Teachers can use generative AI in quite a lot of ways. You can use it to develop lesson plans and tests. Or teachers might depend on a generative AI tool like ChatGPT to realize insight into how you can teach an idea more effectively.
In our latest researchOnly teachers who do each said they felt they got more done. They also told us that their teaching was simpler with AI.
Over the course of the 2023-2024 school 12 months, we followed 24 teachers in K-12 schools across the United States as they wrestled with whether and how you can use generative AI of their work. In fall 2023, we gave them standard training on generative AI. We then conducted multiple observations, interviews, and surveys all year long.
We found that with generative AI, teachers felt more productive and effective after they turned to it for advice. The standard methods of teaching state standards that work for one student or in a single school 12 months may not work as well in one other. Teachers may get stuck and wish to try a special approach. It seems that generative AI is usually a source of ideas for these alternative approaches.
While many Focus on the productivity advantages Our study suggests something else about how generative AI can assist teachers deliver tests or activities faster. Teachers feel more productive and effective when their students learn, and generative AI appears to be helping some teachers develop latest ideas for promoting their students' learning.
Why it matters
K-12 education requires creativityespecially in relation to tasks like lesson plans or integrating technology into the classroom. However, teachers are under pressure to work quickly because they’ve so many things to do, resembling preparing classroom materials, meeting with parents, and completing elementary school students' schoolwork. Teacher don't have enough time every single day to finish all crucial work.
We know that these pressures occur often makes creativity difficult. This can leave teachers feeling stuck. Some people, especially AI experts, consider generative AI to be one Solution to this problem; Generative AI is at all times ready for motion, works quickly and never tires.
However, this view assumes that teachers know how you can effectively use generative AI to get the solutions they seek. Our research shows that for a lot of teachers, the time it takes to get a satisfactory result from the technology – and adapt it to their needs – is not any shorter than the time it will take them to create the materials themselves from scratch to create. For this reason, using generative AI to create materials will not be enough to attain more.
When schools understand how teachers can effectively use generative AI for advising, they’ll make more informed decisions about how you can put money into AI for his or her teachers and how you can support teachers in using these latest tools. Additionally, this provides feedback to the scientists developing AI tools that could make higher decisions concerning the design of those systems.
What will not be yet known
Many teachers face obstacles that prevent them from realizing the advantages of generative AI tools like ChatGPT. These advantages include the flexibility to supply higher materials more quickly. However, the teachers we spoke to were all latest users of the technology. Teachers who’re more conversant in ways to advance generative AI—we call them “power users”—could have other ways to interact with the technology that we haven’t seen. We also don't yet know exactly why some teachers go from latest users to experienced users while others don't.
