Over the past few weeks, I've had enlightening conversations with educators and administrators about AI's reach in their schools. While the recent Walton Foundation report confirms that AI largely remains a teacher tool, I'm seeing a promising trend where thoughtful educators are initially putting AI into students hands in supervised settings.
Take, for example, a middle school humanities teacher I spoke with who leveraged SchoolAI and MagicSchool to create spaces where students could practice writing skills under his supervision, receiving feedback from an AI tutor. What struck him most wasn't just the AI's ability to help students overcome writer's block, but the insights he gained from observing the back-and-forth between students and the AI. "I can see what their thinking looks like, through the questions and answers they're providing the AI," he marveled. “The insights into their thought processes are amazing."
Similarly, a high school English teacher shared how he was "blown away" by the dialogue between his students and AI during a simulated discussion with Holden Caulfied, the protagonist in The Catcher in the Rye. “I saw so many examples of different types of learning,” he told me “and I saw them develop an understanding of what this chatbot could and could not do.” Again, this was a monitored interaction that provided invaluable insights into students' thinking and writing processes.
These examples speak to a truth we all know: the more we understand how students think, the better teachers we can be. AI is opening up unprecedented opportunities for students to reveal their thought processes, whether the conversations are with an AI chatbots, a dialogue with an image generator (to get just the image a student wants), a simulated concversation with a historical figure, or an exchange over a difficult math concept.
A new level of human-tech interaction and engagement
While the concept of making student thinking visible with technology isn't new – tools like Nearpod and Formative have been around for years – AI brings a whole new level of human-tech interaction and engagement to the table. For instance:
AI chatbots can engage in extended, multi-turn conversations on complex topics.
AI can adjust its responses based on the student's input, revealing how students react to different explanations or approaches.
AI’s multifaceted interactions can be through text, voice, audio, and even the interpretation of images.
AI’s probing capabilities include the ability to ask follow-up questions or request clarifications.
AI can easily switch between subjects and make multi-disciplinary connections.
Advanced AI is emerging with sentiment analysis that could provide insights into students' emotional states during learning.
The depth and breadth of these multifaceted conversations offer educators a window into student understanding, misconceptions, and learning strategies that was previously unavailable.
I am excited to announce that I will be releasing my new book AI Tools & Uses: A Practical Guide for Teachers at the end of the month! The book is full of top tools, implementation strategies, spotlights, and case studies to help teachers integrate artificial intellignce into their instructional practices.
All subscribers to this newsletter will receive a free sample of the book, including three chapters! Encourage your colleagues to sign up for this newsletter before June 30, so they too can receive a free sample!
That said, if we’re to harness this potential, we need to prepare our students. The educators I spoke to do just that. Here are a few steps they take:
1. Demystify the technology: They provide students a fundamental understanding of what AI is, how it's built and "trained," and how it differs from human intelligence. They use hands-on activities to make these concepts concrete.
2. Encourage critical thinking: They push students to investigate AI outputs. How might the dataset or model be biased? Where should we be skeptical of AI's "opinions"? They teach them to be savvy information consumers and to cross-reference sources.
3. Model constructive dialogue: They show students that they are the "lead learner" in the classroom, by prompting AI to initiate, develop, and sustain a fruitful conversation. This modeling is important for students to understand how to engage meaningfully with AI.
4. Provide guided practice: They give students supported opportunities to use AI for their own learning. They discuss with students ways to phrase prompts, interpret outputs, and integrate AI into their learning workflows.
Consider ways to structure a productive AI dialogue
To help students further, consider ways to structure a productive AI dialogue to understand a difficult concept, or problem.
For example, you can encourage students to:
Start with a simple explanation at their grade level
Request analogies and metaphors that will help them understand and remember concepts
Ask for real-world applications to make concepts more relatable
Break down problem-solving steps so students can better understand the process
Generate practice problems so students can sharpen their understanding
Seek tips to avoid common pitfalls that students encounter
Self-assess understanding
Ask clarifying questions
Check sources
This structured dialogue not only helps students learn the material but also provides teachers with valuable information about students' understanding, misconceptions, and learning strategies.
Of course, any approach with AI comes with challenges. Be mindful of privacy concerns, the potential for AI to perpetuate biases, and the need to adhere to school policies and regulations.
Finally, if more teachers start to integrate AI converstions with students, the conversation in our schools might switch from AI as a teaching tool, to AI as a learning tool.
AI Tools & News
GPT Customizer - learn how to customize your GPT
Veo - Google DeepMind video generator
GENTYPE - make an alphabet out of anything
Getting the Most Out of Free AI Tools - TCEA
Which Teachers Are More Likely to Use AI Chatbots - EdWeek
AI Might Save Teachers Time. But What Is the Cost? - EdSurge
Social Media Should Come With a Warning, Says U.S. Surgeon General - EdWeek
Apple Just Completely Wrecked Grammarly with Apple Intelligence - Jano le Roux
Looking forward to the book!