Progressive Teachers Network

What would Dewey Say about AI and the Classroom?

Here is the content of an ad about AI with clear instructions about how to use its power and resources. Recently I asked AI to help me create an essay about student-centered teaching.  What I received was both well-written and surprising, since there were no attributions.  I began to think about my own pedagogy and what I would do as a result of this option.

First let me explain that I have tried to connect my pedagogy with a Dewey-esque process making the work in the class meaningful and directed by the students’ interests (whether they were K-1 2 or graduate students).

If we continue to teach using a conventional method such as worksheets, assigned essays and simple recall tests, AI can provide support for all of these.  What other options do we have so that student work belongs to them rather than from AI?

As Dewey believed, education is life and should represent the daily meaningful actions that matter to the learner.  Now if a teacher assigns any kind of out of classroom written assignment there is a significant chance these days that what gets submitted will be from AI.

To change that, work most be personal and engaging. Homework for students might include things we used to rely on; take a trip to the market and researching costs, payment, weights with photos.  Take a trip in real time or virtually to the fire station and find out about fire and how it can be prevented.  Interviews of firefighters, police officers, the school administration, the family members and other classmates provide meaningful research for students.  They can compare and contrast what they learned and challenge each other as they share.  A report about any topic these days can very easily be written by AI with no way to determine its authenticity.

Turning the curriculum over to the students can indeed be scary but the results are quite remarkable.  AI could suggest ways to create a student-centered classroom but without doing the work.  Students could gather information from AI and then analyze the response against other research. Asking students to create meaningful assignments related to the standards would create a personalized response.  As teachers, we have to be smarter than AI and ask students to do meaningful work. AI can easily turn our students into robots who simply ask a computer for answers without ever using their imaginations. Here is the ad for AI and I would suggest you try it and find ways to use it to the advantage of our students.

By this point, you’re well-versed in dishing out some killer prompts. You know clarity is everything, you’ve embraced conciseness and specificity, and you’ve been throwing examples into the mix like a pro! Today, we’ll show you how to take it even further, with the power of context. Every time you spark up a conversation with ChatAI, context is vital to frame your interaction. Laying down a rich contextual foundation, you’ll achieve astonishingly on-point outputs with ChatAI. Confused about incorporating context in your prompts? Not for long! Here’s an example: Instead of asking: “How can I learn Spanish?” Try this killer prompt: “I am planning to travel to Spain in a few months and would like to learn some basic Spanish to help me communicate with local residents. I am looking for online resources that are suitable for beginners and provide a structured and comprehensive approach to learning the language. Can you recommend some online resources for learning Spanish as a beginner?” See what happened there? Instead of just seeking learning resources, the context sharpens ChatAI’s focus on learning how to communicate in real-life situations, tailoring its response precisely to your needs. In short, when you enrich your prompts with context, ChatAI can truly work its magic and craft personalized, relevant, and insightful responses.  Now you can unlock new levels of creativity and efficiency in work, life, and everything in between!