I am so late to the trend, but in all honesty, I’ve enjoyed spending time seeing how the use of AI has been playing out to discover what its best uses could be. I’ve always been a cautious techie, loving the discovery of new innovation, but always waiting for a bit to see how the reviews come in before I consider jumping in on a new piece of tech. AI has definitely been one newer tool that I can see so many negatives for, but also..soooo many positives.

Let’s talk about the downsides first. First, who saw the research study by MIT about how overuse of ChatGPT can greatly affect the brain? From the article, it says, overuse of AI can lead to severe cognitive debt, lack of originality, and severe problem solving and critical thinking deficits. That’s a lot of negatives isn’t it? With AI it makes it easier for people to ask AI to do anything for them. It’s like a bully asking the class nerd to do all of their homework, or having that overly smart friend that answers all the questions for you before you even have time to think. It tempting to not put much brain effort into a project and using AI to create whatever, whenever and pass that off as original work. The catch is, AI is still a computer that needs to learn. It doesn’t have the option for emotion, it doesn’t have the capability to know everything about a subject or to create something from just a few short lines of suggestion. There is a large margin for error still and requires the human touch to check for facts, add a touch of emotion, and to check for errors. AI could get you started, but it can’t do it all for you.

We also need to remember the privacy aspect as well. With such strong student privacy requirements in school districts, AI tends to keep a lot of information it’s given in order to learn and give better answers. Just asking what it knows about me is a weird feeling. You have to be careful about what information you feed the machine or it could quickly violate your privacy rights and one that happens, it’s hard to fix that.

But, then there are positives. Imagine having a creative collaborator always at your fingertips. Ready to bounce ideas off of, answer your questions, or you can even have it be like me and have it check your grammar and spelling. It could help become a hugely detailed search engine customized to your needs, check your detailed data analysis documents, even help you finesse your marketing copy, and so much more.

Just in the last month I’ve used AI for:

• Helping me create an outline for an article.
• Analyzing Google Form Survey data.
• Helping me answer random questions that Google could never.
• Finessing some copy I was writing AND checking grammar and spelling.
• Even helping me come up with ideas for an upcoming workshop.

That’s just what I’ve done, through conversations I’ve had with teachers across the country, there are some wicked cool things they are using AI for to create core memory learning experiences for their students. A lot of suggestions tend to be in the “lesson planning” stage of learning instead of during actual instruction, but when it comes to safely and effectively integrating new tools into education, that tends to be the trend anyway with teachers trying it first before students get involved.

It took decades for education to adopt technology and create policies for best use. New breakthroughs take time to be adopted into instruction.

So how is it being used now in schools? What kinds of ideas can you take and start trying yourself?

• Did you know it’s really easy to have AI help you create lesson plans or activities quick and easy? ChatGPT and MagicSchool.AI are really easy to use that can help you achieve this. You can ask the tools specifically what you’d like the students to achieve, what you’d like the lesson to be about, and what resources you have available, and they can produce ideas for you. (WARNING: If you try this, check what the tools actually give you, they will still need editing and a lot of finessing before they are fully lessons. Don’t just print off what the tools give you and call it a day.)
• Have an AI generator to use as a search engine for your students. (For those that have districts strict on student privacy, talk to your IT department about getting a site license for your own ChatGPT hub, there are more ways to lock the private “bubbles” down.) AI engines are on the safer side when it comes to more confined and reduces rogue results for students to search, so instead of an open resource like Google where anything can pop up in this weird internet universe.
• Creating resources for lessons can be so cool. I recently got to sit down with a teacher who created amazing visuals for their students that helped take them on an adventure without ever leaving their classroom. You can create videos, pictures, and songs from scratch with just a few prompts. Want to show your students what a grand ball may have looked like during the Victorian era? Got you covered. How about help you making a ton of visuals to allow students to talk to Mozart and experience a model of how their life might look based on facts found online. Using generators like Suno also allow students to experience a song writing collaborator, it gives them a venue to experiment with lyrics and genre as they work through the process.Song generators like Suno can be an interactive experience to explore some of the ins and outs of songwriting.

The AI innovation is not something that should be debated whether or not it should be accepted into the education universe, it should be debated how. As with many new tools that have come and gone, we know they can’t be completely erased from education, but how they are incorporated makes the difference.

How do you incorporate AI into your instruction?

If I hadn’t gone into teaching music, I definitely would have become some sort of STEM or science teacher. I looked at Ms. Frizzle as an icon who took experiential and discovery learning to a whole new galaxy. Students crave independence and are more engaged when they have the freedom to get their hands a little messy.

If I hadn’t been a music teacher, I would have been the classroom teacher that constantly had her kids out exploring the community, we would have gone everywhere I could have taken them. Giving students all the opportunities to discover new things, find things they get excited about, and be encouraged to dive in further lights that fire in them that could lead to years of innovation.

Discovery learning is about choice, it’s about flexibility, it’s about motivation, it’s about opportunity, and it’s about collaboration. Learning can be more than instruction, it can be time to work together or work separately to explore what interests them.

So,

1. Give them opportunities to steer their own ship. Doesn’t have to be all the time. Just give them the opportunity to choose when it’s right.

2. Ask for the minimum, motivate them to give the maximum. Motivate them to give 100% even though you might only ask for 70%. Everyone will get there a different way too, and that’s ok.

3. Give them grace and yourself flexibility. It won’t always go the way you want or hopped it would, but that’s ok. They are going to make mistakes and get messy, but sometimes, the best lessons come from the mistakes we make.

Be ready to guide, counsel, and push, all your students won’t take the same road to get down to the same place. But, you can help them navigate those roads whether they be straight or windy to get to the end.