3D Printer and more Technology in the Classroom (plus the last Step II lesson of the semester)

 The week before Thanksgiving was pretty busy as it usually does as the semester draws to a close with all of its final presentations and final exams. I think that the first thing I want to talk about this week is my final lesson for Step II since I will be writing 5E lesson plans to close out the semester. Unlike the two previous lessons, my time management was poor. I made the strategic decision in the middle of the lesson to forego the evaluation I had prepared since our statistical examination that closes Step II will look at one evaluation in particular. The lesson was productive for my own growth. Upon reflection, I realized why my time management was so bad. On the surface, it looked like I had just allowed students too much time in the exploration section of the lesson. Looking more closely, I realized that I should have stopped the exploration section. Many students gave answers that indicated that either the lesson section's instructions were unclear or that the students ...
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Lesson Planning and Artificial Intelligence

This week we investigated the uses of AI in lesson plan creation. I was already familiar with ChatGPT but in Step 3 class, we were shown a version of AI that is designed with educators in mind. The name of the site is MagicSchoolAI, which I link for posterity:

https://app.magicschool.ai/tools

It has a large number of tools that create 5E plans. It unpacks standards and has a large assortment of tools for teachers. In our class assignment for the week, we had to use it to create a sketch of a 5E plan based on a standard and use Bloom's taxonomy. It sort of feels overwhelming when looking at all the things that it has available. Looking through all of it, I thought that the time perusing all of it could be used to find better resources written by humans who had already taught the content. I think that teachers who have been at it for a long time would benefit and because of their experience, they would be better suited to knowing what suggestions work and those that don't.

When I think about using AI for lesson planning, it feels like I’m working with something that’s both helpful and lacking. One of the things AI did well was apply Bloom’s taxonomy. I’ve noticed that it can generate lesson plans that break down learning objectives well, especially at the lower levels like remembering and understanding. The outline it generated reminded me of the structure I need to follow, which is useful as a foundation to build on. That being said, the ideas AI suggests are usually broad and not that fleshed out. It feels more like a starting point than something I could actually implement without making major adjustments.

The activities it comes up with are another area where I feel a bit underwhelmed. They’re often basic and mundane and more like a sketch of an activity than anything that would engage students. It can align activities with standards but teachers still need to come up with the real meat of the lesson themselves. It’s clear that AI captures the requirements of the standard, but it doesn’t really understand how to make it interesting or engaging for students—especially in math, where hands-on activities are hard for me to create on my own in Step II. I find that I benefit a lot from the lesson plans that are human-made.

AI is good at creating good assessments. As I noted in my assignment this week, it probably has a large database of tests used by states and other agencies to assess scholastic achievement. It’s good at generating questions for those basic assessments, especially the kind that students would likely encounter in a basic standardized test. 

One of its biggest weaknesses was the creation of engaging activities. It seems like AI takes a word problems that aligns with a standard and then creates a dialogue around. As an introvert, I think that the dialogues it creates are a good foundation but I am still not sold on AI's benefit to teachers. 

What stands out to me most about using AI in lesson planning is how it can serve as a brainstorming tool. I cannot expect that it will deliver a complete lesson. However, I do see its value in helping me organize my thoughts or giving me a broad structure to start with. 

I do not think that its probing questions are sufficient but it does seem capable of creating generic dialogue that can serve as a springboard to a deeper lesson plan. I still feel like a good textbook would probably have better, more nuanced questions. Furthermore, the lesson plans of experienced educators are probably a better source than AI at this point.

I think that the AI technology for teachers is decent but maybe not for me as a student teacher. I think that I need to rely on creating my own lessons until I feel comfortable enough that I can create them faster and without much outside help. I think once I have mastered that, then AI can help broaden already created lessons.

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