Recognizing the importance as an educator to familiarize myself with AI and the time and place to implement it into the classroom.
Realizing that I need to embrace AI in education and be proactive instead of reactive, I have been exploring ways of incorporating it into the classroom and school. With this comes pros and cons.
AI offers so many benefits for various stakeholders in education. Directly in the classroom, both students and teachers can experience advantages of appropriate use of AI, including chatbots like ChatGPT.
ADVANTAGES
Students | Teachers |
Personalize learning and adapt tasks to learning styles and needs | Support with assessment/evaluation |
24/7Tutoring option - less expensive! | Assist with reporting - provides various ways to compose current learning and goals/next steps |
Revision/editing opportunities for writing tasks | Increase efficiency when composing/responding to e-mails |
Examine varying perspectives | Writing prompt generator |
Assist with problem-solving strategies for social situation - it offers guidance if you ask! | Writing samples and exemplars for various grade levels |
Assistance with formulating different types of writing (expository, functional) | Immediate feedback & automated graded |
Vocabulary builder | Brainstorming tool for projects and personalization |
Reading comprehension tool | Time saving/manage workload |
Increased engagement | Assist with calibration of grading |
Self-directed learning: increase individual inquiry and research abilities | Cost-efficient education assistance support in the classroom |
Vast knowledge platform | Test generation |
Language support for English Language Learners | Project-builder, instructions generator |
Formative writing feedback | Plagiarism detection |
Self-reflection support | Lesson plan |
To test the system, some of those advantages were shared from ChatGPT when asked what the advantages were to implement ChatGPT in the classroom (interesting it can relay its benefit!). I then critically examined the responses it generated, reflected on their application, and decided which ones I felt would work in a typical classroom.
Of course, there is overlap between what the Internet could already do, and what ChatGPT can offer, however, it's the speed and accessibility, without the ads and jargon, that I think it will become a popular tool. For example, as a student or parent, they may ask:
Curious as to how ChatGPT could assist me, the teacher, with assessment, I asked the chatbot to offer feedback on one of my own written paragraphs from my last blog post:
I could ask it for more specific feedback, to check for plagiarism, to form a comment for a student, and ask it to suggest a percentage! This feedback is exactly what I would share with students.
With lesson planning, I asked how to teach my students about fractions. It laid it out step-by-step:
There are advantages of utilizing a chatbot and similar AI tools for the school and school board, too. A lot of these advantages support with efficiency and monotonous tasks when analyzing data, determining attendance, composing letters/e-mails, etc.
School | School Board/ District |
Support overall improved student-outcomes | Tool to collect and analyze data to make informed decisions |
Increased efficiency in the office -attendance reports | Efficiency with communication - newsletter, e-mails, etc. |
Improved communication - e-mail composition, etc. | Cost-effective tool |
Increase collaboration among teachers | Recourse allocation assistance |
Assist with documentation (teacher evaluations, letters of recommendation, etc.) | |
As I continue reflecting on AI in classrooms, specifically chatbots like ChatGPT, I will continue to add to this post! If you think of any advantages to implementing AI in schools, let me know! I will add them, too.
References
Tuomi, I. (2020). The use of artificial intelligence (AI) in education. Research4Committees. https://bit.ly/3lCMotK
Hi, Sarah:
I'm really enjoying reading your blog and thinking about the possibilities of AI. I used to think of myself as an early adopter, but the older that I've gotten, the more I've shifted out of that (which I also think is probably somewhat typical). So I'm not naturally inclined to think about AI and how it could be integrated in my classroom - all the more interesting to read someone's ideas about it!
One thing in your post here that I was curious about - you talk about the potential for ChatGPT to replace a Google search, for example - to provide results without the ads and distractions. I'm thinking about the comment in Frank's article "TED talks…
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