ChatGPT, an AI chatbot that understands typed prompts and generates human-like content, has become the fastest-growing web platform in history. As a teacher, I have personally tested ChatGPT and assessed its ability to handle various tasks. While it’s not perfect, this chatbot can save teachers time by automating the initial drafts of our most time-consuming professional writing. In fact, it has the potential to reduce the average teacher’s daily workload of 10 hours and 40 minutes.
Now, let’s explore how ChatGPT can assist with different teacher tasks. I have categorized these tasks into several categories including planning instruction, handouts and materials, differentiation, correspondence, assessment, and writing instruction and feedback.
Category 1. PLANNING INSTRUCTION
When it comes to planning instruction, ChatGPT is a powerful tool that can help in various ways:
- Unit outline: By aligning its output with the Common Core State Standards, ChatGPT can craft unit outlines for any grade level, subject, or timeline.
- Lesson plans: You can ask ChatGPT to generate lesson plans on specific topics, such as Westward Expansion. The tool will include assessments, activities, scaffolding, and objectives. It can even adapt the lesson plan based on your instructions, such as incorporating problem-based learning or making it suitable for a flipped classroom.
- Slide shows: When you need a slide show for any topic and grade level, ChatGPT can outline the content and even add formative assessment questions if desired.
- X-factor instruction: If you’re looking for a creative approach to teaching metaphors or any other concept, ChatGPT can suggest innovative activities. For example, it proposed integrating student-created metaphors into original stories conveyed through visual genres like comic strips or storyboards.
- Simplify topics: When explaining complex concepts, ChatGPT can simplify the language and provide easy-to-understand explanations. Simply ask it to explain the topic to a first grader, and it will provide a straightforward explanation.
- Discussion questions: Use ChatGPT to generate engaging discussion prompts for any topic.
Category 2. HANDOUTS AND OTHER MATERIALS
One of ChatGPT’s time-saving features is its ability to generate text for materials and handouts tailored to your instructional needs:
- Instructions: ChatGPT can develop clear instructions that describe cooperative learning roles and expectations.
- Assignment directions: You can rely on ChatGPT to generate detailed assignment directions, including an overview, grading criteria, required format, and task details.
- Solved examples: For math problems, chemistry equations, and more, ChatGPT can create solved examples with explanations for each step.
- Prereading or advance organizers: By extracting critical and unfamiliar vocabulary from a chapter, ChatGPT can create prereading or advance organizers that list keywords along with their definitions.
- Word problems: If you need word problems related to ratios or any other topic, ChatGPT can provide the problem statement, formula for solving it, and a step-by-step explanation of the procedure.
- Syllabus: ChatGPT can compose a syllabus boilerplate that includes a course schedule, late-work policies, and a description of how assignments will be graded.
- Flash cards: Need flash cards? ChatGPT can generate flash cards with questions and answers.
- Posters: Whether it’s classroom rules, reasons why algebra is important, or common writing errors, ChatGPT can create posters with concise explanations and examples.
Category 3. DIFFERENTIATION
ChatGPT is helpful for creating differentiated materials and addressing individual student needs:
For art activities, ChatGPT can generate choice boards. It can also create passages, chapter summaries, or book summaries for students who require support. Moreover, ChatGPT can compact texts to create more concise versions. It can even generate differentiated rubrics that emphasize specific expectations and levels of challenge.
Category 4. PROFESSIONAL CORRESPONDENCE
Teachers can streamline their communication with parents, colleagues, and administrators using ChatGPT. You can rely on AI-composed welcome-to-class letters, newsletter copy, volunteer and donation requests, supply lists, grant and field trip proposals, assembly programs, and permission sheets.
Category 5. ASSESSMENT
ChatGPT can assist teachers in creating various assessment materials:
- Quizzes: Ask ChatGPT to create tests on specific topics using any question format. You can paste a passage or provide the title and chapter of a piece of literature, and ChatGPT will generate a test bank with an answer key.
- Rubrics: Whether you need analytic, holistic, developmental rubrics, or rating scales, ChatGPT can compose rubrics for different types of student performances.
- Checklists: The tool can develop observation checklists to document students’ academic, social, emotional, and physical progress.
- Cloze tests: With ChatGPT, you can create Cloze comprehension tests where the reader fills in the blanks to test their understanding of a passage’s main ideas, vocabulary, and sentence structure.
Category 6. Writing Instruction and Feedback
Teachers can improve their students’ writing skills with ChatGPT’s help:
- Prompt generator: ChatGPT can compose writing prompts for any genre and provide a corresponding rubric.
- Essay improvement: Submit student writing sections to ChatGPT, and it will suggest enhancements to improve the essays.
- Grammar feedback: When students make grammar errors, teachers can ask ChatGPT to define, describe, identify the errors, and provide examples for improvement.
While ChatGPT offers great assistance and automates routine tasks, it’s essential to remember that its content may not always be accurate. Just like human communication, inaccurate information can occasionally pop up. Therefore, it’s crucial to verify all AI-generated information for accuracy and usefulness before sharing it with students.
Another aspect to note is that ChatGPT’s prose may sometimes sound like it was written by an algorithm and lacks a personal touch. Teachers should view its compositions and curricula as first drafts, adding their own personal touch and making necessary modifications to uplift, inform, and empower students and other stakeholders.
