What I have found is that, contrary to saving me time, good use of AI in connection with lesson planning is actually more time consuming, but leads to higher quality. In other words, my best use of AI as a teacher results in something far superior than I would have been able to do otherwise, but still takes more time. I've been using it less and less over a wide range of tasks, but more deeply and deliberately on those tasks I do use it for.
What will the 24-25 school year look like without ESSER $, without enough teachers (my district is short 1390 licensed educators), and with AI-solutionism?
Hopefully, the traditionally conservative nature of education works in our favor.
I’m so grateful that I’m not any longer beholden to the clock or an institutional paycheck that would deprive me of the chance to do the experiments with AI scaffolding for the writing process that I’m doing right now. I’m also grateful I’ve just found your Substack @marc watkins. It looks like you have been having a conversation. I would really love to be part of if you’re still having it. I see this is an older post.
As a college English teacher of 19 years--watching fellow instructors and my students attempting to create something from scratch--I think AI is a great tool to move past the blank page. Because yucky words are better than no words to many people! So many people just can't START, and AI, like Steve said below, leads to higher quality work. That's my take!
What I have found is that, contrary to saving me time, good use of AI in connection with lesson planning is actually more time consuming, but leads to higher quality. In other words, my best use of AI as a teacher results in something far superior than I would have been able to do otherwise, but still takes more time. I've been using it less and less over a wide range of tasks, but more deeply and deliberately on those tasks I do use it for.
I just wrote about the time issue relative to lesson planning. Teachers get a scant 4-10 paid minutes to plan a lesson. Hardly enough time to think critically about what you put in front of students. https://open.substack.com/pub/verenabryan/p/teacher-math-part-ii?r=a6rh&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
I hope we address the material conditions that impact educator's labor and not welcome AI as a solution to these problems.
What will the 24-25 school year look like without ESSER $, without enough teachers (my district is short 1390 licensed educators), and with AI-solutionism?
Hopefully, the traditionally conservative nature of education works in our favor.
I’m so grateful that I’m not any longer beholden to the clock or an institutional paycheck that would deprive me of the chance to do the experiments with AI scaffolding for the writing process that I’m doing right now. I’m also grateful I’ve just found your Substack @marc watkins. It looks like you have been having a conversation. I would really love to be part of if you’re still having it. I see this is an older post.
As a college English teacher of 19 years--watching fellow instructors and my students attempting to create something from scratch--I think AI is a great tool to move past the blank page. Because yucky words are better than no words to many people! So many people just can't START, and AI, like Steve said below, leads to higher quality work. That's my take!