I have share a lot about the potential use of Artificial Intelligence in K-12 education, and you can see many related “Best” lists, along with two animated videos we did with Education Week on the topic, here.

The hype is really getting out of control:

I believe Artificial Intelligence can be a useful element of a teacher’s toolbox, but it won’t be a panacea, nor will it be a huge part of most teacher’s classrooms.

WHAT IT WILL DO IN K-12 EDUCATION

1. Make it a lot easier for teachers to create very targeted materials for lessons.  It’s very easy to use AI to create the “same” text for different lexile levels, data sets for inductive learning, good-and-bad examples to illustrate specific concepts – no more searching online or starting from scratch.

2. Push us teachers to re-evaluate our writing assignments to make them ChatGPT-“resistant.”  Here are some ideas to do just that.  I think that’s probably a positive impact, since I (and suspect many other teachers) often get stuck in a rut of doing the same thing year-after-year.  A push for change can’t hurt.

3. Recognize that despite those lessons, some students may still try to use AI inappropriately, so we need to create preventative measures.  My favorite is having students handwrite a writing assessment three different times a year so I can become familiar with their writing and recognize if assignments have been written with AI.  There are other strategies, including requiring that students use graphic organizers for pre-writing.

4. Be a Godsend for us teachers of high school seniors who are asked to write twenty-plus letters of recommendation each year. See CHATGPT IS A STUDENT LETTER OF RECOMMENDATION MIRACLE!

5. Require many of us to incorporate units to teach about AI, including its biases and responsible used.  See here for some of the lessons I’ve done.  That will also probably include having to include a lesson or two where students actually have to use AI responsibly – here are some ideas for those lessons.

6. Create amazing opportunities for the relatively small number of intrinsically  motivated super high achievers some of us have in our classrooms.  For them, it may very well  be similar to having their own personal tutor.

7. Offer new opportunities for English Language Learners and others who are learning new languages.  In my ELL classes, I use large numbers of peer tutors to provide students personal feedback.  There is no question, in my mind at least (and in others), that the human connection is a key reason for why students attend school.  However, in classes that don’t utilize peer tutors, having students periodically use an online tool for pronunciation, grammar, listening and/or writing practice could be a good activity (perhaps as a warm-up?).  More importantly, for those who are motivated, having access to those tools at home could be a game-changer.

WHAT IT WILL NOT DO IN K-12 EDUCATION

1. It will not “revolutionize” schooling, and you can read people who are much more articulate than me explain why here.

2. Though I think some students can (and will) probably use AI to get feedback on their work before submitting it to teachers, I think it’s unlikely that AI will replace actual teacher-created assessment.  None of us probably enjoy the hours it takes to review student work, but what we see in it informs what what we teach, and our students also deserve a real human reviewing it.  Of course, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t utilize automatic grading of multiple choice quizzes, as long as we carefully review the results.

3. Unlike what Bill Gates thinks, AI will not “be like a great high school teacher.” There are many reasons why this won’t be the case, including it being unable to build relationships and its inability to apply asset-based instruction  (also see The Best Posts On Looking At Our Students Through The Lens Of Assets & Not Deficits).

Let me know what you think, and I might be missing!