Part 2 - Teaching Assistant

I am choosing the email she was composing using A.I. When she first starting inputing all of the information she thought would be needed for ChatGPT to compose a parent email for her, she realized that she needed to be more specific with the information she gave ChatGPT.  The right ideas were there but the AI didn't draft the email she liked until she re-read the email and tweaked it by adding and taking away information to make the email specific enough for her liking.  This video shows that while you may be thinking of specific and important information to have A.I. help you, you need to be specific and you may have to re-read the information it gives you, adjusting it, until you get it the way you want.

The teacher needed to respond to an email to a parent about book recommendations for a book challenge.  At first when the teacher put in the information in ChatGPT she was too general and needed to be more specific. She needed to specify the grade level and genre for the book challenge. Once she specified this information, Chat GPT was able to generate an email that best met her needs and offered suggestions to help the parents help their child.  At first she was given a list of five books.  She felt one book was too easy for the grade level andi t was easily removed along with another book to clarify the needs for this particular student . The teacher liked the tone of the letter and the recommendations that were provided, allowing her to respond to the parent  of a student that was a reluctant reader.with the help of AI.

As the teacher asked AI to help write an email to a parent, she was specific about asking for suggestions, but she wasn't specific about what the "reading challenge" was.  That didn't seem to matter too much, but she did need to revise to make the letter applicable to a tenth grade student.  She checked content and tone, and asked AI to shorten the letter and improve the beginning.  I'm not sure what she meant by improving the beginning, so I may have been more specific about that.  Overall, she definitely got results she could work with by fine-tuning and doing some personal editing.  I still have questions about whether this is passing off AI generated text as her own writing, but I can see how it can be a useful tool.   

So, what I took note of in each of the demonstrations, is that she right off the bat used a present tense verb in the command form when using teaching assistant (Ooh "verbage"...You can take the French teacher out of the classroom but...you get the idea!) So, to get started using teaching assistant I would recommend thinking in that way.  I found that by her doing that in each case she got a pretty good result with her first try.  As she went on she did do that same thing paying specific attention to her command form of the verb to get a more defined result.  Yeah parts of speech! Yeah grammar! Yeah structure! For example, in the end, the teacher using ChatGPT liked the tone of the email but she still needed to tweak it a couple of times to get it to where she was really happy with it. With each version, she continued to use key verbs in present tense command form to improve the email to get a satisfactory final outcome.

This section of the video was super interesting.  I've seen some things written by AI that people have put on websites and sometimes it can look like a word salad, which perhaps is why I have yet to try it myself. 

However after learning that this can be used as a starting point and then improved has really changed my thinking. I liked how the teacher was able to put in a few words what she wanted to be included in her email, and then look at the initial email to the parent and add parameters after the fact to improve her communication like "make shorter", or "improve the first paragraph". 

 I used to teach middle school and would spend hours creating assessments and creating new tasks to keep my lessons and assessments exciting and appropriate, the use of chatGPT and bard would help cut that time down immensely and create more robust materials. 

Using AI to craft emails is great, but it shows in the video that the teacher was not as specific with information as she could have been. I think this is fixed by practice. I also think relying too heavily on getting the exact response takes away from the power of the AI, where the original creation is great, just in need of some human intervention. I would immediately copy and paste and edit the email to suit my needs. I also would be a bit more brief and direct with my responses. For example, once I realized the chat took off an extra book, I would say “Please add back in the fourth book that is not The Westing House.” Since Chat GPT keeps the record of responses, there is no harm in doing this. 

The formative assessment demo was a little wonky. As an educator, we also must be active learners. I think the teacher would have gotten more meaningful assessment if she had explored the website herself. This approach gives little meaning to comprehension if the teacher is using it to just check a box. However, by asking bing to create more creative ways to implement the information gave the teacher suggestions for more meaningful comprehension such as created songs, stories or puzzles from the point of view of the subjects in the stolen paintings. 

I selected the email where the teacher used chatGPT to write an email to reply to a parent email with concerns about a reading challenge for the student. The teacher needed to narrow down exactly what they needed in order  for the email to be less general. Once that was done  and the teacher made some changes, the email fit their needs. I felt this was a great example of how AI can be helpful.  I don't think it's any different than looking up examples on a google search.

1. I selected practice writing an email with chatGPT. The teacher used AI to help generate an email to parents regarding a book challenge for her students. Her initial reaction was, "wow," but she also mentioned how it "could be a little better." She had to be more specific when it came to the grade/reading level, genre, etc; she had to narrow down her parameters. The email/letter became much more specific and geared to her 10th grade students, their interests/likes (mystery books), and even added a nice tone/personal touch in the beginning of the letter for parents. So overall, the teacher enjoyed the customization, the tone, word usage, and book recommendations of chatGPT. However, she did mention that she would take one book off of the list because it was more geared toward middle school students and not high school students, as well as shortening the letter and improving the opening paragraph. This was a great and helpful example of how to work with AI to generate and revise content.

Using AI to create a lesson plan.  The teacher started with one prompt then had to refine what she was asking- like make it a lesson plan.  It then generated a lesson plan with some great suggestions and also include differentiation.  
I used chatgpt to generate a 4th grade decimals lesson plan.  I had to revise the lesson to have it be more specific to what I was looking for.  The lesson plan and activities that were generated for me we're hands-on activities, games, real world applications, etc.  My lesson also included some options for extension activities.