I was chatting to my 15-year-old nephew last week about life and school. He is a brainiac, a quiet achiever – he has always enjoyed learning, especially anything to do with history!
What happened next really rocked me and reminded me just how impactful teachers are in a student’s learning journey.
He made a comment with the natural disdain of a teenager who hated school… certainly not what I was expecting!
“He (the history teacher) uses ChatGPT to make all our lessons…”
His spark for learning was extinguished.
The realistic situation is that his teacher, I’m sure, loves his job and is extremely passionate about his subject… but a mix of demands on teachers, parents and life in general puts an immense amount of time restrictions on us.
When we have the carrot of AI that can save us hours of planning, it is so easy to give in.
And I completely understand why teachers are doing it.
Everyone I talk to now seems to have similar fears around AI.
Our students are going to rely on AI and lose the ability to learn and think critically.
Are our students actually going to learn anything if AI does it for them?
Is our job going to be replaced by AI???
So here is my 2 cents worth when it comes to AI.
We are the role models
We all can spot AI-generated material from a mile away!
Not sure about you, but when I come across AI-generated material I keep scrolling, tune out and consider the provider a little… disingenuous.
And our students are doing exactly the same thing.
We are the role models.
We are the people who show our students what learning looks like.
We show them that it is okay to not know something.
We show them how to be curious, how to ask questions, how to make mistakes and how to have another go.
We show them that learning isn’t always easy – and that is actually part of the fun.
If every lesson, activity, example and explanation is generated by AI, polished within an inch of its life and delivered to students, what message are we sending?
Don't make AI your lesson planner
We should NOT be using AI to generate the slides and worksheets we hand straight to our students.
And yes, I know this is tempting.
Type in a prompt.
“Create a Year 8 lesson on fractions with a PowerPoint and worksheet.”
A few seconds later – DONE!
Except… your students aren’t silly.
They know.
They know when something feels generic, when the examples don’t quite make sense.
They know when their teacher hasn’t really thought about them.
And once they realise that the lesson in front of them has been generated by AI, there is a very real risk that they tune out.
Just like my nephew did.
I’m not saying you can’t use AI to help you create teaching materials. There is a big difference between using AI as a tool in your planning and letting AI do the teaching for you.
Use it to brainstorm.
Use it to help you get started when you’re staring at a blank page.
Use it to suggest different approaches.
Use it to help differentiate something you’ve already created.
Use it to give you ideas when you’ve completely run out of them.
But then you take over.
You know your students.
You know what they need.
You know what they’ve already learned.
You know where they’re likely to get stuck.
You know the examples that will make them laugh, the questions that will make them think and the explanation that will finally make something click.
AI doesn’t know any of that.
That’s your job.
Let your students see you learn too
There are so many ways AI can make our lives easier without taking away the human part of teaching.
The danger is when we become so time-poor that we let AI skip all of the parts our students actually see.
The lesson becomes AI-generated.
The slides are AI-generated.
The worksheet is AI-generated.
The examples are AI-generated.
The questions are AI-generated.
And suddenly the teacher has disappeared from the learning.
That’s the bit that worries me.
Let your students see you learn too.
One of the most powerful things we can show our students is
that we don’t know everything.
I don’t want students to think that their teacher has every
answer.
I want them to see me wondering.
I want them to see me try something that doesn’t work.
I want them to see me change my mind.
I want them to see me make mistakes.
I want them to see me laugh when something goes completely
wrong.
Because that is learning.
And learning is messy!
It is not perfectly formatted.
It doesn’t always have a neat answer.
It doesn’t happen in 30 seconds.
And it definitely doesn’t always happen behind a screen.
There is something incredibly valuable about students
talking to each other, arguing their point, explaining their thinking, asking a
teacher a question, working something out together and discovering something
they didn’t know before.
Those interactions matter.
The relationships we build matter.
The little conversations that have absolutely nothing to do
with the curriculum but somehow make a student feel seen… they matter.
So… should teachers use AI?
Sure.
I don’t think the answer is to run away from AI or pretend it doesn’t exist.
Our students are growing up in a world where AI is going to be a part of their lives. We need to teach them how to use it responsibly, critically and thoughtfully.
We do this by setting the example!
