This week, we addressed the hottest topic in the technology world today- AI. Specifically, generative AI such as ChatGPT, which I am quite familiar with. Last year, when ChatGPT was first released and quickly gained popularity, I was too afraid to look into it. There was just something so creepy about AI, that I honestly thought that this would be the beginning of the robot apocalypse. However, a friend finally convinced me to experiment with it and I was swept into the AI world and now I believe that it could save my generation of educators.
The education world is currently extremely unappealing. Teachers are overworked, underpaid, and not listened to by our governments. Thus, so many are quitting early on due to burnout. My social media is often flooded with teachers explaining why they just cannot do it anymore. Although AI cannot change the amount we are paid or make our premiers listen to us, it can help cut down the amount of hours spent on work. Teachers are expected to spend hours outside of school hours planning lessons and grading assignments, which is a recipe for early burnout. ChatGPT can create lesson plans and rubrics in a matter of seconds, allowing teachers to spend more time with their families or on hobbies- the things that keep us going. Even if what AI produces is not exactly what you are lo0oking for, it is still a start.
For example, my favourite book is The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton and it also happens to be one of the top books read in seventh-grade classrooms. If I wanted to introduce my students to the novel and did not want to spend the time lesson planning I could simply prompt ChatGPT with something along the lines of “write me an introduction lesson for seventh grades students about to read The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton” and it would produce something like this:
With this, I can take what I find helpful to use or I could continue to prompt ChatGPT until I get something I loke or inspires me.
Furthermore, once my students have finished the novel, if I assign them a project of redesigning the book cover and I have no rubric, I can ask ChatGPT.
I was able to complete all of this in a matter of minutes! I personally plan to use AI as a tool to help me prevent burnout and save time. I think you should consider it too.
See you all next week!
