How Can Teachers Be Successful With AI?

Hey, Teachers!

The underlying question is really "why" are we teaching with artificial intelligence (AI)?

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If we can understand "the why" while we strive to embrace AI as a growing set of tools in teaching and learning, we can address how we're going to use AI in K-12 classrooms. How teachers are using AI means not only availability and access of tools but our willingness as teachers to use them.

There is no "one size fits all" when it comes to the integration of digital learning in instruction and assessment. And that integration is highly dependent on equity-based practices, provisions of materials and tools, funding, student-generated interest, and student-centered learning that infuses AI into the mix--successfully. Each teacher in this nation is in a different place and space when we're asking how to teach with AI.

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TECHNOLOGY IN SCHOOLS

How far have we traveled with tech and digital and online learning? We used to ask ourselves how we were going to put a class online, especially at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic when teachers were forced to create online options (Schoology, anyone?). And before that, we used to ask how we were going enter grades on our school district's online system instead of relying on paper-and-pen hard copy grade books. Ease of record-keeping meant more transparency, right? Maybe too much sometimes?

There's something to be said for the teacher being the only one with the "keys" to student grades. That's definitely a thing of the past (and an experience new teachers will likely never know). I've been teaching nearly 30 years, so my days date back to real chalkboards, no computers in the classroom, and yes, paper grade books and carbon copy report cards...I remember an English teacher sharing (what was a novel idea then) her goal of creating a "paperless classroom"...

And what about the rise of "classroom webpages" or "classroom blogs"?

Online instructional programs we've weaved into in-person lesson-planning that led to hybrid models?

Or Kahoot! for game-based learning?

And Smartboards of the 1990s?

The list of "tech tools" is expansive and historically multi-faceted. As teachers, we've been integrating "new technology" to the best of our ability every decade (and I haven't gone nearly so far back as the kind of tech in my elementary school in the 1970s...but that too, rivaled "traditions" of the past that I'm sure my teachers questioned.)

So, is teaching with AI somehow different than using all the tech we've integrated already? 

First, our integration of AI doesn't necessarily mean we're losing control of content, delivery, and authenticity in lesson planning or integrity on performance evals.

But secondly, our integration of AI may mean we have to let some things go to embrace "the new". And we may have to modify aspects of our personal teaching philosophies to embrace AI, build self-efficacy surrounding procedural knowledge, and develop a value for AI in our day-to-day teaching roles.

And truth be told: We may not feel the same about teaching with AI as our neighboring teacher or even our principals who are pushing for bigger and better 21st century teaching and learning "tools and tricks" to make the job easier and help students achieve.

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ChatGPT IN INSTRUCTION

So, how do we do it then? How do we teach with AI? As teachers, we may already be using some AI literacy tools for instruction and assessment. And we know our kids are intentionally using fast "helps" such as Grammarly and ChatGPT. How many PD meetings have you already attended asking you to become familiar with ChatGPT so you can help your students be more productive learners?

ChatGPT can be used for lesson planning, assessment, feedback, and individualized instruction, providing more insights about your students' performance than you may have understood or felt capable of overseeing all on your own. Your students use ChatGPT to form ideas, generate content, look at writing models, and so much more...What other types of AI trainings have you attended? Are your schools already implementing PD trainings using AI? Maybe in your neck of the woods you're also being evaluated through AI.

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TEACHER IDENTITY AND AI

Maybe all this feels nothing short of overwhelming.

What does the recent insurgence of AI really mean for the future of education? For teacher individuality or authenticity? Do we want robots assisting us this way and to this degree?

I must say the implications are a little trickier than other tech innovations of the past. And maybe that's why some of us are feeling apprehensive, concerned, afraid, inexperienced, inadequate, or worried about securing high standards on all fronts of our job duties: instruction, assessment, and professional evaluation, using AI tools and programs.

And we may be asking ourselves: Am I not enough of a teacher to remain sole provider of knowledge and the implementation of that knowledge? 

In 2023, the answer is no, you're not. Because AI has already joined us in the classroom. Whether we want the robot attending an online Zoom meeting in place of a student, whether we believe the personalized AI program for phonics acquisition is better than the "old-fashioned" way of learning to read, or whether we want to communicate to a robot about our classroom performance and professional development, take notes about what the robot told us, and then use them to converse with our human supervisor...AI is here to stay.

As an English teacher, I have mixed feelings about that: from Grammarly to ChatGPT to AI Coach to AI apps for grading...It's all about making our jobs and student learning more efficient and more effective...but at what cost? The business model uses AI to its advantage. Should we do the same without questioning the merits?

I believe there's a fine line to that answer. On one hand, strong teachers move with the times and for the most part, welcome innovation. We learn to integrate the newness to keep the teaching and learning dynamic alive and relevant. On the other hand, we don't want to create a teaching and learning environment that is dependent on AI for survival.

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PROS AND CONS OF USING AI

BENEFITS OF USING AI IN THE CLASSROOM (A Few of the Perks)

1. We're helping students to be competitive in a global economy that will forever use AI (albeit some of those uses are increasingly scary like robot YouTube influencers and the graying area between what's real and fake), but all in all, our students will continue to use AI in college and the workplace, so giving them a boost on that "know-how" makes sense
2. We're helping students to improve academic skills by using AI for feedback and personalized pacing
3. We're showing students that AI can be used to enhance learning, not replace it
4. We're shortening the time it takes to analyze student work by using AI for immediate feedback about student performance

DRAWBACKS OF USING AI IN THE CLASSROOM (A Few of the Downsides)

1. We're worried about the integrity of learning (how much robot assistance is too much, and at what point AI is doing the work for students--and us)
2. We're finding increasing threats of plagiarism, and increased challenges of regulating and/or "catching" that type of cheating
3. We're concerned that AI might be diminishing opportunities for students to learn content in meaningful ways, making classes less rigorous, memorable, or substantive
4. We feel cheated of the opportunity to be expert at our field, possibly concerned that our administrators don't trust us enough to fully handle and provide that individualized feedback, or maintain a level of personal introspection and reflection about job performance without the robot telling us where to go, what to change, and possibly, what to think

All very real concerns.

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WILL AI REPLACE TEACHERS?

It really comes down to this. AI is a resource. It's revolutionary but could never replace teachers--you and me. Teachers remain in charge of learning outcomes. We always will. To answer how do I teach with AI, we need to address (a) what type of AI, and (b) how the AI is an enhancement, not a replacement of our efforts as classroom teachers. We also need to ask ourselves how we're going to monitor students and put safeguards in place to ensure that robots don't replace learning--or people.

Culturally and globally, we want convenience. AI infiltrates most areas of living the experience: cars, phones, home gadgets, social media, the workplace, and now more than ever: education.

Using AI tools and programs is about our mindset as K-12 teachers. My recommendation to classroom teachers is to be willing to let "the way it was always done" fade, but also to be willing to set boundaries about how to teach with AI so you remain in the driver's seat.

At the end of the day, you're still the teacher. Let students and supervisors know that. No one and nothing can replace your human voice, gentle direction, intuition, or knowledge. Sure, the robots can offer well-coined phrases and believable, "smart" interpretations. They may even make your job a little smoother and more productive. And they're streamlining the pedagogical roadmap. 

But robots will never have hearts. And they don't have last names or room numbers. And they most certainly can't receive or take credit for those much-needed THANK YOU cards or emails at the end of a demanding school year. You will always be the heartbeat of a successful group of kids.

(And in case you were wondering, I wrote this blog post without the use of AI...) 

Thank you for reading! 

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