Part 2: Demystifying AI for educators

0:10Hi. Welcome to session two of the AI 101 for Teachers Professional Learning series. In the last session, you were introduced to AI and learned about the potential uses for AI in education. In this session, we're going to pull the curtain back and learn more about what large language models are and how we can use them to perform common teacher tasks like creating formative assessments or writing email to a parent.

0:37Leveraging AI for these time consuming tasks will give you more time for the tasks that really matter most, like engaging with your students. Let's get started. Hi, everyone. I hope you're all as excited as we are to dive into the fascinating world of generative AI.

1:00My name is Amanda. I'm a former high school teacher and digital learning specialist. I now work as a member of the professional learning team at Code.org. And I'm Tiffany an elementary and middle school STEM teacher. The potential of generative AI in education truly excites me.

1:15But I'm not alone in this enthusiasm. Let's hear what other educators say about AI's role in education. AI is going to be everywhere, as a teacher, it's going to give me new resources. I'm looking forward and encouraging the kids to seek out AI enhancement and to use what they can find expand beyond the classroom.

1:39I already actively encourage them to reach out beyond the scope of the class to learn what they can on their own. And this is just another tool for doing that. I hope I can make my job better in helping me do things that, you know, might be something I put off to the end.

2:00Or it's really hard for me to do or hard to find time for doing some of these things. I think if we use our tools appropriately, they can really give you time back. The one thing that we could do that’s a total disservice to our kids and to education. Is to say, hey this is a scary thing that we don’t want to talk about but it’s like out here and it’s a thing we don’t know a whole lot about instead it’s like hey, we do know a lot about AI this is what we know and this is how it’s developed and teaching our kids like, hey, AI’s not a scary thing but, we do need to understand how AI works because those kids who are our youngest learners right now are going to be the students and the adults of tomorrow.

2:42They’re going to be helping to develop this technology to make sure that its stays safe and equitable and all of those things for our future to make sure that it is a technology that is evolving for good. Artificial intelligence is going to help us understand our students better.

2:59as much as we don't like testing and as much as we don't like evaluating our students, we have to do it. But what AI can do as it processes that information is it's going to give us a new insight into our students. Artificial intelligence, also known as AI, is a technology that imitates human intelligence performing tasks like understanding language, recognizing patterns, and making decisions ranging from specific systems like recommending movies to advanced forms that generate content or predict outcomes.

3:37AI's rapidly evolving technology enables machines to learn, adapt and perform humanlike tasks often more efficiently. AI has been integrated into our lives already. Many of the technologies we comfortably use in school and at home use AI. AI is widespread. Some examples you may have seen before include self-driving cars, Siri or Alexa speech to text Google Translate.

4:04Snapchat filters, and the list goes on. While there are many different types of AI, all of which are useful and fascinating, we know the type that is weighing most heavily on educators minds at the current moment. Generative AI Generative AI is a type of AI that uses patterns from existing content to create new content such as new text or new images.

4:26In this video, we will focus on generative AI. We'll use for guiding principles to understand the best ways to interact with AI and in particular generative AIS like chat GPT for educators, you can think of using AI for education like your own personal teaching assistant AI makes mistakes.

4:46Although teaching assistants are generally trustworthy. They can make mistakes. Even though AI is run off of powerful algorithms. Those algorithms can't always tell fact from fiction or recognize the meaning of a complex question. AI needs your guidance. Teaching assistants can't do everything on their own.

5:04Generally, the more information you give image generators, large language models and other AI systems, the more the results reflect what you were seeking. Your input to the system will make or break its usefulness. AI systems have limitations as and have guardrails in place to prevent misuse.

5:24For example, Chat GPT won't help you carry out an illegal plot and the image generator Mid Journey won't create graphic content. Beyond these guardrails systems also have actions they can't perform for example, as of August 2023, ChatGPT can't interpret images.

5:42AI is changing. Just like a teaching assistant will learn over time. AI systems are becoming more sophisticated, capable, and adept at understanding and addressing human needs. What works a day with AI may work differently tomorrow. Chat bots like ChatGPT, are based on a new type of AI technology that's called large language models.

6:07So instead of a typical neural network which trains on a specific task like how to recognize faces or images, a large language model is trained on the largest amount of information possible, such as everything available on the Internet. It uses this training to then be able to generate completely new information, like to write essays or poems, have conversations, or even write code.

6:37The possibilities seem endless, but how does this work and what are its shortcomings? Let's dive in. While a chatbot built on a large language model may seem magical, it works based on some really simple ideas. In fact, most of the magic of AI is based on very simple math concepts from statistics applied billions of times using fast computers.

7:03The AI uses probabilities to predict the text that you want it to produce based on all the previous text that it has been trained on. Suppose that we want to train a large language model to read every play written by William Shakespeare so that it could write new plays in the same style.

7:20We'd start with all the texts from Shakespeare's plays stored letter by letter in a sequence next, we'd analyze each letter to see what letter is most likely to come next after an I, the next most likely letters to show up in Shakespeare plays are S or N after an, S, T, C, or H, and so on.

7:47This creates a table of probabilities. With just this, we can try to generate new writing. We've entered a new era of large language models. Advanced large language models are now widely available as interactive chat maps. They can easily perform simple and complex tasks that you as the user can benefit from.

8:09Remember, however, that it is important to always scrutinize the output as you would any resource from the internet. Here are a few examples of some chat bots that have gained notoriety in the recent past. Note that all of this information is current as of the publishing of this video, but AI is a rapidly shifting field and some of this information may be out of date by the time you watch the recording.

8:32ChatGPT is a large language model chat bot from OpenAI. It has undergone multiple versions. GPT-4 is the newest and most powerful version yet. Chat GPT 3.5 is currently available for free released by Google Bard is powered by a lightweight and optimized version of the Lambda Large language model with a few minor differences.

8:55It functions much like ChatGPT. Bing AI created by Microsoft is built on the same technology as ChatGPT, but has the added benefit of being connected to the internet and can access up to date information. ChatGPT and Bard are not and cannot access anything after 2021, which is the database it was trained on.

9:16Although we will primarily be focusing on generating new texts using large language models, it is important to note that there are also generative AI tools that create other types of novel outputs, such as images. Tools like DallE or MidJourney are capable of creating images that nobody has ever seen before.

9:36Prompting an image generator is similar to prompting a text generator. If you've tried one of these chat bots, you might realize that you won't always receive the right information from the large language model. At first, users are fine tuning their skills of prompt engineering to get the most out of large language models.

9:54Prompt engineering refers to creating and tweaking prompts to reach a desired output. You could think of this like the process of clarifying a point to a friend in a conversation. Sometimes it's useful to add more information and specificity to be understood. AI is pretty cool and has a lot of capabilities.

10:13But how does AI fit into your life as an educator? Well, we know that there are average teacher in the United States works 50 hours per week. Of the 50 hours a teacher works per week in the US, administrative tasks take up over 50% of teacher's time, leaving only 49% of their time for student interaction.

10:34Although these numbers differ from country to country, teachers across the globe are spending a tremendous amount of time on preparation, grading, feedback and administrative tasks. Tasks where the teacher doesn't directly interact with the students. So consider AI to be your teaching assistant, and a teaching assistant can help cut down the time and mental effort you spend on these administrative types of task, as well as boast student learning in surprising ways it can suggest creative activity, ideas, draft parent emails, write up notes and up your design game for lesson materials.

11:13Ultimately, a teaching assistant doesn't just help teachers, but students as well as teachers increasingly shoulder more burdens. AI can improve their ability to reach all students and students in their own terms. If we wanted to fully harness this potential of AI tools, we need to allow our new teaching assistants to help out in the learning process using AI as part of your workflow may be intimidating at first.

11:40So let's first start by acknowledging the very real concerns educators and people generally have about AI in the classroom. Cheating issues such as plagiarism, unfair advantages, and loss of critical thinking content issues like misinformation and AI fiction and student safety issues such as data, privacy and misuse.

12:00The idea we want to share with you today is that AI is akin to the calculator or the Internet, a completely game changing tool that will transform education, whether we are ready for it or not. Ultimately, we will leave students behind if we don't prepare them for the future of education and the future of work.

12:18We're not here to say that responding to this AI craze is easy because we know this is a significant challenge for teachers. Let's reframe each concern one by one. Cheating AI has the potential to enhance students learning when used with care and clear guidelines in place content with strong safeguards and an emphasis on critical thinking, students can learn to evaluate AI tools, responses with an eye for misinformation.

12:46Student safety like with all online tools of which students use many proper safeguards can help protect student data. I know that doesn't address all of your concerns, but throughout this video series, we're going to continue to break down AI and provide you with additional resources to take your learning to the next level.

13:05Now, let's get back to using AI as a teaching assistant, Now we're here with my colleague Sherry. We're going to explore examples of how we can use generative AI. Sherry, do you have any examples how you would use ChatGPT? I really would like to send an email to a parent that is concerned about their child's grade regarding the reading challenge that we have here at school.

13:33They're being required. The students are being required to read books throughout the year and meet a reading goal of certain page count, and their child's a reluctant reader and they don't really know what to do. And they're asking me for suggestions and do you think that ChatGPT would be something that I could use to help me with that?

13:57Yes, ChatGPT would be great for that. What are your initial thoughts when you start writing your emails? The first thing I think would be asking it if the books that their child is reluctant to read, Is there anything to suggestions on types of books of reading levels you can just tell ChatGPT what you're trying to do.

14:20Okay. Write me an email, reply to a student’s parent about the book challenge and recommendations. Oh. Oh, wow. So it looks like it could be a little bit better. I think that I need to be a little bit more specific on the grade level because it just said student and it's giving me things that are a little lower, but also maybe not in the genre that maybe that student likes.

15:16So do you think that maybe, like we could fix the parameters or how to narrow it down? Yeah, I think the more specifics you give it like the grade level, the genre, then you would be able to help you out a little bit further with your email. Wow, I really like how it has customized what we told it.

15:40It now says, Dear Parent, I hope this email finds you well. Thank you for getting in touch regarding the book challenge or recommendations for your 10th grade students. So that's what I asked it to do. I'm delighted to assist in suggesting some captivating mystery novels that I believe will ignite their imagination and contribute to the reading experience.

16:00So that's really good that it kind of inserted that that new aspect, that new customization. Here are the books that it suggested. Now, instead, the Westing Game, Genuine Fraud. One of us is Lying, Truly Devious and A Study in Charlotte. And then it goes on to say, I encourage your student to reach out with their thoughts, questions and insights.

16:24So I really like what it has customized for me this time around. Okay. I'm glad you like what ChatGPT came up with, but the nice thing about ChatGPT is it's a starting point. So do you agree with everything that the email suggested or would you make any edits to it?

16:40This new version the customization that it has given me for a 10th grader now with the mystery genre's looks, I think so much better because it's actually giving me books that are, I think, a better choice. And I do like that. The tone at the beginning, it says that I want to extend my appreciation for participation.

17:05It's got words like dedication in it. So the tone I think is really good and I like the length of it. Maybe at the very end I wouldn't have three paragraphs. But, you know, I think that's the beauty of it. I can kind of mix and match and pick and choose what I want to use.

17:20But, um, I think it's a great jumping off point for us. Um, the Westing Game though the book that is listed first that was suggested I probably wouldn't include that, even though it's a better choice of books overall, the five that it gave the Westing Game is too low.

17:37It's not a high school level book. It's a middle school level book. So I probably take that out and maybe change a little bit the length, but the tone of it is exactly what I was looking for. ChatGPT, can revise and edit to whatever you would like. So if you want to change the length of it, if you want to change the style or the formality of it, you can just ask it to change it.

17:58So why don't you go ahead and give it a try? Rewrite for shorter length and take off the Westing Game, Improve opening paragraph. Okay, let me see what it does. Okay. I hope you're well. Okay, still looks good. Here are three engaging mystery novels. So they kind of cut it down because it was a little wordy at the beginning, and then they took it out.

18:41The Westing Game. But it looks like they took out one other one as well. So originally we had five choices and now there's three. But one of the ones they took out was the one I wanted to take out. So I'm curious why it wouldn’t just take out just one of the suggestions that I gave.

18:58Well, if you notice, if you if you use ChatGPT, you can go above and it saves all the prior emails. So if there is something from a previous email you like, you can just cut and paste it into your final email. Okay, great. I wasn't even thinking about that, so that's great to have that suggestion.

19:15This is just one example of how to work with AI to generate and then revise content. We recommend that you pause the video here and try generating your own guardian or parent email using chatGPT. If you need help creating an account, check out these log in instructions.

19:37Do you have any lesson plans that you are thinking about writing right now? I think so. I think I could think of something right now. My students are learning about the Greek gods and goddesses, and I'm always struggling to come up with ways to incorporate lessons that aren't the same thing I've done every single year.

19:54So I guess I'll just start by typing in the prompt box. All right, let's see develop a research based writing assignment on the Greek gods and goddesses. All right. It says assignment. Choose one Greek god or goddess to research. Write a 2 to 3 page research paper about your chosen god or goddess.

20:37Your paper should include the following. It goes on to list what it needs to include, and then even gives a grading rubric. Tips for researching Greek gods and goddesses. This is pretty great. Yeah, I know it's great there. If you also add more specific keywords like lesson plan or even break it down even further for you so you can see the exact lesson plan and probably still give you some of that same information.

21:00Okay, Make it a lesson plan. I didn't say that before. Make it a lesson plan for three days. Oh, wow. Look, it says here's a lesson plan for three days on Greek gods and goddesses Day one. It gives me five different tasks for the students to do. Day two, it gives me tasks.

21:25Day three even gives me assessment suggestions and differentiation because, I mean, you know that there's different learning styles. So it gives me one that talks about a longer research paper, or it could be ones that are wanting a challenge, it could be a lesser known God or goddess.

21:42And I mean, this is giving me some really good suggestions. This is just one example of how to work with AI to generate and then revise content. We recommend that you pause the video here and try generating your own lesson plan using either ChatGPT or Bard. So one thing I love Bing for is because it's up to date and it's connected to the Internet.

22:09So I can go on there. I can prompt my students to go on there and get up to date information. And I can give it specifics about what I'm looking for. Is there anything currently that you're looking for? Yeah. With us coming back to school or just being out of this summer time, one of the things that our students are required to do is read a chosen book for them over the summer, and they just got finished reading a book about a young boy who helped solve a mystery involving an art heist at the National Gallery Museum in D.C..

22:41And I would love for them to make an actual real world connection, because these things do happen all over the world, including here in the United States and specifically at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. One of the things that they really connected on when they read the book was just how is it that people steal such priceless works of art?

23:03But also what is it about those works of art and artists and things like that? And I would love to use this to dive deeper and for them to make those connections. Yeah, no it can definitely help you with that, especially if you want the students to go to specific places.

23:21You can make it be able to give you a formative assessment so you can type in specifics about what you want them to look for on the website. Okay. What I would really like is for them to have an assessment to look at this website from the museum's website and try to really show me that they've walked away understanding what it is that I want them to understand about the artwork, about the artists, about the time period, the value of the work, etc..

23:50So let me see what I can get it to tell us. So I think I'm going to write the create a five question quiz based on the context of the website. Since it's linked to the Internet, I think that it should be able to do this. Okay. So you can be more specific with you see that it didn't give you the website.

24:24So when you type in your questions, specifically type in the website along with what formative assessment you want it to give you. And then it will give it will link the formative assessment with the website and give you the information you're looking for. Okay, great.

24:37I just did it and it says, Thank you for the link. I see it's about the 13 works of art from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum that was stolen in Boston. So it says here are five questions and it goes on to give me those five questions. And that really does help.

24:53But actually, I think I want it to be where maybe there's some multiple choice instead of just some short answer. So let me tell it. Make it 50% multiple choice based. Great. So now it's taken those questions and it's turning into a multiple choice based question. So that's what I was hoping.

25:24Rather than be just completely short answer. Only problem is it didn't give me an answer key. So that most features one in the end. So the nice thing also you can extend it if you see five questions, maybe for one class or one student may only need to research and do five questions.

25:42You can also tell it to give you ten questions, 20 questions, and you can split it like you did 50% multiple choice, some open ended questions, some fill in the blanks. But like you were saying, most teachers want an answer key with it. So go ahead and type in and try to get the answer key for what you just looked up.

25:58Answer key needed right. Great. Look, now it's given me the answer key. So this is perfect. And now, like you said, I can extend it. I can change the dynamic of the quiz. If I wanted to go from True, False, or even maybe just a couple of short answers and only a couple of the multiple choice.

26:22So this is great. I love that it's linked to the website that I want them to look at without me having to go through and filter the entire content on the website. So it does give you the answer key, but just since it is coming from the internet, you always need to go through yourself and check for accuracy just to make sure that it's giving you all the correct information and answers.

26:41Of course. Of course. Yeah. So the multiple choice and like you were saying, you can do true or false, you can do a lot of different options. But if you want to do an extension for your students, you can also ask it to maybe do some hands on activities or something like that.

26:53So why don't we try to see, okay, let's see creative ways to incorporate information. Wonderful. So here it's telling me that some ways to incorporate the information would be they could create a crossword puzzle using key terms or information from the text. They could write a short story where they pretend to be maybe one of the characters and the artwork, or it could be they create their own artwork, a song, a poem.

27:38They could even create a game. So these are some great suggestions because I hadn't even thought about creating a crossword puzzle using the information that they learned about and were assessed about in the first place. So now they can apply that information.

27:52and you can always take it one step further for your creative students that want to write a song or a poem like the option there. So what would you ask the website to do If you wanted a student to create a song, I think I would want them to create a song using the artwork or the information from this website as their inspiration.

28:11So let me see if I can get it to write an example song so I can show them what it's like or what it should look like when it's finished and done. So create a song about the information learned from the website. says, Here's a song I came up with based on the information from the website.

28:49It does. It has a verse one, a chorus, a verse two, a chorus. And I'm reading the lyrics and it's about the artwork stolen from the Isabella Gardner Museum. So this is this is exactly like the information that they would have learned about the art heist and the artwork itself.

29:09We recommend that you pause here and try out developing formative assessment questions using ChatGPT, Bard or Bing. We know that was a lot. And I'm sure you still have questions about how to use AI to act as your own teaching assistant. We put together a resource for educators to craft strong prompts to get the most out of the AI tool of your choice.

29:29Take a few minutes to review the document and try out some of the prompts bonus points If you try out the same prompt in different tools, In this session, we focused on AI as a tool for performing teacher tasks. Some of you might be wondering, Hey, if I can use this to make my job easier, what are my students going to do with it?

29:49in the next session, we are going to focus on ways that teachers can use AI to enhance the learning experience as opposed to detracting from it. We'll be joined by Dr. Ethan Mollick, a professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and Dr. Lilach Mollick, who works on interactive pedagogy and AI research at the Wharton School.

30:13They will help us explore the possibilities of AI for student learning. Visit the AI 101 for Teachers website at code.org./ai101 to sign up for early access and to explore additional resources. From Code.org, It's ETS, ISTE and Khan Academy. Thanks for joining us. See you in session three.