Integrating AI and digital tools into education provides many benefits including streamlining assessment, increasing efficiency in instruction, enabling educators to assess students and provide feedback faster, personalizing learning for students, and more. Learn how to select the right AI tools and read about a few tool suggestions to assist lesson planning and assessment.
Educators have many options for assessing student learning. Years ago, assessments took the form of paper, conversations, observations, and projects, for example, because the technology was quite limited. For many educators, creating lessons and assessments is quite time-consuming. In particular, when providing feedback in writing on the paper to help students improve, in many instances, students disregard my feedback and throw the paper away. They only cared about the grade received and viewed it as a finite point without consideration of the feedback we provided. We know feedback is essential for growth to happen, and feedback must be authentic, meaningful, and timely. Over the past year and a half, we have seen technology advance rapidly, especially with generative AI and the many AI-powered tools available for educators.
When used purposefully, this technology can transform various aspects of education, particularly when assessing and creating content for lessons. Traditional assessments and class activities are now being supplemented or even replaced by using a mix of the innovative digital tools available. In our schools, there has been a shift, although it may be slow to start in some cases, toward more technology-driven assessment. There are numerous benefits that can positively impact educators and learners when these tools are used with purpose.
When it comes to deciding on whether or not to use technology, specifically AI resources, I consider what the benefits will be. Will the technology increase efficiency in my instruction and enable me to assess students and provide feedback faster? Will students embrace these tools and focus on the feedback they receive when using some of the AI tools available? Automated scoring and instant feedback delivered to students reduce the time educators spend on evaluating assessments, enabling them to spend more time with students and provide authentic and meaningful feedback.
Another benefit is that automated grading and feedback help ensure a fair and objective evaluation of each student. They promote more consistency in scoring and allow for reliable comparisons and measurements to track student performance over time. AI can analyze large amounts of data to identify trends in student learning, which then provides educators with valuable insights into student progress, strengths, and areas in need of improvement. Using this information, educators can then provide the support that students need right when they need it.
Integrating AI into learning tools helps provide more personalized and adaptive learning. AI can help educators by tracking student progress and adjusting the questions and difficulty level based on each student’s responses. By leveraging this functionality, educators can provide more for each student’s individual needs to ensure they are appropriately challenged and engaged in learning. This data-driven approach facilitates evidence-based decision-making and more targeted instructional strategies to promote student success in learning.
The use of these AI tools can also help promote accessibility and inclusivity in learning by accommodating diverse learning needs and providing features that assist students with disabilities or language barriers. Features such as text-to-speech, translation tools, the use of Immersive Reader, and adaptive learning platforms create opportunities for all students to demonstrate their knowledge and skills.
How do we select the right tools?
I suggest always focusing on the why and purpose of bringing in technology. What will it help you to do to enhance and/or transform learning for students? How will it impact the work that you do as an educator? Hopefully, starting here will lead you to find resources that will be beneficial and specific to your needs and your students’ needs. Make a list first and then explore. First, consider the specific content area and grade level to find options that will align with the curriculum and help to support the learning goals. For example, as a language educator, I look for tools to help students develop their confidence in speaking while also providing multiple modes of interacting with the content area. Remember that technology should not be used as a substitute for good teaching. Learning and methods first before technology. Technology should be used as a tool to enhance learning, not replace it. I also consider questions such as:
- Do I want students to continue the discussion after class?
- Does the option provide a variety of choices for them to convey what they have learned?
- How can I provide timely, authentic, and meaningful feedback, and are there options for text and audio feedback?
Remember to evaluate the policies surrounding these tools to ensure we keep student information secure.
Planning and Assessing with AI Tools
To prepare students for future careers, they need experience learning about and interacting with AI. In our classrooms, digital lesson planning tools can be invaluable resources as they can help to streamline the lesson planning process and enhance instructional practices. The tools available can help teachers brainstorm ideas, organize, create, and deliver their lessons, and model best practices for students. There is a growing list of AI-powered tools available for creating lessons, graphics, and designing materials that are used in education, and they typically take a great deal of time for educators to create. The availability of these tools will change over time, but the important thing for now is to explore some of them and decide for yourself what their benefits are.
Here are four that I recommend starting with to create a variety of materials, including lessons and assessments that can be used in our classrooms.
- Curipod: Teachers can create interactive lessons in minutes using AI. Teachers simply type in a topic, and a ready-to-run lesson, which includes polls, open-ended responses, word clouds, and more are created.
- Diffit: This platform has a few options, including entering a prompt to create literally anything, posting the URL for a video or a website, or even uploading your own PDF or text. It will generate a reading passage with definitions, questions, and short answers, which can then be exported into a variety of Google-framed activities.
- Eduaide.Ai: This platform offers more than 120 resource types for designing content, such as a syllabus, lesson plans, IEPs, gamification options, assessments, and more. It also has an Assistant for clerical tasks and an option for giving feedback. Eduaide was created by teachers who are still in the classroom
- Quizizz AI: This platform has been a great way to use AI to generate quizzes by using the URL of a video or web page, or from documents or even slideshows. It can even take plain questions and give them a real-world scenario or integrate a fun theme into the questions being asked. Quizizz also now offers accommodation profiles to best meet each student’s needs.
The ease of use and accessibility of the tools and navigation are essential for educators, students, and families supporting the students at home. Always focus on the purpose behind using a digital tool or any method. What will it help us to provide that is going to impact student learning positively? Is the tool going to meet students' individual needs and choices? How can we help students learn to use AI ethically, safely, and responsibly to enhance and not replace their learning? By leveraging tools in our classrooms and learning together!
About the Author:
Dr. 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 nine books about education and edtech. Follow her on Twitter, Instagram, and connect on LinkedIn. Contact Rachelle for PD training or keynotes on AI and other topics.
