3 tips for using AI tools in the classroom

We're often asked variations on one basic question: “How can I use AI tools like ChatGPT to enhance my teaching?” It was a conversation in the staffroom one lunchtime on this very topic that inspired us to create Teaching AI, and the discussion continues to rage across the internet and in schools around the world. Is AI a menace that will destroy students' critical faculties? Or is it the single most useful tool that educators have been given since the dawn of the computer age (and possibly even longer)?

At Teaching AI, we believe that the opportunities presented by AI for teachers outweigh the benefits. Here are 5 of our top tips for using ChatGPT and other AI tools in the classroom:

1) Be specific!

You would never ask a colleague to plan a lesson without giving them information about the class and the course. Why would you do that to ChatGPT?

When asking for a lesson plan or a lesson resource, consider what information you would need to effectively plan a high quality lesson. Consider the students' abilities and needs, which exam board or specification you're teaching to, and the age of the class. Decide whether any students have specific or additional needs that must be taken into account. Provide a clear set of learning objectives if possible.

The Teaching AI lesson planner allows you to input all of this information quickly and easily, so that you don't need to re-write it all every time. (We got sick and tired of having to type it all out repeatedly!)

2) Don't expect AI to be magic!

Like any technology, tools like ChatGPT have limitations. Just like they can't plan a high quality lesson without information about what you need, they won't necessarily get it right the first time. It takes time to learn how to ask the right questions, in the right format, to get exactly what you want.

We've made it as quick and easy as possible to revise lesson resources once they have been created by allowing you to upload existing resources, and by adding the 'Tweak' button so you can request minor changes to a created resource.

3) Don't keep it all to yourself!

When I first started using Teaching AI to create lesson resources, my wife told me to keep it to myself: “Don't tell them how you're doing all this work so quickly,” she said, after I had created a set of success criteria for 9 different skills assessments in under 20 minutes. “Just let them think you're amazing!”

When we think we have an edge over our peers, it can be tempting to keep it to ourselves. But we're firm believers that the potential of AI in schools deserves to be shared: It has the power to transform the lives of teachers and students around the world. That's why we have made our most popular.lesson resource types totally free to use. It's also why we appreciate our Paid Tier members so much: They allow us to keep the basic lesson planner free for everyone. Last week, we had visitors from over 70 countries: Teachers all over the world are using Teaching AI to enhance their lessons and save time, and that's a wonderful thing.

We hope you have found this useful. Please do try the lesson planner if you haven't already. And keep an eye out for more tips on using AI tools! Up next: What are the lesson resource types that AI tools are best at creating?