THE PREP PERIOD

Quick tips, tools & tricks you can take to the classroom on Monday

AI for Education Prompt Library | This week's tip comes from AI for Education​

Recently, I went exploring a bit in the AI for Education prompt library to see if anything new stood out to me. It occurred to me that I had never reviewed their professional development section. Which is wild because I spent a lot of my former teaching life obsessing over what makes good PD.

While perusing, I found one that stood out to me.

As a serial retreat leader throughout high-school and college and then later as the PD Cohort leader and lover of facilitating engaging professional development at my school, I never really got the hang of "ice-breakers" or fun "team-building" activities. They always felt a bit trite and sometimes even embarrassing.

"Share something interesting about yourself!"

If you're leading a PD, team meeting, or maybe even a get-to-know circle on the first day of class, AI for Education lays out a nifty prompt structure for having your favorite chatbot send you some ideas.

I threw their K-5 mid-year retreat recommendation into the basic free version of Chat GPT, and was pretty happy with what it popped out.

As always, context is everything. If you safely (no PII) give the chatbot some background on what your team / school has been working on or going through lately, it will have more to build on.

Even with all my retreat and PD planning I never really got the hang of this. Excited to see there's another way to get some help and sound a little less like a cornball in front of large crowds!

SARAH'S PICK

Education Week

​How Teens Are Using AI: Key Takeaways for Educators​

Common Sense Media asked students which skills will matter most for their futures. I was pleasantly surprised to see their top 3 answers were, "working well with other people, fact-checking and critical-thinking skills, and reading and understanding complex information."

I was so pleased to see these earnest and spot-on responses.

However, in a similar study, Britebound found that fewer than half of teens feel they have the AI skills they'll need for their careers, and even fewer think their school is teaching them enough.

This made me think back to the now pretty common running joke that our teachers used to say, "you won't always have a calculator in your pocket you know!".

None of us could have imagined we'd have constant access to computers - let alone an artificial intelligence - in our pockets. (Yeah, that's right, I used the em dash. I'm sorry I just miss it so).

But when I use that pocket calculator today, I still need to know when to push divide v. multiply. I still need the basics I learned via chalkboard. I also spent a good amount of time learning how to use those stupid TI calculators (sorry "friends"). To be honest, both have helped me to some degree in my university and workforce lives.

Students do need to learn how to fact-check, think critically, form coherent arguments, debate, and read with a high-level of comprehension. And they need an understanding of what AI is and how to use it. Does it need to be embedded in every lesson? No. I think we learned our lesson in the 2010s that using a Chromebook 7 out of 8 hours a day is absolutely (heinous) unnecessary and the same is true of AI.

But it does sound like students are feeling a bit in the dark here. And we'd be doing them a disservice by ignoring this data.

LOUNGE READS

The AI headlines that matter for your classroom

There's certainly a theme this week around students preferring help from the adults around them. New research sheds light on how students are using, or not using, AI tools. The public pushes for more guardrails on AI, calls for more support for public schools, while the Trump administration triples down on... not that.

Education Week

​How Teens Are Using AI: Key Takeaways for Educators​

New data gives us more insight into how students view and use AI, their outlook on the workforce, and which skills they feel matter most for their futures.

"When they get stuck on schoolwork, teens say they prefer to solve problems on their own or ask a teacher, parent, or friend for help before turning to AI."

The 74

​Even With Human Help, Kids Need Motivation to Use AI Tutors​

AI tutors work better when students actually want to use them.

"There are a range of potential reasons for this low engagement, from students not finding the tool compelling to preferring to ask a teacher for help or needing more encouragement and accountability."

The Century Foundation

​Americans Are United Against the Tech Takeover of Public Schools​

A new report finds broad public skepticism about ed tech in schools, across party lines.

"Secretary of Education Linda McMahon has led the charge to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, cutting its workforce by nearly half and transferring its remaining functions to other agencies. Meanwhile, Trump and his allies have aggressively promoted artificial intelligence (AI) in schools, welcoming tech executives and robot educators into the White House and even pointing to a private school chain that replaces teachers with 'guides' as a promising model."

A NOTE BEFORE YOU GO...

I'm glad you're here! If something resonated this week, hit reply and tell me. If you know a fellow educator who would find this useful, forward it their way. The village grows when educators share with other educators.

Never hesitate to send me an email if you're looking for some human-forward, AI thought partnership!