3 Simple Ways to Get Started Using A.I. In Your Classroom
I’m partly writing this series of articles for myself, because I tend to get asked the question all the time: “Where should I start with AI in my classroom?”
And, because I’m sometimes a shiny-object chaser, I’ll give some different recommendations at various times.
I’m also writing it because as more and more AI tools are being widely adopted and used in classrooms around the world, there are a few that are starting to stand out as:
Easy to use and understand
Ready to make an impact in your classroom on Day 1 of using
Continuing to improve as a product and tool for teaching/learning
In this first article in the series, I’m breaking down three tools for teachers. The second article will share three for your students. And the final third part of this series will have a few bonus AI tools that work well for students and teachers.
If you have any questions, reach out anytime.
Let’s get started.
Teacher AI Tool #1: MagicSchool.ai (free)
MagicSchool is the swiss-army knife of AI for teachers. It can do almost anything you need it to do.
Lesson plan? Check.
Modifications and accommodations for IEPs? Check.
Make it relevant suggestions and ideas? Check.
Rubrics? Check.
Quiz, teacher joke generator, differentiation, science lab, 5E lessons, word problems, student feedback, math spiral, text leveling, translation? Check, check, check!
It is much like ChatGPT (or Claude or Bard) but the way it compartmentalizes what you can do, seems to help folks like me focus on a specific task before moving on to the next task.
I put this as #1 for a reason. It’s free, easy to use, and they keep making it a better product.
Favorite Way To Use This Tool:
Ya’ll know that I’m a big believer in making lessons, activities, and units both meaningful and relevant (that is what my upcoming book is all about). Sometimes, we are not sure where to start. That’s where MagicSchool comes in.
Take a lesson like teaching Prime and Composite numbers to 4th grade students. It’s not the most engaging thing to teach, and like one teacher in a recent workshop I led, it can be difficult to make it “relevant”.
Went to MagicSchool, clicked on the “Make it Relevant!” tab and entered in the following information:
Grade: 4th Grade
Topic: Prime and Composite Numbers
Student Interests: Soccer and Youtube
Here is what it kicked (get it) out:
As a master teacher in a school who knows the background of a community well, I understand that making the subject relevant to students' interests can greatly enhance their learning experience. Considering the background of 4th-grade students who love soccer and YouTube, here are three unique ideas to make teaching prime and composite numbers more engaging and relatable:
1. Soccer Jersey Factoring: Create a hands-on activity where students are given soccer jerseys with numbers on them. Each number represents a different player. Students need to identify whether the number on the jersey is a prime or composite number by factoring it. For example, if a student receives a jersey with the number 15, they would need to factor it into 3 and 5, realizing it is a composite number.
2. Soccer Team Primality Challenge: Divide the class into teams and assign each team a soccer-related name. Provide a list of numbers and ask them to determine whether each number is prime or composite. For every correct answer, the team earns a point. Encourage students to discuss and justify their answers. This activity can be done in a quiz format or as a friendly competition between teams.
3. YouTube Views and Prime Numbers: Utilize students' familiarity with YouTube by introducing the concept of prime numbers through video views. Show them a popular video with a high number of views and explain that prime numbers can only be divided evenly by 1 and themselves. Discuss how prime numbers can be compared to a video with an extraordinary number of views, as they cannot be evenly divided by any other number. Encourage students to find examples of popular videos with prime or composite view counts and share their discoveries with the class.
These ideas incorporate the students' interests in soccer and YouTube while teaching the concept of prime and composite numbers. By linking the subject matter to their background and grade level, the students are more likely to feel engaged and motivated to learn.
Now, the teacher took the first idea (that they liked best) and headed over to Curipod to come up with their kickoff (I did it again) lesson.
Teacher AI Tool #2: Curipod (free)
Curipod is easily one of my favorite AI tools for educators.
If you have ever used Nearpod, Peardeck, or even Kahoot - then Curipod is something you’ll really enjoy (and it will save you a ton of time).
Curipod is free for educators and has a ton of functionality.
It helps you plan and deliver interactive (key word) lessons on any topic. Whether you want to make a full interactive slide presentation (like a Nearpod or Peardeck), or create an Exit Ticket - Curipod has you covered.
All you need to do is enter your grade, the objectives and standards you are focusing on, and a topic (as much detail as you can) of the lesson or activity you are preparing for.
Then Curipod will kick out a fully-developed slide deck that includes open ended questions, polls, drawing, word clouds and more.
Favorite Way To Use This Tool:
A few of the features I really like are the Drawing Prompt and the Personalized Feedback.
Drawing prompt is great because I can see on the teacher side of the tool what they students are entering in. It can be a math question, a sketch, or just anything you want to ask. Drawing allows for unlimited parameters especially with younger students who are using a tablet or touchscreen.
Personalized Feedback is where things get crazy cool. Here I can ask a question and students will answer it on their device.
Then, based on the information I gave Curipod on my assignment, objectives, and standards — the tool will give students personalized feedback on their answer. You can see what this is as a teacher and always adjust, but it’s worth trying out just for this feature!
Teacher AI Tool #3: Parlay Genie (free)
Teacher Talk vs Student Talk.
We know how important student talk is during a classroom activity, and yet, if you are anything like me — I just talk too much sometimes.
Here is where Parlay can help out.
It helps run awesome relevant and meaningful discussions. You can do this in person, online, or a mix of both.
For example if we were doing a lesson on the difference between Qualitative and Quantitative Data, I would find a Youtube video I liked explaining the topic and enter the URL into Parlay Genie.
Then choose how many discussion questions.
Voila, here’s what I would get:
From here I can change or modify the questions, or add questions.
Then I click Start Discussion.
Now I go to the dashboard and can invite students in a multitude of ways:
Favorite Ways to Use This Tool:
For me, I’ve always loved a good class discussion. Parlay ramps it up by using AI to take some of the strategies I’ve used for a long time and make them accessible and quickly created.
We can use this in conjunction with the Discussion Game and the Fishbowl.
For the Discussion Game, here’s the basics. Each student gets an envelope with a group of different colored cards to use throughout the discussion. They must play each card once, but can play the question card multiple times after using all other cards.
Red Card = I think
Blue Card = I know (because)
Yellow Card = Pose a Question
Green Card = I feel
Orange Card = Connect (to yourself, to the world, to another text/idea/subject)
Each card is worth a point (if you want to grade this activity, completely up to you and your classroom/school) and the goal is to replace assessing only the final product (quiz) and instead the process of learning (having an active discussion).
This scaffolds the student-centered classroom in two ways.
First, the game is centered on your subject, concept, content, text for the lesson. Students have to be engaged with that content in order to respond with the above answers and questions (I think, I know because, I feel, Connect, etc).
Second, it models the many ways you can contribute to an active learning discussion. This helps the students who may be shy or want to hide during the discussion.
Finally, we added a back-channel component to this game where students did not have to always talk out-loud to the class to discuss and earn points, but could “play their cards” online in platforms like PARLAY for participating in the discussion.
After playing the discussion game a few times, students began to get into discussions and own the conversation. Yes, they were prodded into answers and asking questions, but the goal of the first step is to get them talking (and have me talk way less).
It worked for our class and for many in our school. But, it was not the final goal. I’d rather not have the carrot (or stick) be the only reason students are talking, so we had to continue moving away from that reason, and also change up the format to one that is less scripted by the cards.
Enter, the Fish Bowl.
This activity was used by our colleague Anthony Gabriele, and like all good things we modified it to work with our group of students. There are some good write-ups online for the Fish Bowl (like this one) and many different ways to do it, but here is how we did it in my class as the second step.
Fish Bowl Prep: Students are to have read, learned, or already delved into a specific text or content before the start of class. This, however, does not need to be homework. It could be learning that happened in a previous lesson or experience. The key is that the students are not learning something “new” during the Fish Bowl, they are instead going to learn from each other during the discussion and share their insights and questions (much like the discussion game).
Classroom Setup: Set up your classroom with two sets of circles. One big circle will be on the outside and then on the inside there will be a smaller circle of four-to-five chairs (depending on class size this could also be three or six chairs).
How it Works: When students come into class they will grab a seat. Don’t worry where they sit as all students will eventually get into the middle of the circle (The Fish Bowl) for the discussion. The inside circle does the talking and discussing. They should be prepared but focus on having an active conversation using the techniques learned in the discussion game. The outside circle takes notes on the inner discussion. This could be scaffolded by the teacher to focus on specific areas of the conversation, or more wide open like taking notes during a lecture. Depends on your situation for how you want to prep students for the outside not taking.
Every five minutes you’ll want to replace the inner circle with new students to discuss. They can pick up where the previous discussion left off, or start new.
Two keys to making this work. First, as a teacher, you must not prompt or get students talking. The goal is for them to have a productive struggle in the beginning and then get into a flow. Second, depending on your class you may want to pick the fishbowl groups ahead of time to get a good mix of students for the discussion. This, of course, is your preference as the teacher.
Finally, you can assess this conversation in a few ways, but I’d focus more on the active discussion part than what was said at first. Then as you do it more often and students become comfortable you can change a rubric to have different assessment pieces that reflect the content of the discussion.
Note: As with the Discussion Game, you can add an online component to this as well. Have the outside of the circle write their feedback and notes on a shared doc, a backchannel like PARLAY!
Up Next
In the second-part of this series, we’ll be covering 3 Easy Ways to Get Your Students Using AI for Learning Purposes. You are not going to want to miss it! Subscribe below if you want to join the newsletter and get these posts sent directly to your inbox.
