Troy Hicks, an English and education professor at Central Michigan University, is working with K-12 teachers and education majors on how they can implement artificial intelligence in their classrooms.
Hick says AI writing tools can be helpful for lesson planning.
“You could use one of the tools to generate some ideas or put the standards in there, put in a couple of keywords and talk about the grade level and what you’re trying to accomplish and then see what it gets back to you,” said Hicks. “That may get you started, but it’s probably not going to create the greatest lesson plan. You’re still going to have to augment that with different websites, videos, handouts, and other creative ways to engage your students in your classroom.”
“Sometimes lesson planning is the hardest part of teaching. So taking that out and putting my own words in there, like changing it around to where single class is different and each student, so having some of that taken off my plate so I can easily customize would be really great,” added Savannah Troseth, an early education major at Central Michigan University.
Hicks also believes AI can help communicate with students and parents, like filling out report cards.
“They’ll fill in on a report card in the narrative section as they’re describing what students do. AI could help them get that started and provide some of that generic stuff,” said Hicks. “The teachers could spend their time adding the real specific and nuanced details about that student.”
“I’m very excited that we were learning about AI before. You know, we go out and in our classrooms because we might be able to bring this into our district,” said Lauren Westra, an early education major at Central Michigan University.
