Over the past 15 years, in each of my roles from class teacher to headteacher, or working across authorities and Regional Improvement Collaboratives, I have always been a staunch advocate for collaboration - I truly believe that excellence is not achievable in isolation.
However, before the past two years, I would never have imagined an aspect of collaboration that is becoming more and more common: advising staff to engage in regular collaboration with artificial intelligence (AI).
We have seen AI bring about significant changes in other industries over just 18 months, and I believe these are now having a ripple effect in education. Rather than asking, “Should we be using AI?”, I would instead suggest that educators start wondering, “How do we make best use of AI?”
So, how has my school, Athelstaneford Primary, utilised AI in the past 12 months?
Even in a small, rural East Lothian primary school, we have already reaped benefits from engaging with AI. With multiple composite classes and a small team, it has helped us in the following areas. (Each of the resources mentioned is free for educators, but there are other alternatives available online.)
The impact of AI in a small, rural primary
Graphic design
This year, as a school community, we have been developing our curriculum rationale. AI within Canva has allowed us to create a bespoke infographic of our rationale, which matches our unique context. With very little expertise in graphic design, we were able to create a very professional-looking infographic that allows us to share our key drivers.
Modelled writing pieces
Using ChatGPT, we have been able to create model texts for specific areas of the curriculum and genres. By pasting in the criteria we were looking for and setting specific reading ages, it produced almost perfect examples for children to use in their writing. What used to take significant time is now much quicker.
Assessing descriptive writing
In our younger classes, children have been writing descriptive texts and then using Microsoft Copilot to create a picture based on these. Children were then able to peer- and self-assess the accuracy of both the writing and the AI-generated images.
Generating bespoke learning-activity ideas
With personalisation and choice being key principles in our curriculum, tools such as that developed by technologies teacher Daniel Smith at Stirling Council have provided an amazing opportunity to identify potential learning opportunities unique to the interests and needs of specific individuals.
Whether it’s a child wanting to learn about data handling at first level through a Pokémon context or learning for sustainability linked to Taylor Swift’s world tour at the second level through a meta-skills lens, these tools work. The ability to move from a blank page to a comprehensive package of initial ideas is fantastic, offering activities, learning intentions, linked Curriculum for Excellence experiences and outcomes, skills, YouTube videos and podcasts all in one place.
Creating assessment questions for retrieval practice and idea generation for self-evaluation
Using ChatGPT or Copilot, we have been able to quickly create surveys or assessments that could be pasted into online forms. Using Quizizz, we have also quickly created assessments and questions linked to YouTube videos to support learning and assessment.
Administrative tasks
AI tools have helped us to quickly pull information from different places. The ability to complete tables has been particularly useful. For example, “Please add a column with the addresses of the following schools” or “Add a column of Accelerated Reader ages for each of the texts below”. Tasks that could become very long and operational have been outsourced, allowing time to be used more efficiently.
There was literally gasps in the room when @DavidReid1989 shared this. A very impressive AI tool which creates lesson schemes based on curricular areas, specific contexts, skills frameworks and more. If anyone knows who we should be giving credit to please comment #NBLF24 https://t.co/dvgYya938K
- Stewart Brown (@MrStewartBrown) May 20, 2024
How will schools use AI in the next two years?
It is difficult to predict where AI will take us next. A more conversational approach, as AI becomes more and more human-like, is changing how and when it can best be used. It appears that Siri and Alexa will soon feel more like family members than pieces of technology. I imagine that in the next two years we will see this in schools:
New insights in our data analysis
Both Microsoft and Google are rapidly adding AI features to their online platforms. Using these language systems within data sets could offer a range of different types of analysis and identify trends and patterns that may otherwise be difficult to interpret or heavily time-consuming.
Alternative thinking
AI can be used as an approach for low-level validation when developing new approaches, to see if it shares the same considerations as school teams. Everything you’ve considered for improving attainment in numeracy at early level - does this correlate with how AI would approach it?
Supporting multilingual learners
The new GPT-4 offers amazing opportunities for real-time translation, which could be a game-changer for multilingual learners. The ability to teach your class and a student to feel like they have a human translator sitting beside them for every lesson, every day, could revolutionise their experience.
Offering bespoke professional learning through unique AIs
Just like AI can produce lesson plans and learning activities, it could also become more integrated into our professional learning. Its ability to identify opportunities for further learning and specific aspects of research could be a huge time saver.
The opportunity for participants to engage in coaching conversations at a time that best suits them could be hugely impactful. GPT-4‘s ability to offer real-time feedback has great potential.
Five AI tips for schools
Finally, here are five tips for making best use of AI:
- Ask the right question. The results you gain from these tools will depend on the quality of the questions asked and the inputs provided. Be as specific as possible and use criteria smartly.
- Practice makes perfect. The more you use these tools, the more proficient you will be in asking the right questions and seeing how vast the opportunities are.
- View it as a first draft. The responses given likely won’t be perfect. Be ready to make tweaks to make it work for your own context.
- Be prepared for change. This is a rapidly changing technology unlike anything before. Be open to this and be creative with it.
- It isn’t cheating. View it as removing the “blank piece of paper dread” that many children experience. When workload continues to be a major challenge for education, this is a way that we could reduce it - and redirect our precious time to supporting excellent learning for all of our children.
Stewart Brown is headteacher at Athelstaneford Primary, in East Lothian. He tweets @MrStewartBrown
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