What can AI do for you?

By Kate Bott, BTEC business & IT teacher - Richard Huish College, and Sarah Magdeburg, director of teaching, learning and development - Luton Sixth Form College
 

“AI: A Beacon of Innovation”

AI, once confined to the realms of science fiction’s dystopian landscapes, now stands poised to revolutionize our classrooms.

It promises innovative solutions that transcend any student’s excuse for a missing assignment.

Dispelling Anxieties

Let’s address the elephant in the room: “What can AI do for us?” Amidst the complexity of teaching and learning, AI emerges not as a replacement but as a powerful ally. From aiding in planning and resource creation to automating grading with unparalleled efficiency, while it may not be fully there yet, its potential knows few bounds. As educators, we stand at the threshold of a transformative era, where AI emerges as a reliable companion — ever-knowledgeable and impeccably prepared — to augment our teaching endeavours.

Impact on Careers and Workplace Practices

As we navigate the evolving landscape of AI, it’s crucial to acknowledge its impact on careers and workplace dynamics. While concerns about job displacement loom large, AI heralds a shift towards roles that demand creativity, critical thinking, and emotional intelligence. It beckons us towards a future where human-machine collaboration flourishes paving the way for new opportunities and skill demands.

AI in Education: An Ever-Evolving Landscape

Within the realm of education, AI's presence manifests as a tapestry woven with innovative developments and evolving perspectives. As technology permeates every facet of our lives, education stands as the vanguard of this digital revolution. AI, with its personalised learning algorithms and revolutionary assessment methodologies, holds the promise of transforming educational experiences.

Practical Activities for Educators

Introducing AI to sixth form teachers across all levels and subjects will be both exciting and challenging, given the diverse range of subjects and potential starting points for beginners in AI. Here are some pre-requisite activities to engage and educate teachers in AI regardless of their speciality.

• Al Literacy Workshop: Foundational knowledge is paramount. Begin with an engaging presentation on Al basics, fostering discussions on its potential impacts across various subjects.
• Exploring AI Tools: Facilitate hands-on exploration of Al tools, categorised by function, allowing teachers to discover their utility in their specific subject domains.
• Case Studies and Examples: Illustrate successful Al integration through diverse case studies, encouraging brainstorming on potential adaptations for individual classrooms.
• Al Ethics and Data Privacy: Promote awareness of ethical considerations through interactive workshops, fostering discussions on responsible AI use in education.
• Hands-on Al Action Research Project: Encourage educators to delve into practical Al integration through action research projects, culminating in presentations to share insights and experiences.
• Personalised Learning Paths with Al: Explore Al's potential in crafting personalised learning experiences, empowering teachers to design tailored pathways for diverse student needs.
• Feedback and Reflective Practice with AI: Demonstrate AI's role in feedback mechanisms, encouraging reflective practices to integrate AI-driven insights into teaching methodologies.
• Introduce teachers to subject-specific platforms and tools: A list of these is provided at the end of the article.

As we embrace AI's potential, equipped with knowledge and skills, we chart a course towards a brighter future in education. Let's foster an environment of exploration and dialogue, where AI becomes not just a tool but a transformative force enriching teaching and learning experiences.

The following subject-specific platforms and tools make use of AI either as a core component (e.g., in order to provide real-time feedback) or as part of an optional function.

English Literature and Language

For teachers of English Literature and Language, AI tools can be particularly useful in enhancing student engagement, comprehension, writing skills, and analytical abilities. Here are several AI-driven platforms and tools specifically suited to the teaching of English Literature and Language:

• Grammarly: An AI-powered writing assistant that helps students improve their writing by checking for grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, and plagiarism. It also offers suggestions for enhancing clarity, engagement, and tone. It can be used to help students refine their essays, reports, and creative writing projects, providing instant feedback that supports learning and improvement in writing skills.
• QuillBot: Provides interactive writing and grammar activities for students. Its AI algorithms give instant feedback on students’ writing, allowing them to improve their skills through practice. This is great for reinforcing grammar, punctuation, and writing structure in a highly interactive manner, tailored to each student's individual learning needs.
• Turnitin: Known primarily for its plagiarism detection capabilities, Turnitin also offers feedback and grading tools that use AI to help improve student writing. Beyond checking for originality, Turnitin can help students learn how to cite sources correctly and improve their academic writing skills.
• NoRedInk: An online writing platform that uses students’ interests to tailor writing exercises, helping to build stronger writers through interest-based curricula and adaptive exercises. It focuses on improving grammar and writing skills by providing personalized practice that adapts to student responses, making learning more engaging.
• Storybird: A creative writing and storytelling platform that lets students create their own books and stories using an array of images and templates. It encourages creative writing and literary analysis. Teachers can use it to prompt students to write their narratives or analyse themes, characters, and plot structures creatively.

Social Sciences (Sociology and Psychology)

AI tools that can enhance teaching in social sciences are often focused on data analysis, simulation of social phenomena, or interactive learning experiences that adapt to individual users.

Qualtrics is primarily a survey tool. It employs advanced AI for data analysis such as predictive intelligence and text analysis, which can be useful in social sciences for analysing qualitative data and uncovering patterns in large datasets.

Humanities

AI tools and platforms can enrich the curriculum by offering interactive, immersive, and personalized learning experiences. They allow students to explore complex subjects like history and geography in innovative ways, making learning more engaging and effective. Some AI-driven tools that can support teaching in these areas include:

History

Chatbots can be used to simulate conversations with historical figures, offering an interactive way for students to learn about history. These chatbots can be programmed with information about a person's life, thoughts and historical context, allowing students to ask questions and receive responses as if they were talking to the figure themselves.

Geography

ArcGIS Online is an online mapping and analysis solution by Esri. It allows students to use GIS (Geographic Information Systems) to analyse and visualise geographic data. Al components can assist in analysing spatial data, predicting trends, and performing complex geographic analyses.

Google Earth Engine is a cloud-based platform for planetary scale environmental data analysis. It combines a huge catalogue of satellite imagery and geospatial datasets and planetary scale analysis capabilities. Al algorithms can help in analysing changes over time, such as deforestation, urban expansion, or the effects of climate change

General Tools for Humanities

Turnitin’s Gradescope offers AI-assisted grading, allowing teachers to grade more consistently and quickly. It can be particularly useful for humanities subjects with subjective essay questions, providing analytics and insights into student performance.

Tools like Voyant Tools and Quanteda can process large volumes of data, offering insights that would be time-consuming to identify manually. These AI tools can analyse historical documents, literature, or case studies in geography, identifying themes, sentiments, and patterns.

AI content generators like OpenAI's GPT (Generative Pre-Trained Transformer) can generate educational content, quizzes, and summaries on historical and geographical topics. These can help with creating supplementary materials tailored to the curriculum.

Mathematics

PhotoMath is an app that uses AI to recognize handwritten and printed math problems from images and provide step-by-step solutions. It covers a wide range of topics from basic arithmetic to advanced calculus and linear algebra. Students can use this to help them understand the step-by-step process of solving a wide variety of mathematical problems, especially helpful for independent study or homework help.

Chemistry

ALEKS is an adaptive learning system that provides students with an individualized learning experience in subjects like chemistry. It uses AI to assess student knowledge and the details of what they don’t know, tailoring instructions to meet their needs. It is particularly useful for identifying gaps in knowledge and providing targeted practice to help students achieve mastery in chemistry topics.

Drama

Replika, Plot Generator, and Synthesys reflect the diversity and potential of AI in enhancing education in drama, where creativity can be fostered and provide new ways to explore character and narrative.

Health and Social Care

In Health and Social Care, AI tools such as Woebot, Kognito, and Osso VR can simulate realistic scenarios for practice, offer insights into mental health management, and demonstrate the future of healthcare technology. Utilizing these tools can provide students with a deeper, more interactive learning experience that prepares them for real-world applications.

Business Studies and Economics

Tableau and Google's Vertex AI Data Studio are essential tools for data analysis and visualization. They enable teachers to analyze and visualize data in various formats, creating interactive dashboards that present insights clearly. Collaboration features allow teachers to share visualizations with students and colleagues, fostering a collaborative learning environment. Access to a wide range of templates simplifies the creation of different types of data visualizations. Teachers can use these tools to help students understand complex data, encourage the use of data visualization in projects and presentations, and facilitate discussions on economic trends, business metrics, and financial data. These tools also support the assessment of student understanding in data interpretation and analysis.

AI summarization tools integrated with resources like The Financial Times or The Economist provide concise summaries of complex articles and news stories. These tools analyse content, extract key points, and highlight important trends and topics in economics and business. Personalized content recommendations based on interests and learning objectives further enhance the learning experience. Teachers can use these summaries to keep students updated on current events, encourage critical thinking through analysis and discussion, and provide real-world context to theoretical concepts. Summarized articles serve as valuable resources for research projects and assignments, making it easier for students to access and understand comprehensive information.

Resources for all subjects

Kahoot! and Quizizz are popular platforms that offer dynamic and engaging quiz-based learning. These tools allow teachers to create custom quizzes with multiple-choice questions, true/false options, and short-answer formats. Gamification elements, such as points, leaderboards, and timers, make learning fun and competitive, increasing student engagement. Teachers can access extensive libraries of pre-made quizzes across various topics, saving preparation time. Detailed analytics provide insights into student performance, helping teachers identify areas that need reinforcement. These platforms can be used to make review sessions interactive, quickly assess student understanding, and provide instant feedback.

Additionally, encouraging students to create their quizzes fosters peer-to-peer learning and deeper comprehension of the subject matter.

Socrative is an effective tool for collecting real-time feedback in the classroom. It offers live polling, exit tickets, and quiz creation functionalities, providing immediate insights into student understanding. Teachers can use live polling during lectures to make sessions interactive and adjust their teaching based on student responses. Conducting quick quizzes helps monitor student progress and comprehension, while exit tickets at the end of classes offer valuable feedback on what students have learned. Socrative's detailed reports help identify common misconceptions, enabling teachers to tailor subsequent lessons to address these gaps, making teaching more data-driven and responsive to student needs.

Microsoft Teams for Education and Google Classroom, enhanced by AI, streamline course management and communication. These platforms organize course materials, assignments, and grades, simplifying administrative tasks. They offer robust communication tools to facilitate interaction between teachers, students, and parents. AI-powered grading systems save time by automating the assessment of quizzes and assignments, providing quicker feedback. Personalized learning paths, driven by AI algorithms, cater to individual student performance, helping tailor the educational experience. Teachers can use these platforms to manage classroom activities efficiently, keep stakeholders engaged, and adapt lessons to meet diverse learning needs.

AI tutoring systems provide personalized one-on-one tutoring tailored to individual student needs. These systems offer interactive and adaptive lessons, engage students, and monitor progress, adjusting lessons accordingly. Instant feedback and suggestions for improvement help students stay on track. Teachers can use AI tutors to supplement classroom learning, offering additional support to struggling students or providing advanced material to those excelling. Progress tracking enables continuous adaptation and improvement of teaching strategies, ensuring that each student receives the necessary support and challenges to succeed.

AI-powered presentation tools, such as Beautiful.AI, assist in designing visually appealing and effective presentations. These tools offer a wide range of templates, AI-generated content suggestions, and collaborative features. Teachers can create professional presentations for lectures, guide students in developing high-quality presentations for projects, and use visually appealing slides to enhance the understanding of complex topics. Collaborative capabilities allow students to work together on presentations, fostering teamwork and collective learning.