Exploring ChatGPT as a Teaching Tool: Enhancing Engagement in Physical Science 20
I’ve taken a peek at ChatGPT before but never explored it in depth. This week, I decided to take a closer look – specifically from a teacher’s perspective – to see how it could enhance learning, support personalized instruction, and engage students in meaningful ways.
In most of my classes, I find it relatively easy to generate creative lesson ideas. However, Physical Science 20 presents a unique challenge. Since it’s heavily calculation-based, it often feels like my lessons are lacking creativity and engagement. I wanted to see if ChatGPT could help me make one of the course’s key outcomes more engaging for students. I asked the AI tool:
“Come up with some activities to make this outcome engaging for students: Construct an understanding of the mole as a unit for measuring the amount of substance.”
I was pleasantly surprised by the results! ChatGPT suggested several interactive activities that I could easily adapt for my classroom:
I was particularly intrigued by the Escape Room idea and asked ChatGPT to provide a more detailed setup. It provided all of the steps necessary that would have taken me much longer to create on my own!
Here is the storyline that would introduce the activity to the students:
And here are the 4 activities that the students would cooperatively complete:
**Important to read over the activity before introducing it to the class because here – the second digit of the code would be in the tenths place, not the ones place**
Using ChatGPT to develop this Escape Room saved me so much time – honestly, I wouldn’t have come up with it otherwise. Ethically, I recognize that the ideas originated from AI, but I provided the initial prompt and tailored the activities to my students’ needs. In this way, it feels no different from using pre-made activities from a textbook or resource book.
I believe AI will play a major role in education moving forward. Just as we no longer use physical dictionaries for word definitions (because searching online is faster), AI tools like ChatGPT are becoming invaluable time-savers for teachers and as a way to enhance lesson planning and better engage students.
As for teaching students how to use AI responsibly, I found that this article has the basics. In the future, I really hope to see PD for teachers to learn how to use AI and how to teach students to use it.
What are your thoughts on using AI in the classroom?!
I’m glad you got to explore all that Chat GPT can do for teachers and how much TIME it can save us! I have found over the last year that it really is an amazing tool, and that by providing it with as much information as possible, it can do a real bang-up job! I never thought of using it for an escape room, but you’ve inspired me now. Thanks for the great post and overview!
What a time saver! And it helps make big projects (like making an escape room, for example) way less daunting!
I really appreciated your exploration of ChatGPT! I would never think to use it as a means of creating escape rooms. I spent more money than I care to remember on murder mysteries this year for my students. It was an activity that engaged them, encouraged rich conversations, and improved their ability to inference from information. Yes, ethically, we can argue its place in the classroom, but I agree with you. It is no different than remixing from a premade resource. In my experience, you still need to edit and modify the information that AI produces. You know your students best, and your expertise with them will define how successful an activity will be. I would love to see PD about AI and its capabilities in the classroom. Thank you for your reflection!
Agreed! I just checked (briefly, so I’d have to adapt it), but ChatGPT could create relevant murder mysteries for me as well. It’s a great free resources for pre-made resources!
I really like how you used ChatGPT to help brainstorm activities. That is brilliant use of Artificial Intelligence. What II like as well is that your use of AI while maintaining ethical integrity to ensure that the content was meeting your students’ needs.
Great Job
Gerry