How It Began

During the Spring 2023 semester, I noticed that numerous popular social media sites, including TikTok and Instagram, highlighted K-12 educators working in the field promoting the use of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI), like ChatGPT and Google Bard. They were speaking to their audience of teachers about how to create lesson and unit plans, assessments, rubrics, and more. I began to wonder, if professional teachers are buying into this, would it be wise to introduce this AI-infused practice to our Penn State Altoona students? I was not necessarily seeking to encourage it but to provide experiences that enable guided exploration of what AI can and cannot do well. That led me to share a YouTube video with some of the Education faculty to get their perspective, specifically identifying my desire to find ways to teach our students how to use generative AI ethically, responsibly, and appropriately while also determining any efficiency benefits along the way.

The Academic Need

During initial conversations with faculty, they explained that students often lacked the ideas and proficiency to develop quality lesson plans, particularly at a pace that would allow them to also master the content and prepare their actual instruction. Exploration into using GenAI in these courses would allow students to generate lesson plans for critical analysis, as well as measure GenAI’s impact on other aspects of instructional planning.

The Pilot Group

Four faculty from the Education department volunteered to pilot generative AI in their courses.

• Leigh Ann Haefner, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Science Education
• Kristen Pearson, Assistant Teaching Professor of Curriculum and Instruction
• Stacey Corle, Assistant Teaching Professor of Curriculum and Instruction
• Alexander Pratt, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Elementary and Early Childhood Education

The courses included SCIED 458, ECE 453, MTHED 420, and SSED 430W.

The GenAI Learning Activities

All four instructors spent time guiding their students’ understanding of how GenAI can be used with various types of lesson plans. In each course, students compared student-written plans to AI-generated plans, critically analyzed AI-generated lesson plans for developmental and instructional appropriateness, and debriefed the process together to determine its value and limitations. Alexander Pratt, in SSED 430W: Teaching Social Studies in Elementary Grades, required students to use GenAI to summarize or define topics with which they were unfamiliar. They also did a roleplay activity with a person from history, having AI create short descriptions of the historical figure as both a hero and then villain.

The Takeaways

After speaking with students and the four faculty about their use of GenAI (specifically ChatGPT) to create lesson plans, I found they expressed the following key ideas.

• Students could not rely on ChatGPT’s first response but could refine it, which was well-suited for meeting course outcomes.

Students and faculty found that with basic prompts, ChatGPT returned lesson plans that lacked specific, age-appropriate details. However, when students made revisions and contextual clarifications to those prompts and asked more specific questions, they found the responses to be better suited for their intended classroom audiences. Extended prompts, personalized requests, and the inclusion of more details were all vital to students getting better responses that could become good template lesson plans. Because these lesson plans were not usable upon first draft, students had the opportunity to exercise critical thinking skills and prior knowledge to modify and replace portions of the AI-generated plans.

• AI can provide foundational assistance and efficiency to the learning and instructional process.

While it cannot fully replace good ideas, storylines/plots, or personalization that would inherently come from student experience, GenAI can generate basic details, ideas, and a framework to get students started. This eliminated some of the procrastination and consternation that came with starting assignments. Students stated, and faculty acknowledged, that this exploration allowed them to see GenAI’s potential for offering ideas that they’d otherwise not have considered, as well as saving time to create a lesson framework.

• AI can help craft tone, organization, and structure, as well as assist with grammar, all the while being a proofreading tool and time saving resource.

Much like Grammarly and built-in Microsoft Word review tools, GenAI provided writing assistance that allowed students to constantly monitor their work to make sure it sounded professional and accurate. Students found that while using GenAI, they were able to clarify their ideas with better grammar and organizational structure. They also appreciated the benefits of the tool for emailing instructors, future student families, and peers.

• Comparing responses was vital to student success.

While using GenAI to write lesson plans, students who compared their responses saw how similar their responses were to one another. While AI gave the illusion of creative and unique work, the responses to basic prompts yielded a lot of the same information. This was a good opportunity to not only highlight the limitations of the software, but also the importance of not taking AI’s work at face value. It was important to impart to students that these responses still need to be fact-checked, cited appropriately, and used responsibly. These actions are an important part of understanding AI’s role in education.

Student Final Thoughts

After the learning activity, students could see potential, both in and outside of the classroom. Now that they’ve been exposed to generative AI, they have found other areas for its ethical adoption, including clarifying complex concepts, refining written communication, and completing repetitive “busy work” assignments that require less application and more summarization. They have also found more effective GenAI resources based on specific academic or personal needs, applying digital literacy skills to compare interface options and output quality. The point was made numerous times during debrief sessions that learning how to use AI during their college career is a vital skill, not only for future career-readiness but also to be literate with technology that already impacts their daily lives. Furthermore, they voiced that AI is a “tool” similar to, but possibly more efficient than, a Google search. They understand the need to cite its use when appropriate, but welcome assistance in understanding when citation is necessary and when it is not.

Faculty Final Thoughts

Echoed by each faculty member, “AI can generate all the lesson plans in the world, but it can’t teach for them.” AI is merely a tool, something the students also stated from this experience. It is a springboard to creating something, a good first stop for idea generation, and when used appropriately and responsibly, can provide efficiencies that enable time and mental energy to be used elsewhere. With that, it’s important that curious or skeptical faculty know what AI is and what it does, its benefits and applications to their disciplines as well as its limitations. If students are stressed, confused, or generally overwhelmed, AI could potentially be used unethically just like many other tools. But, as Alexander Pratt also voiced, “Students will use AI for lesson planning and other activities but will likely do so more responsibly than they might have otherwise having had interactions with it in our classes.”

For more information:

Check out the Generative Artificial Intelligence and Teaching Toolkit.