AI in School
I am already involved so much in schools through sports teams so I am surrounded with many current teachers that I can go to to ask any questions I have. Over the weekend I had the chance to talk to a couple about what AI tools that they might use in school. Everyone that I asked mentioned “Magicschool“. I had never used it before, but thought it was for sure worth checking out since it seems to be very commonly used. I asked them what they used Magicschool for and how it benefited them. They use it to create rubrics and create worksheets for students to practice. Essentially they use it to do some of the grunt work that takes up a lot of time otherwise.
As a student, I could see how this tool would be beneficial. Not only could you go to Magic School to create extra practice problems to complete and solidify skills, but you could also use it to explain the material differently. The ability to create lesson plans and unit plans and summarize text can give students different looks at the same material. If one thing doesn’t make sense, they can pursue other methods of understanding. When I was in high school I often went to secondary sources for more help or more practice which usually meant Khan Academy and YouTube. If I had known of MagicSchool then I would have used that source for sure.
One tool I found very interesting is the one that generates “AI Resistant Assignments”. This tool uses AI to create assignments for which AI would have trouble deciphering and coming up with conclusions. It got me thinking: How could AI create something that AI can’t understand, but is still viable? I entered the prompt below and it responded with 3 ideas on how to create an “AI Resistant Assignment”. It cannot come up with number problems as those are easily solved by AI, especially at the grade 10 level. The ideas revolve around a lot of personal reflection and therefore eliminates the AI part of it. My question is, wouldn’t you be able to give the AI a personal prompt to run with to get an answer? Also, the other ideas rely on the AI not having access to specific information that needs to be related to the math. If a student were to give the AI the information that they are talking about, I’m sure the AI could figure out a solution. While the original question cannot be thrown into a chatbot and solved, I am sure that with a little bit more information given, AI could discover a solution.
I think that AI in the classroom can be a huge help as a teacher. Since AI can do a lot of things in an instant that would take much longer for a person to do it can be a big time saver. If we allow AI to do some of the ‘grunt’ work that is involved in being a teacher. That can allow a teacher to focus on different aspects of their job. One they could spend more time creating better mor engaging lesson plans, or doing research on topics to translate it better to students. Basically, if teachers did not have to spend a bunch of time on the ‘grunt’ work they could focus more on their students and their pedagogy.
AI could also be an unbiased evaluator. One thing that I have noticed throughout my education experience is that evaluation varies immensely from teacher to teacher. The same work for one teach could be 70% but then 85% for another. This is a huge difference especially when grades play such a heavy factor in getting into universities or receiving grants or scholarships. Having an unbiased evaluator that is consistent can ensure that students are ranked properly with their grade. There are potential issues with this as there need to be human aspects in grading, but it could be a useful resource.