This is one of the hotly debated and contentious topics present in education as of late. Thus, this was in turn one of the reasons I was most excited for this class as a whole. After spending A semester observing different teachers’ classrooms and how they either promote or dissuade students from using AI, I want to talk about one way we should look at it’s place in education and how we should go about working with, not around it.
Students are going to continue to use AI in many many ways, this is not going to be stopped. The question remains then, is how do we go about educating students in using it correctly, and not harming their own education in the process.
To go about this, one stance we could take is showing them the positives of using it. The ability to create worksheets and review guides for themselves and present new concepts and ideas for various projects they have is incredibly useful. Even for the simple purpose of overcoming writer’s block and coming up with a new idea that they can, in their own thinking, extrapolate out from is very powerful and beneficial. However, at the same time, we should caution them against using it to plagiarize, not only for the sake of getting caught cheating, but their own education moving forward.
To sum this all up however, I believe that the best way we should treat these technologies in the classroom and the way they should be handled around students is not one of restriction or ignorance through lack of teaching. It is instead we should attempt to educate them into using it properly, and for their own benefit.
Image taken from: https://apuedge.com/artificial-intelligence-in-education-where-are-the-laws/
Continuing on from my previous post on the uses of Generative AI for students, I want to swing more towards the various ways educators can leverage Gen AI to plan their classes, create materials, the finish off with some precautions to take when using these tools.
Beginning with using GenAI to create plans and lessons, I’m going to preface with stating that this should be used solely as a supplement to whatever other methods and resources one uses to plan, and must then be triple checked and cross-referenced. That being said however, GenAI can be extremely powerful in creating unit and lesson plans, and can even be specialized into a particular provinces curriculum. As an example, here is a response to a prompt I provided, asking it to create a lesson plan for a grade 10 science class on the conservation of mass.
Here’s the output for the prompt: “Create a grade 10 lesson plan using the BC curriculum for a science 10 class on the conservation of mass”:
As we can see, it is actually surprisingly efficient and effective at creating these resources. But now lets talk about the precautions educators must take when using these resources:
First, and probably most obvious, comes the issue of incorrect information. These large language models are notorious for providing misleading or downright factually incorrect information, thus it is super important that one cross references the information it provides with known sources, lest you end up giving misleading lessons to your students.
Second, the overuse of these AI can be detrimental to your overall ability as an educator. Let me explain what I mean: Say you have a class of which you have been making the lessons by hand for multiple months, then suddenly shift to AI-generating your lessons, there will certainly be some discrepancies in the quality and content. Thus, it may create jarring transitions and you may not be able to create as cohesive or as encompassing of a unit plan.
Overall however, it can be incredibly useful of a resource for create such lesson plans, and even more useful in creating resources such as quizzes, sheetwork and the like. Moreover, it can be great for generating new ideas and overcoming writer’s block.
Canva is an extremely effective and useful tool that can be used to create compelling displays and infographics. The a large of students are visual learners, and as such the teaching materials presented in class should coincide with that to enhance the learning environment.
This also makes lessons more engaging and encourages students to think about concepts in a variety of ways, which leads to higher material retention. Visual aids can be used to further emphasize key concepts taught in class, and are an excellent way for students to connect what they are taught with concrete examples. Canva is accessible also makes it a exceptional teaching tool, as it has a user-friendly interface and is free to use.
There are many other such programs that facilitate the use of these visual aids, however Canva sticks out as one of the most easy to use and access, for both students and teachers alike. From the teachers perspective, Canva can be used to quickly layout educational material for the students to digest.
As an example, I’ll present a brochure I made recently promoting outdoor learning in the classroom, and highlight some of the many features Canva had available to make this quick and easy to produce.
The first thing I’d like to point out in what made this so easy to produce is that of the multitude of present formats Canva offers. Because of this, it is super quick and easy to select what that is near enough to what you as a teacher want to use, then quickly adapt it to fit your lesson:
Following this, the editing and insertion of images, gifs or other forms of education media is made very easy through their use of easy to access tools, which make this very intuitive, including a vast selection of elements, or the option to include your own, which can be incredibly helpful incredibly educational materials for your students:
Generative AI has crashed its way into almost every aspect of our digital lives, especially for students of almost every level. The question most commonly asked as a result of this is its place in leaning environments and if students should be using it, and if so, how best they should leverage it.
It’ an obvious truth that it is not going away, students will continue to use it for school purposes, so how should we instruct them to use it best?
Keeping aside obvious misuses of it (cheating, plagiarism), one of the best uses students can leverage is using these large language models for research and studying methods to help further their education.
Starting with Research, at the most rudimentary level, students can ask LLMs to give and overview of a concept or topic of which they want to know. Here’s an example based around natural selection:
Following this, should they wish to know more on a given topic, they can then follow up with more in depth questions, even relating to what the teacher has assigned:
Finally, if they are say to want to review for particular test, quiz or other form of assessment, they can ask LLMs such as ChatGPT to create worksheets, quizzes and review sheets to solidify their knowledge and understanding of the topic, the following text was generated using the input: “Make a quick review sheet for me concerning this topic”:
Quick Review Sheet: Natural Selection and Inheritance
Natural Selection
Definition: The process where organisms with traits better suited to their environment survive and reproduce more successfully.
Key Steps:
Variation: Differences in traits among individuals in a population.
Survival & Reproduction: Traits that improve survival chances lead to more offspring.
Inheritance: Advantageous traits are passed to the next generation.
Adaptation: Over generations, populations become better adapted to their environment.
Inheritance
Definition: The passing of genetic information (genes) from parents to offspring.
Key Concepts:
Genes: Units of inheritance made of DNA, found on chromosomes.
Chromosomes: Structures that organize DNA; humans have 23 pairs.
Dominant Traits: Only one copy of the gene is needed to show the trait (e.g., brown eyes).
Recessive Traits: Two copies of the gene are needed to show the trait (e.g., blue eyes).
Genotype: Genetic makeup of an organism (e.g., BB, Bb, bb).
Phenotype: Physical expression of the genotype (e.g., brown eyes, blue eyes).
Examples of Natural Selection
Peppered Moths: Dark-colored moths became more common during the Industrial Revolution because they blended better with soot-covered trees, avoiding predators.
Antibiotic Resistance: Bacteria with resistance genes survive antibiotics and reproduce, leading to resistant populations.
Key Vocabulary
Adaptation: A trait that helps an organism survive and reproduce.
Selection Pressure: Environmental factors that influence which traits are advantageous.
Mutation: Random changes in DNA that create variation.
Fitness: An organism’s ability to survive and reproduce.
Quick Tip
Remember the phrase “VSRIA”:
Variation
Survival
Reproduction
Inheritance
Adaptation
(End of ChatGPT generated response)
It is important to note that teaching students the best ways to use these is critical. Without the proper knowledge, it is all too easy for them to become over reliant on these models or not be able to cross reference their information, potentially leading to misunderstandings on a topic. The final note of “VSRIA” is potentially an example of this, as it appears to be entirely fabricated for this response and lacks any sort of grounding to real terms which would make it an easy acronym for students to recall.
All prompts and responses shown were input into ChatGPT: https://chatgpt.com/
This week we covered a bit on the process of digital curation. Digital curation is the process in which and individual or organization actively seeks out sources of information and other digital resources across the internet. The aspect of this I want to focus on is that of how teachers can use this to help enhance their lessons.
The internet has a vast array of resources for teachers to draw their lessons and activities from. But because of the vast nature of the internet, these resources need to be properly vetted to ensure they are both accurate and effective in conveying what a teacher wants to convey throughout their lessons.
Because of this, teachers wanting to sift through these resources must be able to appraise them correctly, something noted in the process of digital curation. So by cross referencing them to sources that have proven value and/or effectiveness, one can use this to help kickstart this process.
Image taken from: https://www.dcc.ac.uk/about/digital-curation
The use of multiple forms of media types throughout education can help students engage better with the lesson. Not only can this be used for the purpose of enhancing a lesson, but multimedia theory can also help students that may struggle to engage with certain media types.
Carrying on along this train of thought, by expanding our fidelity into more forms of media during our lessons, students will have more ways of engaging with them. This could take many forms, be it oral, visual, tactile or something else entirely.
Some examples we could use for this would be lessons that incorporate videos alongside the actual lessons, or even potentially more interactive forms of media. A good example of this could be formats such as Minecraft: Education Edition, or other such software designed for these purposes.
Image taken from: https://www.digitallearninginstitute.com/blog/mayers-principles-multimedia-learning
This day’s topic continued along the theme of using technology to enhance education through the use of inquiry-based education. Our speaker, Jeff Hopkins, founded the Pacific School of Innovation and Inquiry base on this principle. Through the use of a student’s discovery of the world with the use of inquiry, the ideal is that they receive a more holistic and sophisticated education that appeals to their needs and interests.
Many of the technologies used within this institute revolve around helping these students achieve their goals in their pursuit of educations. As these constantly vary, so too must the technologies and the knowledge of how to leverage them. Because of this, the educators working with these technologies and students’ need, ensuring that they must be incredibly adaptable in their work and teaching.
Image taken from: https://www.slideserve.com/kinsey/the-pacific-school-of-innovation-and-inquiry-powerpoint-ppt-presentation
Reflecting back on the types of inquiry-based education brought up by Trevor Mackenzie, I find myself thinking that many of these types drastically depend on the student/students ways of learning. The whole one-size-fits-all approach obviously does not work for inquiry based project as they depend on the the learners’ levels and interest.
This same logic also applies to the approach an educator takes to inquiry based education however, much the same way as choosing a project for a project-based approach does. Some students may get a lot out of a project-based approach, while others may struggle with drive and thus will get less out of this. So, then the question remains, is it feasible to have an educator run not just a singular approach for inquiry based education, but multiple cocnurrently for each student to what benefits the best?
Image taken from: https://cdn.classpoint.io/wp-content/uploads/7-Types-of-Inquiry-Based-Learning-Infographic.png
The usage of phones in classrooms has always been and remains a highly controversial issue. Even with the recent province-wide ban of these devices, they still remain prevalent as a major source of distraction in the classroom. This seems to come down to a lack of consistency in these rules being upheld, enforced and explained in most classrooms. As it seems the actual application of this ban falls almost entirely on the teacher, it begs the question of what the right application is, if there even is one.
On one hand, teachers risk significantly decreasing their student’s ability to concentrate, retain information and succeed in their class by allowing phones. This also applies between classes as from my observation I found that a singular teacher that was non-proactive at enforcing this rules lead to the standard being set for that student, causing them to lose focus in other classes as well. However, the argument could be made that learning to manage ones time and attention is an important skill to develop and that learning this while still having access to their phone may be a benefit.
Image Taken From: https://www.dawsoncollege.qc.ca/academic-matters/articles/using-students-personal-mobile-devices-in-class/
Open Education provides a way for teachers to easily share, knowledge, resources and sources between themselves for the betterment of education as a whole. Through this, especially at a global level, knowledge can be more easily shared between educators which in turn can lead to advancements in the field as methods that work for teaching can quickly disseminate across the globe.
Open education in theory also provides a safeguard against monopolies or corporate interests pervading classroom environments. Without the pressure to pay for monetized resources, teachers can more easily teach exactly what is required/wanted, without the worry of how much the resources to do so would cost.
Image taken from: https://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/chapter/oer/, Gulia Forsyth, 2012
