I realize that I am elementary and not high school BUT when I write a lesson plan I know my topic and I know where it fits in what we have been doing. I also know what the children already have experience and how they understand what they have done. Then I want to figure out where I want them to go from here. I also see each and every child in my minds eye as I write, testing for what each will do and figuring out how to get around problems. I also plan how to engage the kids and what materials I will need for each to have in their hands, also thinking about how some children might need help with handling the stuff I plan for that as well. I can't see how AI can do any of this.
Also, this is a part of my job that I enjoy, and when it all comes off well in a classroom I like that even better, because it's my work that made the difference. Meanwhile, there are other, tiresome aspectS of my job that I'd like to hand off to AI but no venture capitalist seems to be interested in that unglamorous work.
Where AI is taking us? AI possibly taking teachers somewhere they didn’t even want to go or didn’t even know about. If these tools don’t line up with what classrooms really need, they end up just adding extra work instead of saving time. It’s a HELPER, not a replacement, AI can be a solid starting point, but it shouldn’t turn teachers into editors for rough drafts. Teachers need tools that actually make their job easier, not ones that just give them more to fix.
Teaching isn’t just checking boxes. Sure, AI might help with the paperwork side of things, but effective teaching is about way more than just lesson plans on paper. Real teaching is about connecting with students in a way that AI just doesn’t get yet.
A presumption here is that the goal is to produce work that is ACTUALLY useful to educators, when really the intent seems to be to build tools that LOOK like they are useful to educators, from the perspective of 3rd party investors or one's shareholders.
I'm not a math teacher (I teach writing at a community college), but whenever I see someone doing the "use AI for the first draft and then give it your own personal touch" spiel, I feel like they (a) don't understand writing, thinking, or learning in the way that they would need to understand it for us to have a productive conversation and (b) are not quite grasping the uncanny ick factor of AI-generated slop. I do not *want* to touch this stuff, personally, in the same way that I do not want to eat styrofoam or slurp up paper-shredder slurry.
Things that excite this kind of instinctive revulsion are generally not things that I find helpful to incorporate into my work process.
The macro forces here are so immense. Ideas about "what makes teachers great?" and "what makes math worth teaching?" and "what is the point of writing" are so fragile next to everything the wealthy have invested in their god machine. It's a Hoover dam-sized quantity of water raining down on a few soup crackers. And I don't care. You and Warner and me and everyone else shouldn't waste the opportunities we have to bear witness to everything that is sacred about teaching and learning.
Your comment brings me back to what I feel is the source, namely, what is the definition of a teacher? That does not seem to ever be discussed. Underlying everyone’s thoughts about teaching is some unwritten, definition of what it means to be a teacher.
Why are so many teachers using AI to create lesson plans, any good curriculum should have it as part of it. We as an education community need to insure that ALL TEACHERS are provided well vetted and appropriate resources to use in their classroom. This would eliminate most of the use cases for teacher using AI in general.
Obviously I'm conflicted here, but, yes. We have a team of dozens spending ~100 hours on each lesson in our curriculum for all student- and teacher-facing materials. We should not pile that on teachers in addition to everything else.
I realize that I am elementary and not high school BUT when I write a lesson plan I know my topic and I know where it fits in what we have been doing. I also know what the children already have experience and how they understand what they have done. Then I want to figure out where I want them to go from here. I also see each and every child in my minds eye as I write, testing for what each will do and figuring out how to get around problems. I also plan how to engage the kids and what materials I will need for each to have in their hands, also thinking about how some children might need help with handling the stuff I plan for that as well. I can't see how AI can do any of this.
Also, this is a part of my job that I enjoy, and when it all comes off well in a classroom I like that even better, because it's my work that made the difference. Meanwhile, there are other, tiresome aspectS of my job that I'd like to hand off to AI but no venture capitalist seems to be interested in that unglamorous work.
Where AI is taking us? AI possibly taking teachers somewhere they didn’t even want to go or didn’t even know about. If these tools don’t line up with what classrooms really need, they end up just adding extra work instead of saving time. It’s a HELPER, not a replacement, AI can be a solid starting point, but it shouldn’t turn teachers into editors for rough drafts. Teachers need tools that actually make their job easier, not ones that just give them more to fix.
Teaching isn’t just checking boxes. Sure, AI might help with the paperwork side of things, but effective teaching is about way more than just lesson plans on paper. Real teaching is about connecting with students in a way that AI just doesn’t get yet.
A presumption here is that the goal is to produce work that is ACTUALLY useful to educators, when really the intent seems to be to build tools that LOOK like they are useful to educators, from the perspective of 3rd party investors or one's shareholders.
The macro incentives working right now to make AI a THING are truly something to behold.
I'm not a math teacher (I teach writing at a community college), but whenever I see someone doing the "use AI for the first draft and then give it your own personal touch" spiel, I feel like they (a) don't understand writing, thinking, or learning in the way that they would need to understand it for us to have a productive conversation and (b) are not quite grasping the uncanny ick factor of AI-generated slop. I do not *want* to touch this stuff, personally, in the same way that I do not want to eat styrofoam or slurp up paper-shredder slurry.
Things that excite this kind of instinctive revulsion are generally not things that I find helpful to incorporate into my work process.
The macro forces here are so immense. Ideas about "what makes teachers great?" and "what makes math worth teaching?" and "what is the point of writing" are so fragile next to everything the wealthy have invested in their god machine. It's a Hoover dam-sized quantity of water raining down on a few soup crackers. And I don't care. You and Warner and me and everyone else shouldn't waste the opportunities we have to bear witness to everything that is sacred about teaching and learning.
Your comment brings me back to what I feel is the source, namely, what is the definition of a teacher? That does not seem to ever be discussed. Underlying everyone’s thoughts about teaching is some unwritten, definition of what it means to be a teacher.
Why are so many teachers using AI to create lesson plans, any good curriculum should have it as part of it. We as an education community need to insure that ALL TEACHERS are provided well vetted and appropriate resources to use in their classroom. This would eliminate most of the use cases for teacher using AI in general.
Obviously I'm conflicted here, but, yes. We have a team of dozens spending ~100 hours on each lesson in our curriculum for all student- and teacher-facing materials. We should not pile that on teachers in addition to everything else.
Were the lessons you used to survey generated by Magic School?
Yes, but I have no reason to believe MagicSchool's resources are any worse than any of the other copilot tools.
100%, they're all bad, I was jw. Thanks!
I am retired and have had no connection to AI. But I’m curious what AI would say to the question, “what is the definition of a teacher?“
It’s something I’ve been trying to refine myself.
At any rate, this would tell us where AI was at.
"Deliverer of content." You know, like Amazon delivers a package to your door.
Were you able to ask AI this question?
Nope, this is just coming from my flawed, human brain.