. Each number represents a different player. Students need to identify whether the number on the jersey is a prime or composite number by factoring it. For example, if a student receives a jersey with the number 15, they would need to factor it into 3 and 5, realizing it is a composite number.
​
2. Soccer Team Primality Challenge: Divide the class into teams and assign each team a soccer-related name. Provide a list of numbers and ask them to determine whether each number is prime or composite. For every correct answer, the team earns a point. Encourage students to discuss and justify their answers. This activity can be done in a quiz format or as a friendly competition between teams.
​
3. YouTube Views and Prime Numbers: Utilize students' familiarity with YouTube by introducing the concept of prime numbers through video views. Show them a popular video with a high number of views and explain that prime numbers can only be divided evenly by 1 and themselves. Discuss how prime numbers can be compared to a video with an extraordinary number of views, as they cannot be evenly divided by any other number. Encourage students to find examples of popular videos with prime or composite view counts and share their discoveries with the class.
​
These ideas incorporate the students' interests in soccer and YouTube while teaching the concept of prime and composite numbers. By linking the subject matter to their background and grade level, the students are more likely to feel engaged and motivated to learn.
Now, the teacher took the first idea (that they liked best) and headed over to Curipod to come up with their kickoff (I did it again) lesson.

#3: Curipod

​ Curipod is easily one of my favorite AI tools for educators.

If you have ever used Nearpod, Peardeck, or even Kahoot - then Curipod is something you'll really enjoy (and it will save you a ton of time).

Curipod is free for educators and has a ton of functionality.

It helps you plan and deliver interactive (key word) lessons on any topic. Whether you want to make a full interactive slide presentation (like a Nearpod or Peardeck), or create an Exit Ticket - Curipod has you covered.

All you need to do is enter your grade, the objectives and standards you are focusing on, and a topic (as much detail as you can) of the lesson or activity you are preparing for.

Then Curipod will kick out a fully-developed slide deck that includes open-ended questions, polls, drawing, word clouds, and more.

Favorite Way To Use This Tool For ENGAGEMENT:

A few features I like are the Drawing Prompt and the Personalized Feedback.

Drawing prompt is great because I can see on the teacher's side of the tool what the students are entering in. It can be a math question, a sketch, or just anything you want to ask. Drawing allows for unlimited parameters, especially with younger students using a tablet or touchscreen.

Personalized Feedback is where things get crazy cool. Here I can ask a question and students will answer it on their devices.

Then, based on the information I gave Curipod on my assignment, objectives, and standards - the tool will give students personalized feedback on their answers. You can see this as a teacher and always adjust, but it's worth trying out just for this feature!

Snorkl may be the "new AI Tool" on the block, but it is one I'm quickly loving as a teacher.

Snorkl has two basic functions. First, it helps develop thinking and reasoning skills by giving students the tools to record their voice and visually represent their thinking on a simple whiteboard.

Secondl, after sharing their thinking, students receive on-the-spot feedback on their explanations from generative AI - celebrating their unique approach and prompting them to think deeper.

On the back-end, Snorly provides teachers with AI analytics to effortlessly monitor class progress, understand each student's thinking, and determine instructional next steps.

Favorite Way To Use This Tool For ENGAGEMENT:

Let's say students are doing science or math homework. They have questions to answer and should explain or show their work.

Maybe it's a Lab Report or a few Word Problems. In either case, we typically would hand these to the teacher, who would grade the final product, turn it back to the students, and move on to the next assignment or activity.

This isn't just how my classroom works. It's how most classrooms work, and many curricula and scope/sequences are built on this premise.

Now that artificial intelligence tools exist to help students master these types of assignments in no time, it can become difficult for a teacher to really understand whether or not the students have a solid understanding, or if they are using AI tools to assist.

Here's where we can use "Defend Your Learning" with Snorkl.

During the in-class assignment or homework, students will use Snorkl to record their work and explain/defend their steps, answers, and thinking.

The benefit of this strategy is that we get to see and hear what the students are thinking and their process.

It is also AI-Compatible because the explanation and defense are done by the actual students in their voice.

Better yet, when students share their defense they can get comments, emoji responses, and feedback right inside the Snorkl video.

Teachers can comment as well, or respond with a video of their own as a follow-up!

Final Thoughts

As I mentioned in a previous post about my worries about an A.I. future, when I work with schools, districts, and organizations I try to make it very clear that we are dealing with many unknowns right now.

We cannot live in a make-believe world where we act like A.I. does not exist, but we also need to be cautious about bringing this technology into our schools the right way.

These tools provide an alternative to ChatGPT, and in the work I've been doing using these tools and leading professional learning, I've seen hundreds of teachers finding success in starting down this path with tools that are trusted by other educators, growing with the right focus, and putting the needs of our learners first.

Try it out and let me know how it goes!

In a recent workshop I was leading, a teacher asked a simple but important question: "What should I do if I want to help my students use and navigate ChatGPT, but I can't because of the age restrictions?"

My answer: "There are way better (and safer) ways to get your started with artificial intelligence then ChatGPT."

For starters, OpenAI's Terms of Use state that users must be 13 or older. If you're under 18, you need your parent or guardian's permission to create an account. Keep in mind that kids could come across content that's not age-appropriate. In addition, ChatGPT collects personal information and user data. This info is used to improve the system and can be shared with third parties for things like advertising. Under the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), collecting personal information from children under the age of 13 is illegal without parental consent.

Even if your students are older then 13, there are a few other tools I like to get started with before jumping in to ChatGPT.

For teachers, same thing applies. ChatGPT (especially Plus) is extremely powerful and helpful for many aspects of teaching, creating, etc. Yet, there are a few other tools I would use first, as an easy way to use these tools with purpose.

SchoolAI is quickly becoming my favorite artificial intelligence tool for teachers and students to use.

Imagine the power of ChatGPT, but with real guardrails you can set as a teacher, a focus for the AI powered chat and feedback that you've crafted, and the ability to see the entire conversation between students and SchoolAI bot!

That's what it is like to run a SchoolAI "space", in which students interact with a AI powered chat that you've built from scratch, or you can use one of the free pre-made "Spaces" from SchoolAI.

The fastest way to get started is to create an account and log in. Then navigate to the "Sidekick" option. There are more detailed ways to create your own Space, but Sidekick is the easiest way to go about it.

After setting up some specific guidelines for Sidekick, you can make the bot work in ways that you want for that class at that time:

Favorite Way To Use This Tool for ENGAGEMENT:

The best aspect of SchoolAI is how it can be used alongside Project-Based Learning as a Guide.

Create your Sidekick or Space to be an "AI Assistant" to help students navigate the project-based experience, help with research, collaborate on ideas, give feedback on each step, and serve as a mentor.

As a teacher, you are able to pop in and out of conversations, go talk with students based on the feedback they are getting, and manage it in ways you never could if they were using ChatGPT or another LLM tool.

Check it out and let me know how it goes!

MagicSchool is the swiss-army knife of AI for teachers. It can do almost anything you need it to do.

Lesson plan? Check.

Modifications and accommodations for IEPs? Check.

Make it relevant suggestions and ideas? Check.

Rubrics? Check.

Quiz, teacher joke generator, differentiation, science lab, 5E lessons, word problems, student feedback, math spiral, text leveling, translation? Check, check, check!

It is much like ChatGPT (or Claude or Bard) but the way it compartmentalizes what you can do, seems to help folks like me focus on a specific task before moving on to the next task.

I put this as #1 for a reason. It's free, easy to use, and they keep making it a better product.

Favorite Way To Use This Tool for ENGAGEMENT:

Ya'll know that I'm a big believer in making lessons, activities, and units both meaningful and relevant (that is what my upcoming book is all about). Sometimes, we are not sure where to start. That's where MagicSchool comes in.

Take a lesson like teaching Prime and Composite numbers to 4th grade students. It's not the most engaging thing to teach, and like one teacher in a recent workshop I led, it can be difficult to make it "relevant".

Went to MagicSchool, clicked on the "Make it Relevant!" tab and entered in the following information:

Grade: 4th Grade

Topic: Prime and Composite Numbers

Student Interests: Soccer and Youtube

Here is what it kicked (get it) out:
As a master teacher in a school who knows the background of a community well, I understand that making the subject relevant to students' interests can greatly enhance their learning experience. Considering the background of 4th-grade students who love soccer and YouTube, here are three unique ideas to make teaching prime and composite numbers more engaging and relatable:
​
1. Soccer Jersey Factoring: Create a hands-on activity where students are given soccer jerseys with numbers on them. Each number represents a different player. Students need to identify whether the number on the jersey is a prime or composite number by factoring it. For example, if a student receives a jersey with the number 15, they would need to factor it into 3 and 5, realizing it is a composite number.
​
2. Soccer Team Primality Challenge: Divide the class into teams and assign each team a soccer-related name. Provide a list of numbers and ask them to determine whether each number is prime or composite. For every correct answer, the team earns a point. Encourage students to discuss and justify their answers. This activity can be done in a quiz format or as a friendly competition between teams.
​
3. YouTube Views and Prime Numbers: Utilize students' familiarity with YouTube by introducing the concept of prime numbers through video views. Show them a popular video with a high number of views and explain that prime numbers can only be divided evenly by 1 and themselves. Discuss how prime numbers can be compared to a video with an extraordinary number of views, as they cannot be evenly divided by any other number. Encourage students to find examples of popular videos with prime or composite view counts and share their discoveries with the class.
​
These ideas incorporate the students' interests in soccer and YouTube while teaching the concept of prime and composite numbers. By linking the subject matter to their background and grade level, the students are more likely to feel engaged and motivated to learn.
Now, the teacher took the first idea (that they liked best) and headed over to Curipod to come up with their kickoff (I did it again) lesson.

#3: Curipod

​ Curipod is easily one of my favorite AI tools for educators.

If you have ever used Nearpod, Peardeck, or even Kahoot - then Curipod is something you'll really enjoy (and it will save you a ton of time).

Curipod is free for educators and has a ton of functionality.

It helps you plan and deliver interactive (key word) lessons on any topic. Whether you want to make a full interactive slide presentation (like a Nearpod or Peardeck), or create an Exit Ticket - Curipod has you covered.

All you need to do is enter your grade, the objectives and standards you are focusing on, and a topic (as much detail as you can) of the lesson or activity you are preparing for.

Then Curipod will kick out a fully-developed slide deck that includes open-ended questions, polls, drawing, word clouds, and more.

Favorite Way To Use This Tool For ENGAGEMENT:

A few features I like are the Drawing Prompt and the Personalized Feedback.

Drawing prompt is great because I can see on the teacher's side of the tool what the students are entering in. It can be a math question, a sketch, or just anything you want to ask. Drawing allows for unlimited parameters, especially with younger students using a tablet or touchscreen.

Personalized Feedback is where things get crazy cool. Here I can ask a question and students will answer it on their devices.

Then, based on the information I gave Curipod on my assignment, objectives, and standards - the tool will give students personalized feedback on their answers. You can see this as a teacher and always adjust, but it's worth trying out just for this feature!

Snorkl may be the "new AI Tool" on the block, but it is one I'm quickly loving as a teacher.

Snorkl has two basic functions. First, it helps develop thinking and reasoning skills by giving students the tools to record their voice and visually represent their thinking on a simple whiteboard.

Secondl, after sharing their thinking, students receive on-the-spot feedback on their explanations from generative AI - celebrating their unique approach and prompting them to think deeper.

On the back-end, Snorly provides teachers with AI analytics to effortlessly monitor class progress, understand each student's thinking, and determine instructional next steps.

Favorite Way To Use This Tool For ENGAGEMENT:

Let's say students are doing science or math homework. They have questions to answer and should explain or show their work.

Maybe it's a Lab Report or a few Word Problems. In either case, we typically would hand these to the teacher, who would grade the final product, turn it back to the students, and move on to the next assignment or activity.

This isn't just how my classroom works. It's how most classrooms work, and many curricula and scope/sequences are built on this premise.

Now that artificial intelligence tools exist to help students master these types of assignments in no time, it can become difficult for a teacher to really understand whether or not the students have a solid understanding, or if they are using AI tools to assist.

Here's where we can use "Defend Your Learning" with Snorkl.

During the in-class assignment or homework, students will use Snorkl to record their work and explain/defend their steps, answers, and thinking.

The benefit of this strategy is that we get to see and hear what the students are thinking and their process.

It is also AI-Compatible because the explanation and defense are done by the actual students in their voice.

Better yet, when students share their defense they can get comments, emoji responses, and feedback right inside the Snorkl video.

Teachers can comment as well, or respond with a video of their own as a follow-up!

Final Thoughts

As I mentioned in a previous post about my worries about an A.I. future, when I work with schools, districts, and organizations I try to make it very clear that we are dealing with many unknowns right now.

We cannot live in a make-believe world where we act like A.I. does not exist, but we also need to be cautious about bringing this technology into our schools the right way.

These tools provide an alternative to ChatGPT, and in the work I've been doing using these tools and leading professional learning, I've seen hundreds of teachers finding success in starting down this path with tools that are trusted by other educators, growing with the right focus, and putting the needs of our learners first.

Try it out and let me know how it goes!

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A.J. Juliani | Four A.I. Tools For Schools That Are Better Than ChatGPT

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In a recent workshop I was leading, a teacher asked a simple but important question: "What should I do if I want to help my students use and navigate ChatGPT, but I can't because of the age restrictions?"

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Last week, I had the opportunity to speak at the Learning and the Brain Conference in NY. I've been at multiple LATB conferences and they always bring a great and diverse group of educators together from K-12, Higher-Ed, and other institutions.

The hot topic this year was (you guessed it) Artificial Intelligence. In one of my presentations, I brought up a topic of learning in a post-AI world.

When we think about the future of learning we have to include artificial intelligence, in the same way we have to include the internet, computers, etc.

There are two paths that a lot of people are talking about, and we discussed them in depth during my session.

One is going AI-resistant. And the other is AI-compatible.

In this video I break down the benefits and drawbacks of each path, and what it looks like to do both in the classroom.

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A.J. Juliani | A.I.-Resistant or A.I.-Compatible?

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Last week, I had the opportunity to speak at the Learning and the Brain Conference in NY. I've been at multiple LATB conferences and they always bring a great and diverse group of educators together from K-12, Higher-Ed, and other institutions.

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These products can be used in many different ways, and are also called "foundation models." This category includes products like generative AI, such as chatbots and products that create images from text inputs, translation tools, or computer vision models that can examine images and detect objects like logos, flowers, dogs, or buildings.

These products are built for a specific purpose, but they aren't specifically designed for kids or education. Examples of this category include automated recommendations in your favorite streaming app, or the way an app sorts the faces in a group of photos so you can find pictures of your niece at a wedding.

This category is a subset of Applied Use products, and it covers products specifically built for use by kids and teens, either at home or in school. This category also includes education products designed for teachers or administrators (such as a virtual assistant for teachers) that are ultimately intended to benefit students in some way.

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Common Sense Media's Artificial Intelligence initiative aims to help parents, educators, and policymakers understand the impact of AI on our kids through AI product ratings & reviews, AI literacy curricula, original research, and more.

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Using AI in the Classroom - ChatGPT and Google Bard for Students - AI in Education

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AI Can Make Education More Personal (Yes, Really) (Opinion)

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Frequent, trustworthy feedback to teachers helps them interact more with students, write three researchers.

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Master using ChatGPT with Toddle’s comprehensive guide that has 55+ prompts for planning, assessment, and resource creation to get you started!

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Teachers can use the artificial intelligence tool to effectively automate some routine tasks.

ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot trained to understand typed prompts and generate content that sounds human, is the fastest-growing web platform ever. For a couple of months, I've assessed how ChatGPT handles dozens of common teacher tasks. It's not perfect, but the chatbot can reduce the 10 hours and 40 minutes a day that the average teacher works by automating the first drafts of our most time-consuming professional writing.

In the paragraphs that follow, I've divided these tasks into the following categories: planning instruction, handouts and materials, differentiation, correspondence, assessment, and writing instruction and feedback. Welcome to the revolution.

Category 1. PLANNING INSTRUCTION

Unit outline:When you align its output with the Common Core State Standards, the AI tool is able to craft a unit outline for any grade level, subject, or timeline.

Lesson plans:Ask ChatGPT to write a lesson plan on, say, Westward Expansion. The tool composes assessments, activities, scaffolding, and objectives. Want that in the form of problem-based learning or revised for a flipped classroom? ChatGPT can adjust the lesson plan according to your instructions.

Slide shows: When directed to outline a slide show for any topic and grade level, ChatGPT creates an intuitive organization and adds formative assessment questions if requested.

X-factor instruction: When I asked ChatGPT to devise a "challenging and creative approach to teaching metaphors" to students, the tool described an activity that involved integrating student-created metaphors into original stories conveyed through visual genres (e.g., a comic strip, a storyboard).

Simplify topics:Having difficulty articulating an advanced concept? Ask ChatGPT to "explain the topic to a first grader." Here's the tool's simplified explanation of chloroplasts: "Chloroplasts are little green things inside plant leaves that help the plant make its own food. They are like tiny factories that use sunlight, air, and water to make the plant's food."

Discussion questions: Use ChatGPT to write engaging, higher-order prompts for a class discussion on any topic.

With its mighty language processing and generation capabilities, ChatGPT can streamline planning when you're developing the following assets:

Category 2. HANDOUTS AND OTHER MATERIALS

Develop instructionsthatdescribe cooperative learning roles and expectations.

Generate assignment directions with a detailed overview, grading criteria, a description of the required format, and task details.

Create solved examples of math problems, chemistry equations, etc., with explanations of each step.

Build a prereading or advance organizerby extracting critical and unfamiliar vocabulary from a chapter and listing keywords with their definitions.

Provide word problems-for example,using ratios: ChatGPT gives the problem, the formula for solving it, and a full explanation of the procedure.

Compose a syllabus (boilerplate) that includes a course schedule, late-work policies, and a description of how assignments will be graded.

Make flash cards with questions and answers.

Produce posters that list classroom rules, 10 reasons why algebra is important to the students' future, or the 20 most common writing errors of high school students, with short definitions and examples included.

Perhaps ChatGPT's biggest time feature is that it can generate text for materials and handouts that target your specific instructional needs. It can do the following:

Category 3. DIFFERENTIATION

Need a choice boardfor an art activity? Boom, done. Ask ChatGPT to create a passage, chapter, or book summary for students who need support. The tool can also function as a text compactor that analyzes readings and creates more concise and condensed versions. Furthermore, the AI will generate differentiated rubrics for an assignment so that each heuristic emphasizes customized expectations and levels of challenge.

Category 4. PROFESSIONAL CORRESPONDENCE

Using ChatGPT, teachers can streamline communication with parents, colleagues, and administrators via AI-composed welcome-to-class letters, newsletter copy, volunteer and donation requests, supply lists, grant and field trip proposals, assembly programs, and permission sheets.

Category 5. ASSESSMENT

Quizzes:AskChatGPT to create tests on specific topics using any type of question format. Paste a passage into the chatbot or identify the title and chapter of a classic piece of literature, and the AI will produce a test bank and answer key.

Rubrics: ChatGPT will compose a rubric for any type of student performance. Depending on the needs of the user, examples include analytic, holistic, and developmental rubrics, as well as rating scales.

Checklists: The tool can develop an observation checklist to document students' academic, social, emotional, and physical progress.

Cloze tests: ChatGPT can create a Cloze comprehension test, where words are removed from a passage, and the reader is asked to fill in the blanks to test their understanding of the main ideas, vocabulary, and sentence structure of the passage.

With careful oversight, teachers can use ChatGPT to quickly create a variety of assessment materials.

Category 6. Writing Instruction and Feedback

Prompt generator:The tool can compose writing prompts for any genre and include a corresponding rubric.

Essay improvement: Submit sections of student writing to ChatGPT, and it will suggest enhancements.

Grammar feedback: When kids make grammar errors, teachers can direct ChatGPT to define, describe, and identify how to improve the error and also provide examples.

With ChatGPT's assistance, teachers can improve their students' writing skills through a range of tools and features.

While ChatGPT amplifies our pedagogy and automates routine tasks, it's easy to overlook its greatest weakness: The tool always sounds authoritative, even when disseminating inaccurate content. Erroneous and polished bloviation pops up in human communication as well. Nevertheless, we must check all AI-produced information for accuracy and usefulness before it reaches students.

The chatbot's prose represents another shortcoming. Without clear directions from the user, it comes off as canned, like it was written by an algorithm, when a prerequisite for uplifting, informing, and empowering students and school stakeholders is correspondence that sounds like you, not Wikipedia. Using ChatGPT responsibly means always viewing its compositions and curricula as first drafts.

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Teachers can use the artificial intelligence tool ChatGPT to effectively automate some categories o routine tasks.

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Artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT can help educators find activities that are set up to teach designated skills.

Like countless educators, I've always found that developing my lesson designs is a time-consuming task that takes hours of prep time.

Luckily, artificial intelligence (AI) developments now enable teachers to leverage AI capabilities through innovative apps like ChatGPT and Education Copilot to streamline instructional design preparation. AI technology has become faster and can be leveraged as a highly intelligent personal assistant and time-retrieval genie.

Aside from teaching it and benefiting from Google using predictive analytics to improve my research, I didn't know that AI could enhance my collaborative lesson planning with the teachers I coach or my own lessons at Old Dominion University until my good friend Elizabeth Peña, who is a business marketing coach, introduced me to the power of ChatGPT.

Here are two time-effective ways you can use ChatGPT to assist your planning for learning in your classroom.

Use ChatGPT to Google

Don't misinterpret this section header- ChatGPT and Google are different. The latter is primarily a tech-based search engine. The former is a conversational AI model (or chatbot) that responds like a human to the questions we input. That means we don't have to click through different links to find what we need. Here's how: Google pulls information from all over the internet, but users can condition ChatGPT to retrieve data it's trained on, and it gets smarter over time. That means we can train the AI model to keenly personalize our search requests.

I recently developed a unit plan requiring students to compose a personal narrative about their experiences with leadership and service. Using my instructional alignment tool to guide mapping, I typed in the queries below in sequence to direct ChatGPT to get me vital information instantly.

1. My middle school students have to write a personal narrative about their experience with leadership and service. Which two or three specific Common Core State Standards are relevant to this task?

2. Now rewrite those standards into three to four "I can" statements. Although the chatbot can give you a great starting point, you may need to reword these into learning goals better suited for your students.

3. What formative assessments (formal and informal) can I use to check my students' understanding of these standards?

4. Given your "I can" statements, what lessons can I teach to help my students write their best personal narratives?

5. Which high-yielding strategies can I use to teach these lessons? I aim to engage all my learners in tandem with increasing academic achievement.

6. You mentioned using "differentiated instruction." What methods can I use to support my English language learners to improve their narratives?

7. Please provide the sources you used for your responses with websites.

For teachers looking to increase their lesson-planning productivity, there isn't one way to map and align curriculum and instruction. Feel free to continue using your methods and templates and tweak these questions to suit your own lesson ideation needs better:

To help you see the power of the AI assistant, I've provided screenshots of our interaction in this document. After viewing the link, notice how detailed, coherent, and relevant ChatGPT's responses can become, tailored to meet the user's needs. Answers won't always be perfect, and you may need to restate your queries if the chatbot's responses need to be corrected. Also, you can use the app's thumbs-up and thumbs-down features to teach the AI model to improve future responses.

Use ChatGPT to Plan Activities

Many teachers are always looking to boost engagement and real-world application by making instruction more project-based and passion-driven through allowing kids to engage in activities typically carried out outside of school, by adults at work. In my coaching work, I often see great ideas put to rest because of a need for clarity on beginning and implementing a complex task requiring expert guidance. ChatGPT can quickly assist in providing critical steps, needed resources, budget recommendations, and timelines.

1. I'm having my _____-grade class design a _____ to be displayed in our school, but this is the first time we've done it. What are the proper steps to take?

2. I teach _____-grade _____. Which specific ELA and math CCSS apply to this activity?

3. Please rewrite these standards into "I can" statements in the context of the _____ design.

4. What tools and resources will we need to plan and design the _____?

5. Please put the categories and budget amounts into a table. Use the medium for each projected amount for each category. I need to provide it to our budget coordinator.

6. I see my kids every day for 50 minutes. About how many weeks will the _____ design need?

7. We live in _____. Please provide local _____ we can contact for further guidance. Please provide their websites and social media accounts if available.

8. Please provide websites and sources you used for the _____ design steps and standards.

For example, I recently developed a project-based learning unit, and the major student product was a class mural. I didn't have experience in mural design, but after I input my queries, the chatbot produced fantastic and reliable feedback. We now have a course of action for moving our project plans forward.

Lastly, as you work with AI models, you may need to restate questions in order to teach them to provide better results. Undoubtedly, more AI models are headed our way. But no matter how advanced AI models become, they will never replace the human touch. Therefore, I always say, embrace tech along with our human ingenuity.

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Artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT can help educators find activities that are set up to teach designated skills.

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Principles | AI Guidance for Schools Toolkit | TeachAI

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Seven principles for developing AI guidance in schools including a description, real-world examples, resources, considerations and sample language to develop policies and best practices in educational contexts.

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For both instructors and students, it is important to understand, evaluate, and overall familiarize yourself with the uses of generative artificial intelligence tools, whether you decide to incorporate their use into your course or not. Engaging with generative A.I. tools means using a thoughtful, critical and ethical lens to determine whether their use will benefit your assignments and assessments, as well as considering how your students may independently be trying to engage with these tools in their learning, either productively or in ways that may challenge their work's academic integrity.

For faculty and students alike, this engagement process encompasses recognizing when and how generative AI is used in various domains, assessing the reliability and validity of AI-generated outputs, identifying the ethical and social implications stemming from the design and use of generative AI applications, and creating and communicating with generative AI systems in appropriate ways.
Building literacy in Generative AI includes addressing ethics, privacy, and equity with intention.
There are many open questions, including legal questions, regarding the ethical design, development, use, and evaluation of generative AI in teaching and learning. While generative AI may potentially be powerfully useful, concerns and sensitivities surround a number of key issues including:

Transparency and oversight: as many generative AI are developed and owned by corporations, how can we know how the tools are trained or what safeguards exist protecting users against inaccurate information or harmful interactions?

Political impact: what protections exist against generative AI being used to spread inaccurate or discriminatory content?

Environmental impact: as generative AI tools are trained with ever larger data sets, requiring more and more energy consumption, what is the energy use impact on the environment?

Diversity, non-discrimination and fairness: how can we ensure that tools avoid unfair bias and are universally accessible?

Privacy, data governance, technical robustness and safety: how is user data or copyrighted material used, stored, or shared? Who has access to user data? (European Commission, 2022).

Researchers and educators have begun outlining multiple ways to encourage, practice, and support ethical and responsible use of generative AI in the classroom (Dwivedi et al, 2023). Drawing from these resources, in the sections that follow, we spotlight different ways to think through the use of generative AI in teaching and learning.

Ethics & Equity

Not all technologies impact all users in the same way. Some student populations may be at greater risk of harm than others (Gašević et al., 2023). Human and systemic biases in generative AI algorithms and large language models' (LLMs) data impact the output of AI tools and consequently can perpetuate inequities when these biases are not removed or addressed.

LLMs are designed to use statistical algorithms to analyze vast amounts of data and determine patterns and textual connections. The data used to train the generative AI tool will mimic the data it receives. This means if the majority of data input the model receives relates to a certain industry, language, demographic, or time period, the output it generates will do so as well. That is, the content generated is based on learned language patterns and on the examples it has received.

Due to this, there could be an inherent bias in LLMs that students should be aware of. These models can provide inaccurate, misleading, and unethical information. LLMs can impersonate people and organizations, share intellectual property without attribution, and influence users based on the way information is presented (Antoniak, 2023). Therefore, it is important to evaluate what AI generates through a critical lens.
Here are a few questions for instructors to consider, and to invite students to consider, when critically evaluating AI or Generative AI content:

Is the AI-generated content accurate? How can you test or assess the accuracy?

Can other credible sources (outside of generative AI) validate the data or item produced?

How does the information generated impact or influence your thinking on this topic?

Who is represented in this data? Is the data inclusive in terms of the material's scope and the perspectives that it presents?

Knowing LLMs may also be collecting the data your students input (i.e., in their prompts), how will you make students aware of this practice so they will in turn safeguard their own privacy?

Again, we stress that the LLMs that drive generative AI are only as inclusive and equitable as the information informing them. If only certain works inform a generative AI tool (e.g., English-language works only, U.S.-centric works, or works from one specific demographic), the output you receive from that tool will also be both limited to and influenced by the voices or works it has been trained on.

With this in mind, it is important that students are made aware of these potential limitations, and that they are given flexible options for completing assignments. It is equally important to provide transparency in your assignment rubric and grading criteria to account for these limitations and options (OpenAI, 2023; Frąckiewicz, 2023).

For more information on how you can provide equitable learning activities in your classroom, refer to Universal Design for Learning (UDL).

Privacy & Equity

As you and your students interact with AI, it is important to consider the issue of privacy. According to Antoniak (2023) "LLMs store your conversations and can use them as training data," which means any input and any materials uploaded to LMM processors can become part of the model's training set, and can then be shared in the future without attribution. Resources and intellectual property may thus be used in unexpected ways. Any uploaded data flows through an assortment of technological providers who together make up a technology's ecosystem or infrastructure, each with their own privacy policy and terms of use. Note that opting out of terms may not be possible if you intend to use the technology. As a result, you may wish to only share open information or data that does not need to remain private. It's also important to ensure that you never upload or share any student information covered under FERPA and other protections.

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For both instructors and students, it is important to understand, evaluate, and overall familiarize yourself with the uses of generative artificial intelligence tools, whether you decide to incorporate their use into your course or not. Engaging with generative A.I.

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For all the hype about AI replacing teachers, the reality is that teachers are irreplaceable. It is a deeply human endeavor. The teachers who can leverage this human element through authentic learning will ultimately prepare students for an unpredictable world forged by AI.

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Let's Not Lose the Human Element

A few weeks ago, I watched a cringe-worthy Apple commercial. Like many viewers, I had a visceral reaction to the message because it created this false dichotomy between the digital and the physical, the technological and the human, the compressed and the expansive. I immediately sat down and sketched out a video and then used my trusty Macbook to turn it into a video.

If you're not familiar with the Apple commercial, there is a house full of colorful, vibrant, idiosyncratic objects that are then crushed by a giant industrial machine. The iPad lives. It's so thin. So compressed. So sexy and skinny. It's also breakable. Drop it down a set of stairs and you get a spiderwebbed screen, but let's not look at that.

The message was clear. Why bother with the clunky, the human, the messy, the colorful, the vibrant? Just opt for an iPad. Why strum your fingers on an acoustic guitar learning the chord progression to "Stairway to Heaven" like your father did (and maybe grandpa?) when there's GarageBand? Why spend hours playing Space Invaders with your friends at the arcade if the App Store can get you it so much cheaper and faster? Why embrace the memory of emptying your spit valve in the marching band as you look up, embarrassed at your crush staring back at you; if you could just stare at the likes on your latest social media update?

It's so inefficient to hold onto the tangible in an age of automation.

I get it.

I love tech.

I've been using a Mac since my childhood. The Apple Ecosystem is how I do so much of my creative work, like crafting videos, making podcasts, and creating books.

And yet . . .

We have a grand piano in the living room. It takes up far too much space and is filled with far too many memories. It needs a tune up and not an update and a man, a very old man, fiddles around for hours to make this thing feel timeless. But when someone pounds those keys, I swear I can hear entire generations before me.

It's a sacred object that I don't want to crush.

The most powerful iPad ever?

I'm not looking for power.

The thinnest iPad ever?

I don't want more compression.

Give me a can of spray paint so Micah and I can make art in the garage. Give me an acoustic guitar and see if I can play "New Kid in Town" and feel the memories of my dad singing that song to me while I feel asleep. Give me a whole truck load of hardback books, covered with annotations, that are passports to all kinds of worlds.

Forget compression. I want duct tape. I want cardboard. Give me a makerspace full of random objects that can't be digitized. I want an acoustic guitar next to a campfire while we have another IPA. Life is short. We don't need to compress it any more than it already is.
In a world of automation, I don't want to crush creativity.
Of course we should enjoy the tech. It's amazing. But also . . . let's embrace the lo-fi, the vintage, the tangible, the messy, the human. I share this because I keep seeing the message that AI will spark all kinds of amazing innovations in education. But I worry that if we center innovation on machine learning, we run the risk of chasing the fleeting novelty of techno-futurism instead of preparing students for the deeply human skills they will need in a changing world.

The False Promise of Techno-Futurism

When I was in middle school, a teacher brought us all to the front of the class and held out a giant golden disc. "This is the future of education," he said. "Someday, you'll be able to pick up one of these discs, take it to a pod with a tv and learn exactly what you need to learn. You won't even need teachers. This will change learning forever."

It did not change learning forever. Years later, I saw the same argument re-emerge with the rise of internet and search engines. We could just ask Jeeves and he'd answer our questions. Rest in Peace, Jeeves. Later, it was one-to-one devices and then leveled reading programs for intervention. Now, it's the promise of personalized learning with generative AI. Students will sit in front of a computer with an AI tutor and receive the exact instruction they need without the guidance of a teacher.

Artificial Intelligence futurists are predicting that AI will provide students with this entirely personalized educational experience - one that has the potential to replace teachers . However, this vision for the future mistakes adaptive learning for personalized learnin g.

Adaptive learning is clean and fast and efficient (not unlike that giant machine that compressed every human element in the iPad commercial). Personalized learning, by contrast, is messy and human. It's filled with inefficiencies. It's built on student empowerment:

Learning Is About More Than Just Content Delivery

A year ago, I explored this idea of personalized versus adaptive learning in a blog post and a video.

It's interesting that after I posted the video, I began to get angry comments on YouTube. Some of these were polite, such as, "Yeah, you need to revisit this claim. I have heard heads of AI companies even suggest that education and health care the largest impacted industry. Imagine individualized teachers for students on a computer."

Others were most skeptical about the role of teachers:

I think you have an extremely idealised view of teachers tbh, most of the teachers I've had were terrible and put me off the subject. The only reason they were necessary to me before was because if I tried teaching myself a subject by reading and researching, I'd always have questions that I'd need answering, and I'd have no one to ask (I couldn't find the answers online since they were too specific and niche, and no one seems to know the answer when I ask on sites like Quora). But now that I can ask the AI anything I want, and it always explains it far better than any human does whenever I ask them online, and explains it instantly, teachers are obsolete for me now (which is fantastic, since it opens the doors to education for me now since I don't have to pay for courses or private tutors).

One person told me, "This whole video is just pure cope" and another wrote, "Eventually, AI will replace teachers. Teaching is becoming a dead career."

I get it. These are flaming rants from strangers in the YouTube comment section. But dig underneath a little more and you'll see that there's an underlying message that education is merely content delivery. Teachers deliver the content, give feedback on mistakes through assessment, and then re-teach:

If that's the model of learning, then AI might eventually do things better than teachers. If teaching is merely a set of instructions, worksheets (digital or otherwise) and feedback loops, then, yes, AI might surpass humans. But I actually don't think that's what teaching and learning is all about. The future of learning is not merely about acquiring a pre-determined set of knowledge and then being tested on it. Instead, it's about learning the skills, concepts, and mindsets that will be needed in an unpredictable world.

What Will Students Need in the Future?

In the past, students could depend on a simple formula. Do well in school, get the right degree from a university, and climb a corporate ladder.

With automation and AI, the ladder is gone and in its place is a maze. Our students will need to navigate this maze of an unpredictable world. The bad news is that the rules have changed. The exciting news is that our students will get to re-write the rules.

So, given this new reality, we want students to learn the content at a deep level while also developing those critical skills they will need as they navigate this maze. There are no simple answers here. We still need students to learn things like phonics and math facts. There's nothing wrong with traditional approaches. But we also need to help students become empowered as self-directed learners and they can develop this through authentic and meaningful learning.

One example is PBL. Project-based learning is a teaching method that focuses on active, experiential learning through the completion of real-world projects. Students are given a problem or challenge to solve, and they work collaboratively to design, create, and present their solution. A key distinction of PBL is that students learn through the project rather than doing a culminating project. When coupled with design thinking, they develop deeper empathy as well.

If this seems like too much, you can do sprints and mini-projects instead.

Another option might be inquiry-based learning. Here, students ask questions, engage in research, and share their findings with others. You could do something like a single Wonder Day project.

But on a simpler level, you can take short question breaks where students follow this process:

Generate a list of questions

Rally Robin: Each student asks and answers questions

Stand up, Hand up, Pair up: Students walk around answering questions

Answer questions as a whole class

Another option might be to run a Socratic Seminar. Socratic seminars are a democratic, student-centered, approach to class discussions. They can be used at any grade level with any subject area. In a Socratic Seminar, members meet in a circle (or more likely an oval, because, let's be real, circles are really hard to create) and share their insights. Participants do not raise their hands or call on names. Because there's no discussion leader, each member can comment or ask follow-up questions to one another. This approach can be empowering for participants because they own the conversation. Unlike a typical class discussion, the conversation moves fluidly back and forth rather than having to go through the teacher.

Notice that each of these options require human interaction. They are messy and unpredictable. They contrast sharply with the efficiency of a lone student sitting in front of a screen with headphones as they move along a predetermined adaptable learning program.

Embracing a Blended Approach

The best creators are going to know how to use A.I. in a way that still allows them to retain their humanity. This feels like a daunting task, but I'm inspired by a phenomenon in competitive chess. A.I. will nearly always beat a human. But when you do chess via teams, the fully automated A.I. teams rarely win. Neither do the all-human teams. The winning teams are nearly always the combination of A.I. and human. If that's true of an isolated system like chess, how much more true will that be in a complicated world where the systems are constantly evolving?

The goal, then, is to use a blended approach that incorporates elements of both humanity and machine learning:

This starts by asking what AI does well and then leveraging what we, as humans, do well.

What Does AI Do Well

When we consider AI, there are certain elements that it does really well:

Synthesize information

Generate examples

Role-playing

Creating systems

Using predictive analytics

Analyzing a problem

Help with conceptual understanding

A blended approach will likely need to embrace some of these elements of AI. However, it doesn't mean that we outsource all of the synthesis, analysis or predictive analytics to a machine. We want to avoid cognitive atroph y. It's also important to remember that AI will contain biases and misinformation. While an app like Consensus does a great job using vetted resources, that limitation is still present in all forms of generative AI.

We use the term "intelligence" to describe A.I. But a chatbot isn't sentient. It's not affective. It will do no thinking without a prompt. When I leave the room, the chatbot is not daydreaming or making plans for the future or feeling insecure about that super awkward thing that happened yesterday. A chatbot feels no shame, has no hopes, and experiences no loss. It can generate a love poem but it can't be heartbroken. And yet, those are all major aspects of human cognition. For this reason, we need to ask, "What do humans do well?"

What Do Humans Do Well

The following are four key areas where humans excel.

1. Context

AI lacks contextual knowledge. It's a bit like interacting with a toddler who has an encyclopedic knowledge of the world but has never left the room. This toddler has only interacted with you. Truth be told, AI is actually a little closer to that of a parrot who speaks a bunch of phrases but doesn't actually have meaning or intent behind it. Because AI is built on algorithms shaped by predictive analytics, it lacks the contextual knowledge within a classroom. Generative AI often struggles to fully understand context because it learns from patterns in data rather than truly grasping meanings.

On a basic level, generative AI has difficulty in maintaining coherence over extended interactions or fully grasping the subtleties and complexities of situational nuances, which can lead to errors or inappropriate responses. Chatbots don't understand the heated debates in your local school board or the institutional knowledge of a teacher or the sheer number of cultural values present in a classroom community. AI hasn't taken the time to learn just how direct the Dutch style of communication can be or the sheer number of kata a student from Japan has learned.

This can be a challenge for for teachers using Project-Based Learning (PBL), which requires deep understanding and connecting ideas across different subjects. Since AI might not always catch these nuances, teachers need to be the experts in facilitating the understanding of context. Similarly, teachers leading a discussion or Socratic Seminar will need to bring their contextual knowledge into the process in a way that a machine simply cannot do.

2. Divergent Thinking

Humans tend to be better than AI at divergent thinking because AI algorithms are built on probabalistic thinking. Humans can think abstractly, draw on personal experiences, and incorporate emotional and cultural nuances into their decision-making processes (see context above). This allows them to generate unique ideas and solutions that are often unexpected and innovative.

By contrast, AI typically follows programmed patterns and lacks the ability to truly innovate beyond its training data. This is a bit simplistic but AI tends to generate things that are vanilla and predictable. They're more derivative.

Teachers can think divergently and take the vanilla to make it their own. They can work with the basic convergent thinking of the chatbot and then come up with ideas and resources that shift away from the norm. In other words, teachers can be wildly and unabashedly different:

I love to create visual writing prompts. Some of these are just odd (like the snail detectives) and this one has my own unique stamp on it as someone who has learned that my greatest weaknesses can actually be my hidden strength:

So we move forward, we need to embrace the divergent thinking of innovative teachers. But we can also encourage our students to think divergently by doing small divergent thinking challenges and my creating moments of creative constraint.

3. Curiosity

On the surface, a chatbot might seem like it is curious. It can generate questions, for example. But human curiosity is different. Curiosity involves a desire to learn or know more, driven by emotional and cognitive processes that AI does not possess. It's almost like an itch that we need to scratch. It's something innate in our humanity and, honestly, something that many animals have as well. Something nags at you and you just have to figure it out.

By contrast, AI operates based on algorithms and data patterns, responding to inputs with outputs trained from vast datasets. The AI only answers once you have begun the question. Machine learning lacks self-awareness. It's incapable of the the intrinsic motivation that fuels human curiosity. AI experiences no joy when it finds an answer and no mild anxiety when an answer is elusive.

While AI can be designed to explore data or problems in ways that might appear "curious," it does so without genuine interest or consciousness-it's simply executing programmed instructions.

If we want students to embrace wonder and curiosity, that requires a human - a teacher - to be a part of that process.

4. Empathy

One of the aspects rarely mentioned in conversations about AI is just how often it fails to "read the room" with a person. An AI tutor might be pleasant and incredibly patient but it can't read a student's body language in the same way that a teacher does. If we think about intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, many teachers have an uncanny ability to figure out what is actually motivating a student in the moment:

Or consider the role of scaffolds for exceptional learners and multilingual students. True, teachers can use AI to design scaffolds and supports. But this will also require teachers to know students at a relational level. They can take the basic "vanilla" scaffolds and then modifies those based on what they know about a particular student's interests, goals, growth, and strengths. Some of the best teachers I know are adept at modifying strategies in the moment based on how a student responds.

But this empathy piece is bigger than motivation or scaffolding. Ask anyone to describe their favorite teacher and there's often a story that barely tip toes on the academics. For me, it was when Mrs. Smoot said, "When you hide your voice you rob the world of creativity. I'm not going to let you do that." For my son, it was a teacher who said, "You have an eye for design. You are an artist, Micah." I know countless people who have stories of a teacher who sat down and listened to them as they opened up about a family tragedy or who saw something no one else could see.

I remember showing my son the amazing feedback I could get from a chatbot. It was a video script about the things I had learned from our adopted greyhound that had just passed away. His response, "That's awful feedback. The only good feedback here is, 'I'm sorry for your loss. Do you want to talk about it?' I don't write for a machine. I write for a person."

Our humanity, as imperfect as it may be, is a gift to our students. In an age of A.I., our students still need a human to listen and empathize; to experiment and adapt; to make mistakes and apologize. They will need a guide who can build a relationship and help them navigate a complex world.

Strategy: Rewrite the Prompts

I recently led a workshop on the future of writing in a world of AI. One of my favorite activities involved redesigning writing prompts to center on these human elements:

Choose a Standard Writing Prompt: Start with a typical writing prompt that you would normally use in your classroom.

Add Human Context: Revise the prompt to include elements that relate to human experiences, emotions, or backgrounds. Encourage students to consider how personal experiences and emotions influence responses.

Encourage Divergent Thinking: Modify the prompt to allow for multiple correct answers or interpretations. Ask students to explore alternative outcomes, perspectives, or creative solutions. Consider using something like creative constraint to push them to think more divergently.

Stimulate Curiosity: Include questions in the prompt that make students question or delve deeper into the topic. Encourage them to research or imagine possibilities beyond the obvious. Provide some sentence stems for them to ask their own questions.

Foster Empathy: Direct the prompt towards understanding and connecting with others' situations. This could involve writing from another person's perspective or considering the impact of actions on others.

Feedback and Discussion: After rewriting your prompts use the 20 minute peer feedback system to get feedback on how you might revise your prompts

Note that this doesn't mean students won't cheat and use AI for answers. This will not solve the issue of academic integrity. But it does require some deeper human element that machine learning cannot do.

Teachers Are the Future of Learning

Earlier, I mentioned the authentic and meaningful learning that students will need as they navigate an unpredictable future. Whether it's a project-based learning unit or a class discussion, it is the teacher, as the artist and the problem-solver and curator, who sparks innovation.

The future of education can't be found in a gadget or an app or a program or a product. It doesn't require a think tank full of pundits. No, the future of education can be found in your classroom. Your classroom is packed with creative potential. You have all the innovation you need right there in your room.

It's what happens when you experiment. It's what happens when you give your students voice and choice. It's what happens when you abandon the scripted curriculum and take your students off-road in their learning. It's what happens when you teach to your students rather than teaching to the test. It's what happens when you unleash the creative power of all of your students - when you make the bold decision to let them make things and design things and solve problems that they find relevant.

Sometimes it's messy and even confusing. It often looks humble. But understand this, that every time your students get the chance to be authors, filmmakers, scientists, artists, and engineers. You are planting the seeds for a future you could have never imagined on your own. And that right there is the beauty of creative classrooms. That's the power of innovative teachers. That is why the future of education is you.

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For all the hype about AI replacing teachers, the reality is that teachers are irreplaceable. It is a deeply human endeavor. The teachers who can leverage this human element through authentic learning will ultimately prepare

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6 Productivity Tools Every Teacher Should Know About

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Educators say these tools can drastically reduce administrative and planning burdens, freeing up time for engaging with students.

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Common Sense Media to Collaborate with OpenAI on AI Guidelines and Education -- THE Journal

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Common Sense Media, a nonprofit that provides tools, reviews, and other resources to help vet technology and media for children, has announced a partnership with OpenAI focused on teenagers’ use of artificial intelligence.

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Many adults fear that, at some point, the skills they have spent years mastering may suddenly become obsolete.

My father, an art teacher and darkroom aficionado, railed against digital photography in the early 2000s as the downfall of an art form he held (and still holds) dear. He retired before the transformation of his darkroom into a classroom computer lab and many years before the revival of film photography from Gen Z kids seeking authenticity in the smartphone age.

In 19th-century England, Luddites similarly protested textile machinery by famously smashing the expensive devices. Their outcry captured the imagination of many who feared that we were becoming, as the Victorian writer Thomas Carlyle put it, "mechanical in head and heart."

As someone who loves to write almost as much as I enjoy teaching students how to do so effectively, the arrival of Chat GPT in my Denver classroom last semester has placed me in a similar predicament. Within a few weeks, everything I knew about writing, plagiarism, student accountability, and grading was tested.

I made a number of mistakes in a short time, and I realized that if we continue to treat the use of AI as plagiarism, we're all doomed to fail. Instead, we need to question the fundamentals of how we teach writing in high school and examine what we're grading when we read student writing.

"What's the point of writing anymore if we now have browser extensions to do it for us? I mean, why am I even teaching this?" I asked my tech-worker friend when I was at my lowest. "Writing as we know it is dead!"

"Not exactly," he said, explaining that because AI relies on human-created content to generate answers, it, therefore, depends on the creativity of humans to improve. Otherwise, it would be a closed system that continued to get dumber over time. Moreover, he predicted that as AI content becomes ubiquitous, human creativity would be essential for work to stand out in the future.

"Still," he acknowledged, "it's going to change writing a lot."

Midway through grading student research papers in May, I began to realize what he had meant. I began clumsily pasting suspicious sections of various essays into Chat GPT and asking, "Did you write this?" I'm embarrassed at the number of random false positives this method generated and the awkward conversations I needlessly had with students.

"Yes, I wrote that," the AI would respond.

"Are you sure?" I pressed further.

"Apologies for the confusion, I cannot confirm that I wrote it."

After several days of the slowest grading of my life, a colleague introduced me to a browser extension that would confirm patterns in the writing that seemed to be AI-generated. Sure, students could edit the writing to avoid detection, but that seemed quite extreme and time-consuming. I was later surprised to learn from students that some of them would, indeed, spend far longer than it actually takes to write an essay editing AI-generated content.

I found myself spending so much time looking for cheating that I missed the most important aspect of my grading: the ideas that students were actually coming up with.

It was reassuring when an essay I was grading received a thumbs up and "A Human Wrote This!" message. But what is a teacher supposed to do when a browser extension says that an essay appears to be "87% human"? Plagiarism often comes with stiff penalties, and I was nervous about responding too strictly to such uncertainties. This dynamic is also playing out in higher education, and none of the professors I reached out to had answers yet.

This past spring, I found myself spending so much time looking for cheatingthat I missed the most important aspect of my grading: the ideas that students were actually coming up with. As I shifted my focus, I realized that centering the student's ideas also proved to be the best AI detector of all. Because AI writing is often pretty terrible.

I began grading some of the best AI-generated essays as though they were human, and I realized that they were rarely proficient anyway. A lot of their issues were obvious, such as the research essay on the history of the American West that intermittently (and critically) confused which "West" it was writing about - the Cold War West or the Western frontier.

There are also some practical ways I intend to alter these projects next year. For example, typing into one document ensures that all writing is timestamped. Separately grading the research process, outlines, and rough drafts all help to encourage students to do the thinking themselves. The inner Luddite in me is also excited to return occasionally to handwritten essays.

Most of all, though, I'm eager to emphasize creativity in research and writing. Classroom writing should never be about the regurgitation of other people's ideas to aid memorization, and I'm fairly certain that this is one skill that AI will truly make obsolete anyway. So rather than asking students to "Compare and contrast how two authors explore the history of the American West," I might instead ask them to "use primary sources you have found during your own research to tell the story of a real person in the West, including their challenges and life experiences." Certainly, AI could do this, but results are certain to be duller than those that tap into students' natural curiosity and creativity.
Matthew Fulford is a high school history teacher in Denver, Colorado. His passion is teaching historical research and writing. He is the 2023 Colorado History Teacher of the Year.
This tumultuous semester clarified that using AI in writing is fundamentally different from other forms of plagiarism; it's so new that the line between using it as a research and writing aid and using it to cheat has not yet been established. I'm optimistic that we can teach students to use it as a tool while they simultaneously do the most valuable creative thinking themselves.

In recent years, my dad has emerged from the darkroom to embrace digital photography as an art form with its own creative potential. And I'd like to think that if Thomas Carlyle was alive today, he would have agreed with me that it's the creativity of our thinking that separates us from machines; AI in its current form merely develops an illusion of creativity.

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In the age of ChatGPT, we must change how we teach writing and how we grade it

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If we continue to treat the use of ChatGPT as plagiarism, we're all doomed to fail. Here's what we should be doing instead, writes Denver teacher Matthew Fulford.

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The emergence of novel and powerful artificial intelligence models has led to a paradigm shift in many areas. What initially catalyzed curiosity as to the extent to which monotonous work could be outsourced to AI has emerged as a possible tool for students with personalized educational needs. Let's welcome AI into classrooms and introduce ways to allow this revolutionary technology to educate every student and assist every teacher. We propose an augmented approach with AI, which assists with content verification, peer, educator and people engagement.

Pedagogical and education researchers are discovering that there are many ways to teach, including blended learning. The newest focus is on adaptive learning, which leverages advanced technology and data analytics to deliver personalized education, revolutionizing learning.

Traditional pedagogical methods typically entail one teacher instructing an average of 30 learners. It's a system that can easily overlook the needs of some students. Although the model has served many students well, a significant number of learners require a more personalized approach. Unfortunately, the number of available educators and providers is a fraction of what is needed.

AI might seem intimidating, but if faculty at educational institutions use the technology appropriately, the benefits will allow for a classroom where all children are cognitively stimulated regardless of where they are in their learning journey. They will learn in a way that works for them, getting answers to questions without fear of judgment.

Teachers will be able to spend their time not only helping all their students understand what they are studying but also helping them to cultivate a love for learning.

How AI is being used in education

The number of unique learning styles and innovative teaching modalities is growing, but it's nowhere near the speed of development of new large language and multimodal education models, which include visual, auditory, reading and writing, and kinesthetic.

Thanks to the work of AI engineers and edutech entrepreneurs such as Sam Altman of OpenAI, Sal Khan of Khan Academy, and Andrew Ng of Coursera, educators now have lesson planners, private tutors, coaches, and artists at their fingertips.

Khan Academy, for example, is integrating AI into its programs to personalize learning pathways for students, using algorithms to adapt problems and lessons based on individual performance.

"Proper use of AI minimizes the resource and equity gap among students by providing them with a tool that can be tailored to each as a unique individual."

Khan's AI chatbot Khanmigo is being tried out as a potential teacher. Khanmigo prompts students to learn more, incites creativity, and explains complex subjects in simple and personalized ways. The chatbot can mimic a writing coach, for example, giving suggestions to students to inspire them to write in more exciting ways.

Duolingo's implementation of OpenAI's GPT-4 introduces AI-generated conversational learning that can help students learn second languages more quickly by providing interactive, conversational practice that mimics real-life conversations better than traditional methods. The program also adapts to the learner's proficiency level.

Another learning aid is Speechify 's text-to-speech model, which assists students with dyslexia.

For educators, Gradescope streamlines the grading process. It uses an AI-driven system that can provide more consistent and timely feedback to students, reducing the subjective elements of grading-which is especially important for pupils with learning difficulties.

Instructors including Ethan Mollick at the University of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia, and Brian Hallett at IE University, in Spain, are embracing AI as a tool to create a learning environment wherein every student is valued, understood, and empowered.

Suggestions for implementing AI

Here are some ways educational institutions can use AI to augment pedagogical practices:

Invest in training for educators, focusing on how to use AI and incorporating the technology into teaching.

Create personalized lesson plans based on individual learning styles and needs. Ensure users are aware of current shortcomings of AI.

Implement the technology to create more efficient assessments, saving educators time and providing quick feedback to learners.

Explore the use of AI-based learning assistants in classrooms to answer real-time questions and offer students personalized learning paths.

Foster collaboration between schools and AI developers to create efficient, user-friendly systems.

Develop technology to perform administrative tasks such as attendance tracking and scheduling, allowing educators to focus on teaching.

Prioritize research in AI in education to drive further advancements and then commit to acting on the proposals.

Embracing the augmentation of AI in schools will bring an array of tools into our educational system and seamlessly connect teaching methods with students' optimal learning styles.

The dilemma of testing and teaching everyone on a specific metric has prevented many from realizing their full potential. Proper use of AI minimizes the resource and equity gap among students by providing them with a tool that can be tailored to each as a unique individual.

We are at a pivotal point in history. Let's work to make it beneficial for everyone of every ability.

"Everyone is a genius," says a popular quote attributed to Albert Einstein. "But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid."

The views expressed here are the authors' own and do not represent positions of IEEE Spectrum, The Institute, or IEEE.

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How Artificial Intelligence Can Personalize Education

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Instructors can leverage AI to help students learn better

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There's no getting around the fact that students are a major user group for ChatGPT and the other AI language models that have come online in the past year. While schools and teachers would generally prefer to avoid the contortions involved in banning and policing AI use, it's not clear what "embracing" the technology leads to, either.

In this video, we hear from students and educators about the challenges that AI chatbots pose to schoolwork. We also review research in the science of learning to understand how the "fluency" of a chatbot experience could disrupt the learning process that we go to school for.

You can find the video above and the entire library of Vox's videos on YouTube.
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Video: Students and teachers grapple with the rise of the chatbots.