Dear colleague,
I've got just a few thoughts for you today regarding how to be more Credible with students when treating matters related to AI. Just like you, my thinking on this area of our work is in development. As such, what follows is very much working draft thinking.
First, be real about the temptation. Secondary students are tempted to use AI to shortcut the work of learning because 1) the work of learning is hard, 2) most secondary students still receive way too much busywork in school, or 3) they are over-pressured (which, in light of the Yerkes-Dodson Law, is always going to lead to diminished performance and poorer decision-making). Speaking to these realities signals that you care about students and you're aware of their reality.
Second, you've gotta be relentless about communicating the WHY of learning. Most teachers give students speeches from time to time about how awesome their subject is. No teacher gives students enough of these kinds of messages though, and many teachers who do give these messages make them overly long. This is where mini-sermons come in (Strategy #4 in The Will to Learn). Brief, frequent, creative expressions of why learning is good.
Third, you've got to then take all that Value-cultivation you're doing with those mini-sermons and parlay it into how common student AI use cases are so harmful. Learning in all the subject areas is really good for lots of amazing reasons. But when you ask an AI to complete your homework for you or write the essay for you, you're missing out on all that goodness.
Fourth, it's very helpful to be acquainted with the tools yourself. Share positive use cases from your own life — situations where you're using it in a way that aids your learning without doing the hard work for you.
Fifth and finally, show students how to use AI in a way that helps with learning rather than shortcuts it. My go-to example here is giving an AI a study guide or a vocab list and asking it to quiz you. The tools are getting better and better at knowing how to help students learn (like a tutor) versus acting like mindless work completion machines.
Sharing those in case they are helpful to you as you seek to build Credibility in this area of AI.
Teaching right beside you,
DSJR
P.S. I'm hosting a live session for school leaders on April 20 called “The Will to Teach.” It's about the Five Key Beliefs applied to teachers — and what leaders can do when the will to teach starts to erode. $29 individual / $99 team. [Details and registration here.]
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