While there鈥檚 lots of chatter that artificial intelligence is going to transform K-12 education, many teachers still haven鈥檛 jumped on board because they don鈥檛 know how to use AI-powered tools or don鈥檛 understand how the technology works.
That鈥檚 according to recent survey data of teachers by the EdWeek Research Center. But that survey also found that nearly a third of teachers say they plan to start using AI-powered tech in the classroom either this year or in the future.
But how should teachers get started? Getting over that initial hump can be hard, especially when there are so many demands on teachers鈥� time; limited鈥攊f any鈥�formal professional development or guidance on the topic; and unclear payoff for any time teachers do invest in getting familiar with AI.
Whether feeling skeptical of the technology, overwhelmed, or just unsure of how to begin, here are three tips teachers shared at SXSWEDU on how to get started.
Start when school stops
Wait until you have a break from work鈥攁 long holiday or the summer break鈥� to start trying to figure out how to use ChatGPT or the AI tools available in your district, recommends Kelly Gibson, a high school English language arts teacher in the Rogue River Schools in Oregon.
鈥淒o not add it to your mental load right now,鈥� she said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 such a big thing to wrap your head around it. Wait until spring break, summer, and you鈥檙e rested.鈥�
Gibson, who frequently shares her insights about where she has a large following, said she first learned about ChatGPT over Thanksgiving break in 2022. After an initial panic over how she would ever assign essays again, she gave herself the time to start experimenting with the technology. That allowed her to familiarize herself with it and spark ideas about how she could use it in her classes, she said.
Play first, teach later
Instead of jumping in and using ChatGPT to create a grading rubric, try playing around with the technology and using it for non-education-related purposes first, suggests Erika Sandstr枚m, a middle school digital media teacher and digital learning coach at Peabody Public Schools in Massachusetts.
鈥淭o get a teacher to open their mind up, give them a small win, usually not related to school,鈥� said Sandstr枚m, who is also known as the 鈥淕reen Screen Gal鈥� to her social media following.
For example, tell ChatGPT what food is in the refrigerator and ask it to craft recipes using that food, she said, or ask it to plan a weekend getaway.
Gibson suggested using a generative AI image generator (like Midjourney or DALL-E) to create pictures of the characters in books, using details from the book in the prompts and tweaking them until the picture matches what the reader imagined from reading the text. (This is also an exercise she uses with her 12th grade English students.)
鈥淓ven that just takes a little edge off,鈥� said Gibson. 鈥淯nderstand how to open it and put information into it.鈥�
Try AI as a personal assistant
There are a lot of ways AI-powered tools can be used to teach students, and there are new AI-powered education tools entering the market every day.
For skeptical educators, it鈥檚 helpful to see how AI can make their lives easier鈥攆or instance, by releasing them from some of the heavy workloads they are experiencing, said Gibson.
(Forty-six percent of teachers said in the EdWeek Research Center survey they aren鈥檛 using AI in the classroom, yet, because they have other priorities.)
AI tools such as ChatGPT can help teachers with a lot of administrative tasks, whether it鈥檚 composing a diplomatic email to an angry parent to developing a list of topics students need some background knowledge about before tackling a new novel in their English class.
鈥淚 very much hope that as educators, as much as we are struggling to be everything to our students, I hope we allow ourselves [to use] this tool to feel a bit saner,鈥� Gibson said.
