Hey guys,

Welcome to your pre-Christmas EduSummary newsletter! It is time to weigh the pros and cons of educational AI in 2023, see the latest surveys, and learn what teachers and students think about chatbots and other AI tools in their classrooms. So jingle bells, and here you go!

(Total read time — 5 minutes)

CASE STUDIES

AI taught math teachers to foster their students’ learning outcome

Associate Professor of Education at the University of Southern California, Yasemin Copur-Gencturk decided to enhance learning progress in math classes by upgrading teachers’ skills using AI. Together with some colleagues, she created an online professional development program based on a virtual facilitator. This AI tool allowed teachers to review the course and receive practical and meaningful feedback. What’s more, it appeared that their students’ performance improved. Go here to learn more.

AI helps to save almost a whole working day

Over six months, teachers at Basingstoke College of Technology (BCoT) have saved 5.1 hours a week on planning thanks to AI. After the new tools erupted, they got a great chance to spend more time on creative work than ever. And they used this possibility for 100%. Everything started in February when the BCoT team created an ‘AI Ethics Group’ to align AI better with the college's strategy. Welcome here to learn some valuable ideas for your school.

A President’s test on AI potential for history lessons

Alex Cooke, a photographer from Cleveland, decided to challenge AI and learn whether current chatbots will become good school history teachers. So he started a video screen record, and that’s what he asked Character AI: Who was the most formidable opponent of the 19th President of the US, Ulysses S. Grant? What was the answer? Stonewall Jackson. Based on this and other responses, Cooke opened Pandora’s box. Click here to watch his experiment.

WEEKLY INSIGHTS

Hooked on chatbots: Students’ concerns about AI

“I search up certain terms to help me understand what they mean or just to help me understand the materials better.” That is what a Staten Island Technical High School junior, Kangxi Yang, says about using the Bard chatbot for her history course. Still, she doesn’t want AI tools to become even more critical. Meanwhile, Emily Munoz, a senior at Truman High School in the Bronx, focuses on the problem of an extreme emphasis on grades instead of learning and accusations of using AI that is experienced by students who do not really cheat. Go here to learn more about students’ revelations about AI.

Pretty like a human! Teachers try not to miss the AI evolution

It is increasingly challenging to detect AI-generated essays since technology evolves rapidly. It was so for Jeremy Sell, a high school English teacher in California, who suspected a 4th grader of AI cheating. The essay under question perfectly fitted the style of that student, but surprisingly, there were no errors. That looked fantastic and completely unreal for the 4th grader. An EdTech professional, Stacy Hawthorne, shed some light on this situation. She held an experiment showing how AI acquires students’ tones of voice and sentence structure and, what is more, even a tendency to make mistakes. If Jeremy Sell’s students followed this recipe, they probably wouldn’t even be questioned the next time! Possibly, your students already know this hack. Learn how you can test essay writing AI tools here.

AI prospects for 2024

The 74 Million grasped a bunch of ideas that might determine educational AI next year. These are the most impressive for us in EduSummary:

• Plenty of schools and districts will be noticed providing AI professional development materials to their teachers;

• The market will promote more open-sourced AI tools;

• Students will experience more personalized learning practices.

NEWS

Doctor AI: Future clinicians facing AI

In Texas, medical students will soon become well-prepared for work in the up-to-date AI market. The first dual degree program that teaches future clinicians to be fluent in AI has already been developed. It is a five-year program that leads to receiving a Doctor of Medicine at The University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio. You’ll need the same time to become a Master of Science in Artificial Intelligence at The University College at The University of Texas at San Antonio. Go here to learn more about the AI training for medical students.

ChatGPT did not increase cheating in high schools, Stanford researchers find

The quantity of school students who cheat now doesn’t differ much from the number of loafers before ChatGPT, a new Stanford anonymous survey shows. 60% to 70% of students admitted to cheating. Moreover, many students said they would like to use chats in the future, but just for working on assignments, not generating papers. Hope so! Click here to go into details.

A big AI education initiative launched in the US

The EducateAI initiative by the US National Science Foundation aims to bring high-quality AI experience to K-12 nationwide. First, these are professional development opportunities for teachers and the needed infrastructural support. Go here to learn more about the opportunity.

AI sounds better!

The Mitchell’s Plain Music Academy, Cape Town, South Africa, decided to introduce AI into artistic work. After the end-of-year concert at Deannie Landgoed, Stellenbosch, they announced an AI workshop to help musicians perform even better, generating new melodies, lyrics, genres, and more. Here, you can see how things are going now.

PROMPT OF THE WEEK

Get ready for the Christmas time. Enjoy this prompt inspired by Kirsten Thompson. Go here to see the original one.

Input:

A Christmas holiday image of New York teachers sharing online.

Output:

TOP TOOLS

Meet the weekly EduSummary AI tools list to enhance your teaching routines.

MagicSchool AI is a lesson plan generator you can use to create engaging lessons with objectives, key points, and assessments included. Individual teachers can sign up to use this tool for free.

Teachermatic is a personalized AI platform to generate lesson plans, quizzes, question generators, and more, following your needs. Here, you can archive your resources and reach them whenever needed. One week trial is free.

Merlyn Mind is an AI assistant and device teachers can use for classroom activities via their voice or remote control. It lets you generate educational materials, go through grading procedures, communicate, and more.

PLUS (Personalized Learning Squared) is an AI-powered dashboard that connects students with tutors. Teachers can trace their students' real-time studying indicators and provide support.

🪄Anything for you! 🪄

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Keep reading

Learn how to turn AI into your daily teaching practice and stay informed about all the most important news in generative AI. Reach the previous newsletters here.