How AI helps me become a better teacher

​How can AI be a supportive tool for teachers? Find out with Martin Ridley.

If I say teaching today is a lot harder than it used to be, does this win you over and encourage you to read my article? Perhaps. But what I’ve found out is that teaching is a tough job, has always been a tough job and we get out of it what we put in. I’ve taught for a long time now but have always looked for ways to save time and to be a better teacher. And my decision is that AI is, right now, a great step forward.

In this article, I’d like to describe how colleagues and I use AI – predominantly ChatGPT – to save time and to add to creativity.

Unexpected indifference

Recently, I needed to create a variety of generic worksheets for Years 9, 10 and 11. With classes getting combined for cover purposes, the work needed to be highly engaging within the confines of two A4 pages – a challenge I didn’t particularly like.

ChatGPT provided the foundation I needed in seconds. I simply created a scenario for a 200-word reading comprehension, instructed the AI to use language suitable for a 13-year-old, and generated 30 questions (including multiple-choice) catering to a range of abilities.

Watching the text unfold felt like forbidden magic and akin to finding free TES Resources that you actually want to use. As I trimmed a third of the questions, I generated more on the fly and I made a diverse array of tasks which offered stretch and challenge to students. I managed to create six worksheets in an hour and it was a mesmerising glimpse into the potential of this new tool.

The importance of critical thinking cannot be underestimated. Delivering what’s required and having confidence in the details demands precision and that’s what my experience and training are for.

However, I was unprepared for the limited reactions from students when I demonstrated what I had created. Only a few seemed impressed, while most were indifferent, which surprised me because I expected students to be more engaged with this new technology. Interest grew slightly when I explained how ‘some people’ might use it for cheating, but that proofreading and learning in the process meant it wasn’t cheating. By the way, this apprehension is shared by some colleagues who fear students will submit AI-generated work as their own. However, it felt like a slow start with students and I wondered if they got stuck on how it works more than their need for it.

I think what lies behind AI is indeed mystifying, even after we understand the general idea. Although most people might not understand how AI works, its ability to save time and deliver decent results is what matters to me. ​

The Netflix docudrama “The Social Dilemma” highlights reasons to be sceptical of social media (a must-watch if you have children or wonder about the addictive nature of social media), but AI appears as social media with a friendlier interface. While I have a basic understanding, I read that even AI engineers are still grasping its intricacies. I’m not worried about a dystopian future where data is weaponized against us; I’m focused on improving my job performance. The machine learning that tailors results for me is hopefully benign, and the new, friendlier voices in ChatGPT 4.0 don’t feel like harbingers of a takeover. If students use AI more for learning as a result, that’s fantastic.

I recently set a Year 9 class the homework task of running a particular website through AI and submitting the result to our Teams page. This turned out to be underwhelming for me. I hadn’t expected the low submission rate and the ‘meh’ attitude to the task. Unpicking their reasons some students weren’t used to using it, some saw it as a gimmick and some just don’t have the motivation to do the homework anyway. I felt the age-old sigh of the exasperated teacher welling up; if they don’t want to use new technology to help with tasks, then just what will help them to make good progress?

The importance of prompt crafting

Students’ critical thinking is essential here and I also wondered if the task was a bit daunting. It’s essential to recognise that AI’s output quality depends on the input quality – and, as GPT stands for ‘Generative Pre-trained Transformer,’ it all depends on the training. Refining and reframing helps and, at this point, I’d like to share a valuable prompt: copy and paste this into ChatGPT to craft excellent instructions:

“I want you to become my Prompt Creator. Your goal is to help me craft the best possible prompt for my needs. The prompt will be used by you, ChatGPT. You will follow the following process:

• Your first response will be to ask me what the prompt should be about. I will provide my answer, but we will need to improve it through continual iterations by going through the next steps.
• Based on my input, you will generate three sections:

1. Revised prompt (Provide your rewritten prompt. It should be clear, concise and easily understood by you.)
2. Suggestions (Provide suggestions on what details to include in the prompt to improve it.)
3. Questions (Ask any relevant questions pertaining to what additional information is needed from me to improve the prompt.)

• We will continue this iterative process with me providing additional information to you and you updating the prompt in the Revised prompt section until it’s complete.”

This process is incredibly helpful in refining prompts and achieving more useful results, reminding me that I, too, need training by AI. Certainly it’s more time consuming but it is worth it, especially for a meatier project – writing a project base for students or a reference page on a complex subject, for example. I can set parameters that mean I don’t need to edit too much (the number of words, the characteristics of examples used, words to include or exclude, the ability range of the target audience, timeframe references and so on).

Use cases

Colleagues are utilising AI too, which feels like a comfortable culture change. The Geography Department has been using Suno.com to create new songs based on GCSE case studies. The Technology Department uses Vizcom to transform sketches into fully rendered AI concepts, Fabrie.com for student fashion design, and DreamStudio to visualize any prompts. Although I promoted TechRay’s time travel app to the History department, that project seems to have vanished, showing that not all innovations persist. Nevertheless, numerous innovators like Mark Anderson offer brilliant resources, including an ‘AI in Education’ school policy template.

I do come back to Chat GPT though and another effective prompt is:

“Create a multiple-choice quiz on general knowledge of the UK, focusing primarily on geography and places. The quiz should consist of 20 questions, with ten text-based questions and ten image-based questions. The quiz is intended for 11-year-olds, so please ensure the questions are suitable for that age group. Each question should have four options (labelled a – d), and the correct answer should be marked with an asterisk (*) after the question. Please include the answers at the end of the quiz.”

Using the free version, I added images later via Google Images, but AI image generators like DaVinci are also powerful tools.

By the way, I’m not too sure if we need to be polite to ChatGPT but adding please and thank you cannot hurt our soul and could be quite a good tactic when for our AI overlords eventually unmask. I’m probably joking.

Summary

To conclude, I’d say I’m an idealistic teacher trying their best to teach as best I can. AI is a tool, much like any other resource, but one that was born recently and is growing very fast so I need to be on my toes when bringing it into my workspace. I get out of it what I put in and it pays to take time to write a good prompt for ChatGPT, to consider the suitability of applications and to remember that we’re all still being trained.