AI-Friend or Foe?

AI is making a lot of people very nervous. The thing that is most nerve-wracking about it is that at this point, there’s nothing we can do to stop it.

Indeed, it’s a train barrelling towards us one way or the other, and we may feel that no matter what we do, we won’t escape the destruction it might cause to jobs and the economy.

I don’t have a crystal ball and can’t predict exactly what the future of AI will look like, but what I can say is that like climate change, it is here to stay, and the more willing we are to adapt and mitigate, the more AI can become a tool we can use to solve pressing problems, rather than the great thief of prosperity in our lives.

Besides, education is one of those jobs where if we play our cards right, AI can plug in the gaps and mitigate long-standing problem. This will give teachers back time in their day to work directly with their students, build those crucial relationships, and maintain a sense of balance in the face of giant workloads and complex student needs.

Today, I want to talk about an AI tool I created for that purpose-designed to directly help teachers on the ground with assessment.

Assessment is an invaluable part of the education process-you can’t make appropriate curricular decisions without it. Whether writing report card comments, creating IEP goals, collecting data on student benchmarks, or taking anecdotal notes on student behaviour-assessments can take hours to do properly-hours that are then not spent working directly with students or planning the lessons and activities that will be used to build those crucial skills!

Another issue that can come up with assessment is that few assessments are perfectly-tailored to the students of today. For example, you may, as a third grade teacher, have a tried and true rubric, benchmark, or achievement test that reliably tells you where your students are performing.

However, this same rubric may be completely irrelevant to the student in your class who currently works at a grade one level! And while you may be tempted to go next door to the grade one teacher and use his or her assessments on that struggling student, this is not always possible when students are not following a modified curriculum.

After all, modification is a procedure that is usually postponed as much as possible due to the irreversible effects it can have on a child’s educational pathway, making it difficult or impossible for that child to graduate high school at the same time as his or her peers.

As a teacher, you may be scratching your head-how can I possibly assess a student who is not working at grade level, while using grade level rubrics and materials? And how can I create assessments that are versatile and flexible enough to accommodate the wide range of skills I see in my class, while still maintaining fidelity to local curriculum standards?

There is no conundrum too complex for AI to ponder, and these tried, true and tested prompts are a testament to that.

However, here are some compelling AI prompts that can be used to address some of these seemingly impossible teaching and assessment situations.

Sample Chat-GPT prompts:

Create a versatile and flexible rubric that can be used to evaluate any academic IEP goal. This rubric should accord with (local curriculum) at (grade/grade level).

Create a rubric that accords with (local curriculum) in (grade) in the subject of (subject) for the task (insert task). This rubric should cover a wide range of possible performance and should be accessible for adapted and modified students.

Create a versatile data sheet, rubric, and/or data collection system to help teachers assess students who struggle with pencil and paper academic tasks. These sheets should be in accordance with (local curriculum).