How AI can unleash students' curiosity, creativity and critical thinking

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Maybe it's just me, but it seems like ai is starting to take over the world. To be clear, I don't mean this in the sense of “evil robots.” Rather, in a short period of time, ai has become widely integrated into almost all areas of our lives. Programs like ChatGPT and Dall-E are becoming mainstays in office environments. Companies are racing to see how ai can give them an edge in the competitive market. Then there is the world of education, where teachers like me are seeing ai completely change the way students learn.

I will not minimize the risks. We are already seeing students using ai to plagiarize or cheat on their assignments. Learning how to prevent ai abuse will be a topic of great concern in the future. However, as an educator, I also believe that when ai is used correctly, it can be a positive force for good in our classrooms. For schools to effectively engage with this new technology, teachers must first learn how to implement these tools in our classrooms in ways that foster student growth and show them that ai is meant to complement their learning journey.

Below are some simple strategies teachers can implement to unleash students' curiosity, creativity, and critical thinking using the power of ai.

Creativity

• Novelty Name Tags: Nothing is more important than building a positive classroom community at the beginning of the school year. Have students submit some personal information in a survey (such as their favorite food, animal, or school subject). Then use an image generator to create custom name tags for each student. Hang them around the room and challenge students to guess which name belongs to each student. It's a great way to facilitate conversations and encourage student collaboration.
• Tandem stories: Have students begin writing a story. Then, after a few paragraphs, have a program like ChatGPT complete the next paragraph. Once you have provided the content, have students take back control and continue the story. Students should repeat this back and forth until the story is over. This strategy is useful to stimulate students' creativity while interacting with ai.
• Choose your own ai adventure: In the spirit of Choose Your Own Adventure Books, use ai to create a suspenseful story. You can even design the story around a topic your students are studying, such as hurricanes, animal habitats, or an era in history. When working with ai, have students navigate through the narrative, applying the information they have gathered while also reacting to the ai's response.

Curiosity

• Curiosity prompts: Ask an ai program like ChatGPT to provide you with learning prompts designed for your grade level and focused on common classroom topics. Use these curiosity prompts as a sort of “question of the day.” Give them to students at the beginning of class or adjust them depending on the subject you will be teaching that day. This is a useful strategy for reducing lesson assignments smaller.
• Digital meeting rooms: Anyone who has ever tried to create a digital meeting room knows how tedious they can be, but programs like ChatGPT can help streamline the process. Use ai to generate breakout room ideas and add options based on what you want your students to learn and achieve. Simply select the ones you like best and put them together using a template you can find on an external website. This allows teachers to maximize students' curiosity without draining their time and energy.
• Treasure hunt and curiosity search: A fun way to keep children curious and learning is to get them moving. Use ai to create a math-based scavenger hunt. Using specific prompts, an ai program can help teachers hide clues in places related to the day's lesson or a certain principle students need to learn. This will help students connect with the material while staying actively engaged.

Critical thinking

• Alternative perspectives: Each of our students comes to the classroom with different experiences and perspectives to share. However, depending on your location and the type of school you are in, most of the classroom may have a shared mindset. In cases like these, ai can serve as an alternative perspective for constructive debate. If most of the classroom agrees on a specific idea (like having less homework), have ai provide a different opinion. Then, challenge students to engage with their arguments.
• Beat ChatGPT: Have ChatGPT do the work that the students will do. Then, see if your class can produce something even better! Once students have finished their work, call an impartial judge, such as the principal or school librarian, to determine which presentation was best. Encourage students to think about how they can improve their work and distinguish it from the ai ​​product.
• RAInk writing: What if our students could engage with the perspective of something that can't speak? Use ai to give voice to inanimate objects or scientific processes (such as photosynthesis, the planet Mars, etc.). This not only encourages students to be curious, but also pushes them to consider common information and ideas from a different angle.

Teachers must accept that the ai ​​genie cannot be put back in the bottle. We need to prepare ourselves and our students for a future where ai is the norm. Still, I think there are reasons to be hopeful. The invention of the calculator did not stop humans from becoming mathematicians. ai will not stop students from learning.

Let's equip our students with the tools they need to thrive in this new digital age and ensure that ai only serves to enhance their natural curiosity, creativity, and critical thinking skills.