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Maybe it’s just me, but it feels as though AI is starting to take over the world. To be clear, I don’t mean this in an “evil robots” sort of way. Rather, in a short amount of time, AI has become widely integrated into almost every area of our lives. Programs like ChatGPT and Dall-E are becoming mainstays in office environments. Companies are racing to see how AI can give them an edge in the competitive marketplace. Then there is the world of education, where teachers like me are watching AI completely change the way students learn.
I won’t minimize the risks. Already we’re seeing students use AI to plagiarize or cheat on their assignments. Learning how to prevent abuse of AI will be an issue of serious concern moving forward. However, as an educator, I also believe that when AI is used correctly, it can be a positive force for good in our classrooms. For schools to effectively engage with this new technology, teachers must first learn how to implement these tools into our classrooms in ways that foster student growth and show them that AI is meant to complement their learning journey.
Here are just a few simple strategies teachers can implement to unleash student curiosity, creativity, and critical thinking using the power of AI.
Creativity
- Novel Name Tags: Nothing is more important than building a positive classroom community at the beginning of the school year. Have students submit some personal information into a survey (such as their favorite food, animal, or school subject). Then use an image generator to create customized name tags for each student. Hang them around the room and challenge students to guess which name picture belongs to which student. It’s a great way to facilitate conversations and encourage student collaboration.
- Tandem Tales: Have students begin writing a story. Then, after a few paragraphs, have a program like ChatGPT fill in the next paragraph. Once it has supplied the content, have students take over again and continue the story. Students should repeat this back-and-forth until the story is over. This strategy is useful for sparking student creativity while engaging with AI.
- Choose Your Own AI-dventure: In the spirit of Choose Your Own Adventure Books, use AI to create a story that is left on a cliffhanger. You can even design the story around a subject that your students are studying, such as hurricanes, animal habitats, or an era of history. Working with AI, have students navigate through the narrative, applying the information they have gathered while also reacting to the AI’s response.
Curiosity
- Curiosity Prompts: Ask an AI program like ChatGPT to give you learning prompts designed for your grade level and focused on common classroom topics. Use these curiosity prompts as a kind of, “question of the day.” Pose them to students at the beginning of class or adjust them depending on what subject you’ll be teaching on that day. It’s a useful strategy for cutting down on those smaller lesson tasks.
- Digital BreAIkout Rooms: Anyone who has ever attempted to create a digital breakout room knows how tedious they can be, but programs like ChatGPT can help streamline the process. Use AI to brainstorm ideas for the breakout room and aggregate options depending on what you want your students to learn and accomplish. Simply select the ones you like best and bring them all together using a template that can be found on an outside website. This allows teachers to maximize student curiosity without exhausting their time and energy.
- Scavenger Hunt and Curiosity Quest: A fun way to keep kids curious and learning is to get them moving. Use AI to create a scavenger hunt that is math based. Using specific prompts, an AI program can help teachers hide clues in places that relate to the day’s lesson or to a certain principle that students need to learn. This will help students connect with the material while also staying actively engaged.
Critical Thinking
- Alternative Perspectives: Each of our students comes to the classroom with different experiences and perspectives to share. However, depending on your location and the type of school you’re in, it’s possible that most of the classroom will have a shared mindset. In cases like these, AI can serve as an alternative perspective for constructive debate. If most of the classroom agrees on a specific idea (such as having less homework), have AI provide a different opinion. Then, challenge students to engage with its arguments!
- Beat ChatGPT: Have ChatGPT do the work that students will be doing. Then, see if your class can produce something even better! Once students have finalized their work, bring in an impartial judge, like the principal or the school librarian, to determine which submission was best. Encourage students to think about how they can improve their work and distinguish it from the AI product.
- RAInk the Writing: What ifour students could engage with the perspective of something that cannot talk? Use AI to give voice to inanimate objects or scientific processes (such as photosynthesis, the planet Mars, etc.) Not only does this encourage students to be curious, but it also pushes them consider common information and ideas for a different angle.
Teachers must accept that there’s no putting the AI genie back in the bottle. We need to prepare ourselves and our students for a future where AI is the norm. Still, I believe there is reason to be hopeful. The invention of the calculator didn’t stop humans from becoming mathematicians. AI won’t stop students from learning.
Let’s equip our students with the tools they need to thrive in this new digital age and ensure that AI only serves to enhance their natural curiosity, creativity, and critical thinking skills.
