“Gallup conducted a survey of 12,319 U.S. full-time employees, including 1,263 K-12 teachers to study workplace stress and burnout. In 2020, 36% of K-12 teachers reported that they very often or always feel burned out at work compared to 28% of other industries’ workers. This gap increased to 14% in 2022 to 44% and 30%, respectively.” – Devlin Peck
Did you read the quote above? Maybe read it a second time. The most recent Gallup survey found that 44% of teachers feel burned out “very often or always.” That is a staggering statistic, not to mention, upsetting to someone who is spending a great deal of time and effort on becoming a teacher. This type of information makes it abundantly clear that teachers need to find and utilize tools/resources to help decrease their workload. Could AI be the answer? Maybe part of the answer?
This week in class we explored a few popular AI tools that are now available for teachers (posted below), and I was blown away with what’s out there. I was already familiar with ChatGPT, Quizlet, and Grammarly, but the rest were new to me. I spent some time investigating another AI website called, Magic School.
Magic School was created BY educators (teachers and principals) FOR educators. The founders say this about why they created Magic School, “We’re here to help lighten the load, so teachers can save their energy for where they shine best—in the classroom, in front of students… We believe teachers are irreplaceable. Teachers are the experts, and the best teaching happens as an exchange between people. That’s why our tools help free up time and energy for teachers to work directly with students and families.” I thought about this statement for a while, but still felt unsure if AI was “cheating” or the lazy way. So, I listened to a couple of TED Talks in my car (“How AI Could Save (Not Destroy) Education” by Sal Khan and “Cheating or Learning? Walking the AI tightrope in education” by Erik Winerö) and concluded that it would be foolish for people to not use AI in this day-and-age. What’s the old proverb, “Work smarter, not harder.” AI gives educators an opportunity to do just that. Now, let’s be clear. I agree full heartedly with the founders of Magic School that nothing can replace a good teacher. Nothing. But AI isn’t going to replace a teacher; it’s going to be a tool to help a teacher prepare lessons, create assessment tools, formulate study options, and generate optional unit plans. It’s going to give teachers a jumping off point. Teachers can then use their own creativity and flare to customize each idea to fit their own pedagogy and class. It’s a brilliant tool that, I believe, can dramatically help reduce the workload for teachers.
Below is a screenshot of the prompts provided when preparing a lesson plan. Clearly the founders wanted to ensure that each lesson meets curricular standards and provides opportunities for you to specify exactly which standards (BC, Ontario, TEKS, etc.) apply to you.
You can even use Magic School to generate a song that you can sing with your students to help them learn a new concept. Songs can be a great way to help students remember new concepts. In a previous post, I shared how a Grade 1/2 teacher used Heidi Songs to help her students learn to spell “tricky” words (ie: what, walk, said, etc.). Then yesterday, my Assessment teacher shared an original song that she taught her Grade 10 students that day about a chemistry concept. I love that Magic School can help me create a catchy little song to help my students learn new concepts. I’m excited to use this.
There are many benefits of using AI for educators, and I look forward to using it in my future classroom to improve the learning opportunities for my students. Teachers must be aware of the ethical challenges that come with using AI. Open Mind BBVA shared this poster outlining some of these issues:
My final thoughts…
AI isn’t going anywhere; it’s here to stay. The students I am going to teach will grow up using AI on a daily basis. It is time fore educators to “get on board” and see it for what it is – a great tool to save time and create better learning opportunities for our students. Let’s work smarter, not harder.
What do you think? Are you using AI in your classroom? Would you like to? Let me know…