AI is a Teacher’s New Best Friend 🍎
Tags: ai, teacher, beginners
Published: 2023-05-12 18:46:15


## AI is a Teacher’s New Best Friend 🍎

**Thoughts from a former math teacher 👩‍🏫 and current developer 👩‍💻**

Since the release of ChatGPT in November, many educators and schools have been panicking over its effect on their classrooms, lesson plans, and students. These concerns are rightfully warranted! However, instead of focusing on the potential risks that powerful AI tools can pose, I’d like to focus on how teachers can potentially use these tools to create better learning experiences for their students and maximize their productivity. After all, AI isn’t going anywhere, so why not look for reasons to love it?

*Disclaimer: These are my personal ideas and opinions based on my teaching and coding experience.*

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## Unique Test Question Generator

Creating interesting, different, and thoughtful questions for assessments as a teacher was the bane of my existence. To give non-teachers a bit of insight, imagine teaching the same course at three different class times on an alternating schedule. For example, one year I taught precalculus during 2nd period, 6th period, and 7th period. Our daily schedule was designed to have odd-numbered periods and even-numbered periods every other day (known as “red” and “blue” days). So, say I gave a test first on a “red” day. This would result in my even-numbered periods having the potential to hear about the test questions beforehand, giving them an unfair advantage. And don’t even get me started on the potential for cheating by reading a nearby partner's work. Having many versions of an assessment was always a necessity.

For a bit more context, having been a math teacher, I used to try to be clever with changing the numbers in factoring or slope problems, the language in word problems, and the strategy in derivative or combinatorics questions. Coming up with new questions for several versions of the same assessment would take several hours a week. By the end of my 10 years of teaching, I was burnt out, and honestly, a lot of times I would just say to heck with it and create only two versions.

Before public access to AI became popularized, I would use tools like Wolfram Alpha, Desmos, Kuta Software, and even my own math question generator I coded in my spare time. As you can imagine, having AI would have saved me a great deal of time in question creation for these assessments. Simply give the AI a prompt or topic, and watch the magic happen!

![Notion AI creates permutation questions and answers](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/2064/1*M7j5Gd6WvpP8CyMYt_Uhxg.gif)

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## Entertaining Learning Tool

All good teachers, or most teachers, for that matter, know that in order to get students to really learn, you have to make your lessons engaging and entertaining. Simply standing up at the front of the room and lecturing isn’t enough and, frankly, isn’t even classified as “teaching” in my opinion. The best teachers know that “*facilitate is how to educate*”. In other words, a teacher should design lessons to be student-centered, where the students are in control of their learning and the teacher is there to guide and redirect them as needed. This, however, is easier said than done.

To get students to take control of their learning, teachers must come up with creative and fun ways to ensure they are interested in the topic. When I was a teacher, I would spend hours coming up with guided learning paths for different styles of learners using a plethora of resources. For example, instead of assigning all students a guided worksheet, I would give four options: 1) A guided worksheet, 2) A video-guided experience where students would interactively answer questions while watching a video, 3) A virtual lesson where students are guided through a series of “slides” and questions to answer throughout, 4) A physical or virtual “card game” that’s basically the same as the previous example, but the platform looks a bit different. Each of these virtual options came with different kinds of “rewards”, so students often picked one of these. The amount of time and effort each of these lessons would take to create was quite overwhelming.

Now, with AI tools at our fingertips, I imagine these learning experiences can be generated at a much quicker pace with a lot less effort. There are even learning tools that have started to embrace AI, making the process of finding and creating engaging lessons even easier.

![](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/2000/0*6kiBQJuaCOo40GIr)

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## Personal Email Responder

Having to answer emails is certainly not unique to teachers, but it is most definitely a time-consuming task. For teachers specifically, emails come in daily from parents, students, fellow educators, administrators, counselors, IEP managers, and so on. Giving the proper time and care to respond to each of these *usually *important messages can be overwhelming. There’s the task of simply reading the message, then coming up with a response, grammar-checking that response, having the response peer-edited, and finally sending it.

However, thanks to AI, each of these time-consuming processes can be significantly reduced. For the simple task of digesting the email, a voice reader can save time if hearing a message allows you to process information more quickly. Next, generating and grammar-checking a response is an easy enough prompt for an AI to handle. Peer editing is a bit trickier. I would suggest asking for the general tone of a message and/or sentences to gauge how the response may make a person feel. Once you’ve finished, sending the email is easy enough!

![ChatGPTs response to my question: Is the tense of this blog article correct?](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/2000/1*XosDkOLt6HxGDvBYUJ-gqQ.png)

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## Answer Key Creator

As an IB Math teacher, there were times when I would come across a great sample question, but no answer would be provided. To get that answer, I generally came up with it on my own or with a little internet search assistance. However, if you’ve ever taken an IB or AP course, you know how difficult the content can be, and even with my Master’s Degree in Mathematics Education, there were occasionally times when I would be stumped. Shocker, I know! (*sarcasm) *Being a bit stubborn, I would often spend hours coming up with the solution to one question (if I liked it enough). And even then, I wouldn’t always be 100% sure about the validity of the answer.

AI to the rescue! Before I explain, I’m definitely not saying that AI will always give you the correct answer to all of your problems. It won’t. But give it an advanced mathematics problem, and it’s likely to give you a solution or at the very least guidance on how to get the solution. Here’s where AI-prompt writing skills can really shine!

![ChatGPT answers an IB Math question](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/2000/1*88lt7cG0EzT79HFQ0xlGKA.gif)

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## Post-Analysis Report Generator

How is success measured in education? Many non-educators will probably tell you “test scores” or “overall student attitude”. However, educational success can be assessed through so much more. Teachers will often try out different techniques such as surveying students, using metrics across different classes, having colleagues give observations, and giving students impromptu check-ins. Teachers are constantly gauging the level of understanding among their students through formal and informal assessments. These techniques often require a lot of time and preparation.

Enter AI! Imagine having a tool that can listen in on a lesson and give detailed information back about student engagement based on voice tone and language. Or even judge common themes over multiple class periods. How about generating reports on the most missed questions or the most used vocabulary terms from short answer questions? The possibilities here really feel limitless.

![Generated with ChatGPT](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/2000/1*lxgRJY9RZBHIJsyQ2VDcMQ.gif)

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## Educator Advancement Tool

One of the main reasons I went into education and why so many teachers do is for a love of learning. Being a “lifelong learner” is vital to many fields, especially education. In fact, teachers in many states are required to gain a certain number of points before their license renewal is approved. These points can be earned through a variety of activities, most of which involve taking courses to further one’s education.

Now, I’m not saying that AI will be able to replace these required courses or tasks. However, educators can utilize AI to ensure they are up-to-date with the latest advancements in their field, ensuring their knowledge is current and relevant. This will not only make teachers’ lives easier when learning new things in their required classes but also help them convey the latest and greatest advancements to their students.

![Generated with Notion AI](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/2000/1*T0bfdqtA1OwqBR4r6vNNeg.gif)

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## Cheating Device

Why not end this list on a more humorous note? Over my 10 years in education, I saw many trends among different types of students. One topic that seemed to pervade all students, regardless of status, was cheating. Every human has been tempted to cheat at some point, and most do. It’s only human to look for an easy way out at times. What does differ among students, especially when looking at financial means, is the degree of access to cheating. I have seen parents pay for “tutors” for their children only to have the “tutor” do all of the work. Or students gaining access to advanced, expensive tools, giving them an edge over less financially able students. It’s a topic that has always bothered me, but in the society we live in, it’s not surprising.

Welcome AI! You have come to the rescue. Or at least somewhat. With ChatGPT and other AI tools being readily and freely accessible to all students, regardless of financial status (to a degree), cheating has officially been “normalized”!

![](https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/2000/1*ce8FTl5vetdO-suLoeLZ8A.png)

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## Summary

And that’s a wrap! I’ve laid out seven different reasons why teachers should truly embrace AI. All of these ideas come with caveats in that I have not implemented them in the classroom myself. I career-changed last August into tech and have no plans of looking back! Nonetheless, I hope this provides teachers with a bit of inspiration and maybe some new ideas!

Now, it’s time for you to move aside, you sweet-talking, apple-giving, sucking-up kiddos! A new teacher’s pet is in town, and its name is AI!

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*Courtney Yatteau, a Developer Advocate at Esri, wrote this article. The opinions in this article are solely Courtney’s opinions and do not necessarily represent the postings, strategies, or opinions of her employer. If you have any feedback, please like and/or comment. Also, you can contact Courtney through [Twitter](https://mobile.twitter.com/c_yatteau) if you have any questions or comments that you’d prefer to send privately.*