Part 2 - Teaching Assistant

The teacher was using AI to respond to a parent email about a book challenge. She started her prompt very broad and basic. When she didn't get a response that was exactly what she was looking for, she knew she needed to be more specific with her request. She continued to tweak her request until she got what just about what she wanted. Finally, she learned she had access to all previous versions of the request, so she could copy and paste a part that was deleted from the original that she wanted. It was a great demo to understand how to use AI to as an assistant to save time.

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.  Once she specified that it was for 10th grade and centered on "mysteries" it was able to generate an email that she was comfortable with.  At first she was given a list of five books.   The one book she felt was too easy for the grade level so that one was removed along with another book when she clarified her needs.   The teacher liked the tone of the letter and the recommendations that were provided.  The teacher was able to respond back to her parent with the help of ChatGPT.

The teacher used ChatGPT to formulate an email to a parent that recommends books that are an appropriate fit for a reluctant reader. As she used ChatGPT she could make her request more specific to what she needed. In an instant, ChatGPT created something that fit better to the teacher's needs. 

Chat GPT is a starting point. You can edit it yourself or ask ChatGPT to do it for you. 

In this demo, the teacher began to ask GPT to write an email to a students parents about book challenge and recommendations. Her first response was too broad. Needing to be more specific is exactly what was needed and what she did. Grade level and genre were added. It customized it much better and created an actual letter. Even after the letter is given in detail, you still need to look at it for tone, length and make sure the books are what you want. Take GPT what you want, but change style and formality to be more of what you want. This is what she did! Also using Chat GPT, you can always go back and use any information from previous responses. This was a good demo for anyone new to AI.

I like how the teacher was able to use ChatGPT to generate an email to a parent regarding a reluctant reader who is not getting their reading assignments completed. It was interesting that she was able to continually hone her original request, making it more and more specific and personalized. When she first tried, ChatGPT crafted an email in the proper format, using many of the terms a reading teacher would employ. This was a useful starting point.
The teacher continued on to specify the grade level and genre interests of the student. This was very helpful to her, because it came up with a list of recommended reading, along with book titles, authors, and a summary of each one. This is such a time-saver! I could easily spend an hour just researching possible titles before I even begin writing the actual email. ChatGPT was able to complete this in just a few minutes, with the teacher reviewing the outcome to make it a better fit for the particular situation. It was as if she and her assistant were brainstorming and writing together. 

For this entry, I'll focus on the parent email scenario.
First, I would always address AI in a positive, thankful tone.....just in case it takes over the world some day! haha I think the users initial prompt was super basic and I immediately could tell that her results were not going to be usable. The terms were over simplified and too general to be used to communicate with a parent. 
As I once mentioned, using Chat GPT is like having a conversation. The best part about her prompt is that it can be refined or create a totally new message. The possibilities for tweaking are endless! 
The part I like the most is that this is an amazing starting point where the user can decide to use or discard the response!

In a short paragraph or two, explain what the did to get the response she was looking for from one of the demonstrations shown in the video (email to parent, lesson plan, or formative assessment).  NOTE: you can focus on just one demo... 

I am responding to the parent email. The teacher prompted ChatGTP to write an email reply to a parent about their concerns about the reading challenge (a reluctant reader). This type of email definitely requires a bit of tact. The first prompt given was very vague, and the content created wasn’t the best. As the teacher revised and narrowed their thoughts, ChatGPT created an email that fit their needs. At first I thought this was a way OUT of work, but in reality, we ask people for advice on an email or even Google examples so this is no different.

In a short paragraph or two, explain what the did to get the response she was looking for from one of the demonstrations shown in the video (email to parent, lesson plan, or formative assessment).  NOTE: you can focus on just one demo...

I will focus not he writing of the email to a parent. This is a task that is definitely tedious, and often is very rote in nature, but needs to be polished and professional. I found that the increased prompts were fascinating. The way she would add, "for a tenth grader", and "shorten... take off this book..." act, and then Chat GPT would tune it up a bit. It was also interesting to see that sometimes it would do a bit of overkill. 

I tried to have it write a parent email, and it did a decent job. But I also found that it was not that much faster than writing it myself, after doing all the prompts. One of the slowest parts is accessing student data, this requires multiple clicks and access to different student screens. I look forward to the near future when ChatGPT is integrated with our PowerSchool and could pull data for student, "John Elliott in Living environment, list out bullet list of missing assignments, and what grade calculation would be when each is completed" - that will be amazing!

In the video, the teacher is looking for ways to create an assessment based off of some content she found on the internet regarding art thefts.  She was using Bing's AI assistant to do this. I have not explored Bing much as a tool as I have used Chat GPT a lot and Bard a little.  Since this tool in connected to the internet this may be a useful option to generate content that is more up to date rather than having to feed Chat GPT full articles to get it to know the content.  Pasting in a website is much easier.

The trick with creating these assessments (along with other AI content) seems to be in the specificity that you provide the AI with in your prompt.  If you ask for an assessment it will likely give questions that are response based unless you ask specifically for a Multiple-Choice set of questions.  You then have to continue to refine your prompts as you respond back to what the output is to get closer to what you may be looking for.

Since I am approaching the usual observation time of year here at school, I chose to focus in on the portion of the video on using Bard to search and generate ideas for lesson plans and even the plans themselves.  The teacher demonstrating started with a simple search based on the content she will be teaching.  Searching “Greek Gods and Goddesses”.  This was interesting as is created a list of resources, possible tasks/assessments, and provided additional resources that could be used.  She then narrowed her use of bard by adding the words “lesson plan” and adding in a time frame (3 days). This then revamped the findings and produced day by day instructions, ideas for tasks, differentiated tasks based on learning style, and even a rubric. I always like to put my unique spin on lessons and make them my own.  But I like this Bard search tool as a means of getting the ball rolling with ideas.  Very cool.