As the school year comes to a close, educators often face the challenge of maintaining student engagement while managing increased responsibilities. This article explores five AI-powered tools that can help teachers boost engagement, differentiate instruction, and save time to help you finish the school year strong.
As the school year winds down, it’s a time when we may see a drop in student engagement and when educators may be balancing a long list of additional responsibilities: standardized testing, final assessments, school events, curriculum pacing, and of course, keeping students engaged and excited for learning to finish the year strong. I have often said to friends and colleagues that, for these reasons, I think it's a great time of year to try new ideas. Now, with all of the AI-powered tools available to educators, we have ideas and, perhaps, even a teaching partner to help us with our work.
When we select the right tools for our own work and tools for students to interact with, it helps in many ways. When leveraged intentionally, these tools can help us create new resources, provide more differentiation and support for students, and enable us to save time. These tools also provide us with opportunities to help students understand how to use AI in safe, ethical, and responsible ways. When we model appropriate use of these tools for our students, it shows them how AI can enhance rather than replace the learning opportunity for students. A reminder, though, is that AI cannot replace teachers. However, when used with intention, AI tools can help us reignite engagement, generate fresh ideas, and be more efficient, so we have more time with students.
There are many options available to choose from. I’ve been using Brisk Teaching, Curipod, and MagicSchool AI since they became available. I continue to use these tools to support my instruction and place AI in the hands of students to help guide them with responsible use. Here are five AI-powered tools I’ve been using and recommending to other educators, especially as the school year winds down or at any time. Whether you’re looking to create new learning experiences, foster collaboration, boost student engagement, or spark creativity. Or try project-based learning (PBL), explore CTE, STEM activities, or simply lighten your planning load, these tools can help you finish strong and have some new ideas to reflect on over the summer break.
1. Almanack AI
Almanack is a great resource to explore whether you’ve been using AI in your classroom or just getting started. Teachers can quickly create assessments, choice boards, lesson plans, projects, and rubrics. There are also fun options such as bingo, escape rooms, and jeopardy. Almanack is great for creating presentations with images, content, and even some discussion prompts, all of which can be then exported to Google Slides or PowerPoint and edited within Almanack or the other formats. Looking to try a quick project-based learning activity for the last month of school? Almanack can generate options aligned to your specific curriculum standards and provide differentiation for your learners. It also offers translation into many languages, promoting accessibility. I also enjoy how it integrates with other tools that I am using, like Blooket, Gimkit, and Quizizz, which helps with my workflow and saves more time for working with students!
2. Diffit
I have recommended Diffit to many educators looking for better ways to provide differentiation in the classroom, as well as have more engaging activities for students. One of the ongoing challenges in any classroom is meeting students where they are, especially as the year winds down and you’re trying to keep everyone on track. Diffit can take a text (or suggest one) and automatically adjust the reading level, language complexity, and question types to match students' needs. It also offers translation into many different languages, which promotes accessibility.
You can take any topic or article and instantly generate modified versions at different reading levels. It also creates accompanying questions, vocabulary lists, and summaries which means you can quickly adapt content for diverse learners—whether you're supporting multilingual students, offering enrichment, or just trying to make a challenging topic more accessible. And my favorite is that you generate these activities for students in varying formats such as Google Docs and Forms, Microsoft formats, or PDFs.
3. Eduaide
Eduaide is a robust tool designed by classroom teachers. It can help generate everything from bell ringers and exit tickets to debate topics, collaborative learning activities, lesson and unit plans, project ideas, and even suggest multimedia activities. I love that it’s quick, specific, and can be aligned to specific grades and content areas, including CTE.
I enjoy selecting a grade level and topic and seeing how quickly AI generates an objective to help guide my planning. It offers more than 100 resources, from gamified quizzes to project-based tasks, debates, and fun learning opportunities. In a short period of time, you can create lesson plans, assessments, projects, and collaborative activities, take care of clerical tasks like emails and newsletters, and check in on students' wellness.
4. TeachToolAI by TeachShare
Another fun platform with a heavy pedagogical focus to explore is TeachToolAI, which engineers from UC Berkeley have built. TeacherToolAI by TeachShare is a platform that helps to spark some creativity in designing resources for the classroom. I recommend testing out a variety of prompts for different grade levels or standards, and see the high-quality instructional materials that can be shared with students via PDF or in a digital format. For example, I simply typed in STEM or PBL, and it quickly generated a reflection worksheet for students with an overview of what STEM is, examples of STEM careers, and questions with space for reflection. I tried PBL for 11th grade and selected a “boost” in inquiry for its generated resource. It created a PBL Community Investigation Research project for students to identify local challenges. Easy to start with and create a variety of engaging and real-world learning activities for students.
5. Snorkl
Snorkl is a great tool for students to reflect, express themselves, and connect what they’ve learned to something meaningful. They also offer a library full of ready-to-run activities to get started in any content area and at all grade levels. We first used it in October 2023 in my Spanish II class, and students who were hesitant to speak in front of classmates became more confident after using Snorkl. There are libraries full of activities for math, ELA, world languages, science, and more for students starting as young as kindergarten.
Snorkl prompts students to explain their thinking and make their learning visible, often through short videos or audio reflections. Students each have a whiteboard space to write or draw on and record their thought process. What I love about Snorkl is that it gives students voice and agency. Because it's powered by AI, it can also help provide quick feedback and insights into student understanding, enabling teachers to better target instruction and support students.
These are just a few of the many tools available for educators that also benefit students. AI can help support learning, but it cannot replace the care we show our students and the relationships we build, but it can free up time. Tools like Almanack, Diffit, Eduaide, TeachShare, and Snorkl make it possible. In this final stretch of the school year, or at any time, don’t be afraid to dive into exploring the power of AI.
About the Author:
Rachelle Dené Poth is a World Language and STEAM Educator at Riverview High School in Oakmont, PA. She is also an Attorney, Edtech Consultant, Speaker, and the author of seven books about education and edtech. Follow her on Twitter, Instagram, and connect on LinkedIn.
