Week 4 Blog Assignment

                                            The effectiveness of AI tools in Education

Artificial Intelligence has become a part of our world more than we realize. There are so many tools available on the internet for us to dabble with, but I feel that we should tread cautiously and use AI judiciously only in certain situations. As with any tool, there are pros and cons and there is also an additional responsibility of checking for credibility. The ease of use is so tempting but sometimes taking the easier route will bite us in my opinion. We could use AI for inspiration and ideas but not depend on it solely for completing a said task. 

I used the following (NGSS) Next Gen Science Standard MS-ESS2-1: Model the processes within the rock cycle physically and digitally to generate a lesson plan in an AI app called Magic School. International Society of Technology Education (ISTE) standard 1.6.a 'choose platforms or tools' has been used. This is a link to the sample lesson plan which AI generated using the standard as a prompt. I personally felt that AI just skimmed through the standard presented. The lesson plan it generated is very vague and it skipped mentioning certain processes like melting, cooling and solidification eliminating the formation of igneous rock. There were no novel ideas to introduce the complex topic. For guided practice, AI suggested "starting with simple identification and gradually moving to complex explanations" which is again not a specific idea. Having said that, the assessment is aligned to the standard and the objective. The assessment of students creating a physical and digital representation of the rock cycle and labeling the processes is decent and is grade appropriate. I personally felt that AI could have given a hands-on lab which would keep the lesson more engaging for the students. In my opinion, the tool cannot be used to create rigorous lesson plans. In the guided practice, AI could have given scaffolding questions to choose from. As far as the ISTE student standard goes, I felt that it was met as students could use a digital tool to represent the rock cycle. 

As an extension to the lesson plan which was generated by AI, I was curious to see what assessment questions it would generate for the same standard. I used the multiple choice assessments tool and it generated decent formative assessment questions with a key. I might use it in class on an as needed basis or just to generate ideas for questions. 

In conclusion there are pros and cons to the AI app Magic School. I will use it sparingly for generating ideas, but would not recommend relying on it completely. I will share it with my colleagues as a resource which they can tap on while verifying whatever is being generated by AI. The challenges I see in using this frequently would be its tendency to just skim facts and not getting into specifics. Also, in this world of plagiarism, where students are encouraged to come up with original thoughts or ideas reliance on AI would not serve the purpose. It should be used sparingly. I have personally also used the email family tool to email parents on behavioral issues without disclosing any personal information. I just gave the parameters and AI generated pretty decent emails which I ended up tweaking for my purpose. On occasions like these, I was thankful for AI. 

                                                            References

  MagicSchool AI. (n.d.). MagicSchool AI. https://app.magicschool.ai/tools

   MS-ESS2-1 Earth’s Systems. (2015). https://www.nextgenscience.org/sites/default/files/evidence_statement/black_white/MS-ESS2-1%20Evidence%20Statements%20June%202015%20asterisks.pdf

  1. students. (2024b, July 15). ISTE. https://iste.org/standards/students

Comments

  1. AmeliaJuly 18, 2024 at 12:20 PM

    Hi Esther,

    While reading your thoughts during this week's blog, I appreciate your candidness in regard to Magic School’s AI surface level of standard. Also, that this could be a beneficial tool for generating ideas for lessons, assessments, etc. This platform validates the need for educators to apply their human-based professionalism into their planning and instruction!

    -Amelia

    ReplyDelete
  2. Haggs AnatomyJuly 19, 2024 at 5:06 PM

    HI Esther, this is Su Lin. I agree with your assessment of magic school. I found that it produced a general lesson plan and lacked the support materials necessary to implement the lesson plan. I tried the accessory tabs in magic school and found I could use them to write some supplemental material that could be used with the lesson plan it generated for me. It is useful to generate idea topics but falls short of being able to produce a ready-made lesson plan that could be used immediately. I did try to refine the parameters and generated a more specific lesson plan for the standard I chose but the lesson plan was still generic. Your analysis parallels my thoughts on using magic school to generate lesson plans for instruction.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Lauren FengJuly 21, 2024 at 8:53 AM

    Hi Esther,

    I completely agree that the tool just created a very basic lesson plan that did not seem very engaging or novel. I agree that we should use it sparingly. It's a good place to start for teachers, but there's still a ton of work the teacher would need to do in order to make it ready for the classroom. Does not really seem like it would reduce teach burn out in this case.

    ReplyDelete

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