ChatGPT Guide For Teachers + 7 Awesome Uses To Ease Your Burden
Teachers, all your ChatGPT questions are answered here.
Chat GPT is the fastest-growing app ever, with 100 million users in January. This record-breaking number was reported by Reuters, and it’s increasing every day. If you’re a teacher, you must have heard about ChatGPT and the havoc it has created in the education sphere.
If you haven’t heard of this game-changing AI tool for teachers, then thank your stars (and Google for landing you here). You’re about to read a detailed guide on ChatGPT for teachers.
By the end of this article, you’ll know how to use this incredible tool.
AND 🤩
You’ll know 7 awesome ways you can use ChatGPT to ease your burden. 😓
Disclaimer: Don’t show it off at school tomorrow.
Or do!
Okay, enough buzz about it. 🙄
What is ChatGPT?
ChatGPT, developed by OpenAI, is an artificial intelligence tool that answers your questions, like a chatbot.
Don’t open another tab to Google ‘what’s a Chatbot’.
Chatbot — sounding like a robot — is a computer program you can chat with.
Is it going over your head? 🤯
Here’s a diagram 👇
Artificial intelligence (AI) is a technology.
Chatbots are built on AI.
ChatGPT is a chatbot.
Phew! I couldn’t have explained it better.
OpenAI defines ChatGPT as a program that converses with you, answers your queries, and clears your doubts. It even admits when it’s wrong, points out incorrect information, and says no to your unsuitable demands.
Sounds like your best friend? Only it’s not human.
Since its launch in November 2022, educators and professionals are exploring ChatGPT.
Resume Builder surveyed 1000 US companies in February 2023. Almost 50% are using ChatGPT.
Teachers worldwide are using ChatGPT to enhance their lessons. An article in Fortune magazine reports how educators are being creative with ChatGPT.
What is ChatGPT for Educators?
ChatGPT for teachers is an AI tool that helps in coding, writing, interviewing, simulation, and teaching-learning. It was released a few months back. But already courses are designed for educators on how to use ChatGPT. Like this online ChatGPT course for educators on Udemy.
Below, I’ve discussed how teachers can use ChatGPT.
What can ChatGPT do for teachers?
ChatGPT gives you ideas for teaching and classroom activities and management. It helps teachers with mental block caused by burnout and stress.
It’s that pair of extra hands or a robot you always asked for in the back of your mind.
ChatGPT gives you those extra day hours– or rather saves you some– by increasing your productivity and speed.
How?
You can create assignments, lesson plans, lists, and syllabus. You must be thinking how’ll ChatGPT know my students — their needs and level of understanding?
Valid question!
You’ll tell ChatGPT what you want, how you want it, and every specific detail related to your subject, needs, students, and their interests. These details — which ChatGPT understands as prompts — give you quick solutions to your day-to-day classroom problems. Create teaching strategies and assessments using ChatGPT.
I asked ChatGPT what it can do for teachers and here’s its response-
7 ways ChatGPT Saves Your Time and Energy
The greatest benefit of ChatGPT for teachers is that it assists them in their hard work. You become a smart worker and save tons of time and energy with ChatGPT which you can spend with students. With ChatGPT to your rescue, you can recharge your batteries with those few extra hours in your hand. Since its release, many educators and researchers have studied ChatGPT uses for teachers.
Check out how I used ChatGPT for daily teacher tasks that normally take hours:
1. Lesson Planning
I created a Math Lesson Plan for Class 2 on the topic- ‘Introduction of Money.
My Prompt:
Write a lesson plan for Class 2. Subject is Mathematics. Topic is- Introduction of Money. Include the following in the lesson plan: Learning Objectives, Hands-on teaching-learning activities, any material required for activities, recapitulation questions, homework activity, reflection and follow up questions to check understanding at the end of delivering lesson.
ChatGPT designed my lesson plan in less than 2 minutes.
Did you notice the clear lesson plan bullet points?
There’s more to the lesson plan created by ChatGPT.
Here are the activities I asked for.
And see the Recapitulation, Homework, Reflection, and Assessment questions.
There’s more to a lesson plan than this. You can go as detailed as you want to. To learn more about lesson planning, read this simple and easy lesson plan format for teachers.
If you’re thinking ChatGPT will only give generic lesson plans, then you’re mistaken.
I asked for a lesson plan on the same topic with Indian learners in mind. Here’s the response.
Bonus Tip for teachers using ChatGPT:
Don’t leave everything on ChatGPT’s shoulders. It helps you in automating your tasks. The quality of your lesson plan depends on your thought process and details. And tweak lesson plans created by ChatGPT to suit your lesson and classroom context.
2. Designing Fun Learning Activities
I designed learning stations for my classroom using ChatGPT.
My prompt:
Create 4 learning stations on Science topic photosynthesis for grade 5. Activities should be fun and interesting. I have a one visually challenged student in my class. One student in my class is deaf. Also design learning stations keeping them in mind. There are total 20 students in my class. They already know the basics of photosynthesis. Include hands-on activities.
ChatGPT came out with this response-
Did you notice the special attention on children with special needs?
Bonus Tip for teachers getting classroom activity ideas on ChatGPT:
Be clear and specific with your prompt. Always double-check with special educators if you’re unsure about an activity/idea.
3. Writing creative stories
Children love stories and you got to be ready with them. Lunch breaks, free periods, playtime, or a little bit of free time — all can be enjoyed with fun stories.
You can outline and write moral stories for kids using ChatGPT.
Read the one ChatGPT wrote for me. I gave my instructions to the ChatGPT teacher tool:
Write a story for grade 1. There should be 5 characters in the story. It should have a good moral lesson. The backdrop should be a forest. Add humor in the story. Keep it short.
ChatGPT wrote this kids’ moral story in less than a minute.
(Not putting the whole story here to avoid copyright issues.)
4. Preparing Tests and Assessments
If you’re short of time or if you want to take a surprise test in class, ChatGPT can write class tests for you in minutes.
Here’s one I created-
My instructions to ChatGPT:
Create a Math Test for my students. They are in grade 2. Topic is Multiplication. There should be 10 questions. Keep 2 difficult questions and 2 easy questions. 6 questions should be a medium-level difficulty. Make sure you add word problems, sums, tables and a variety of questions.
You can also create reading comprehension assessments like this one-
Bonus tip for teachers creating tests on ChatGPT:
Make sure to adjust the questions to match the level of your students. Also, be sure to include a variety of question types to keep the test interesting and engaging.
5. Generate Class Assembly Ideas
If you have to prepare students for skits, competitions, and contests, ChatGPT gives you excellent ideas.
I used ChatGPT to write short plays, slogans, and songs for kids for class assemblies.
Here’s a skit on ‘Save Electricity:
Did you notice ChatGPT even gave me the characters, names, and scenes?
6. Teaching Presentations
Teachers have to prepare presentations for teaching topics and staff meetings.
You can use ChatGPT to write presentation content for you.
I asked ChatGPT to write one on Good Touch, Bad Touch for kindergarten students.
Here are the slides it created.
7. Finding Unique Competition Ideas
You celebrate events and special days every year at school. I don't know about you, but I ran out of ideas easily.
Independence Day, Festivals — how to come up with unique ideas every year?
Plus competitions and contests go on throughout the year.
Use ChatGPT when you run out of ideas and time.
I prepared a full Pi-Day celebration plan for school:
ChatGPT tutorial for Teachers
Follow this step-by-step guide to use ChatGPT:
Step 1: Visit the link to access ChatGPT on your laptop or desktop.
Step 2: Click on ‘Try ChatGPT’.
Step 3: Register yourself and create an account. The basic version is free. Choose that.
Step 4: Type in the bar at the bottom and get started.
Tip: You’ll find your previous chats saved on the left-hand side when you’ll visit ChatGPT again.
It’s that simple.
You don't need to be a tech-savvy teacher to use ChatGPT. Just put your imagination into words and let ChatGPT put it into action.
Here’s a ChatGPT tutorial for educators by Ted Pickett.
What are the Risks of ChatGPT?
These are the risks of using ChatGPT for educators and students:
- Students can cheat and write essays with ChatGPT.
- Learners’ writing and thinking skills will not develop fully.
- The quality of text written by ChatGPT can be low.
- ChatGPT can go wrong with facts and data.
- Educators will use ChatGPT without in-depth knowledge of lesson plans and classroom practices.
- Teachers will not trust students with homework and assessment.
- Trainee teachers will use ChatGPT to find shortcuts.
These points are discussed in detail in this article by the Teacher College Community, Columbia University.
Dos and Donts when using ChatGPT
The cons of using ChatGPT by educators can be avoided.
Keep these dos and don’ts in mind while using it.
- Be clear with your instructions. Think of ChatGPT as your student — it does what you say. Their knowledge will be limited to what you tell them. So ChatGPT will also give answers based on the information you provide.
- Learn the art of clear questioning and interviewing, if you want to use ChatGPT the best way.
- Always cross-check the facts and data. ChatGPT tool, as its creators suggest in this blog, can give wrong or irrelevant answers.
- If you’re not satisfied with the response, rephrase or tweak your questions.
- It second-guesses the information you won't give. So be as detailed as possible.
- Don’t use it to solve all your classroom problems. In the end, you know your students and classroom the best. You’re the best judge of what’s good for them.
- Be careful with biased information. Since ChatGPT is trained on research, its responses may be biased.
A study by Stanford University and OpenAI warns — ‘GPT-3 exhibits several racial, gender, and religious biases.’
Teachers are experimenting with ChatGPT and sharing their experiences on social media. Andrew Herft (Educator at the NSW Dept. of Education) has created a teacher’s prompt guide to ChatGPT. It has over 50 examples of what the ChatGPT tool can do for educators and how to make those requests.
Why Teachers Shouldn’t Worry About ChatGPT?
If you’ve heard the hype about the ChatGPT tool for teachers, you’ve also heard the concerns.
Cheating and plagiarism are on the rise. In a survey by Study.com, 26 % of teachers reported students cheating using ChatGPT.
Teachers are also worried that students will use it for doing homework. And they are.
The online learning platform also surveyed 1000 students; 89 % of them have taken ChatGPT’s help to do home assignments.
Alarming numbers, aren’t they?
Not when you and your students know how to use ChatGPT correctly.
Teachers and students need training and guidance to use the Chat GPT tool.
By learning the right use of ChatGPT, teachers and students will not be afraid of the tool. In fact, 88 % teachers and 79 % students were all praises for ChatGPT in a survey by Walton Family Foundation.
To make things easier for you, OpenAI– the brain behind ChatGPT– is out with a new tool to detect cheating.
What’s coming up with ChatGPT for teachers?
On March 14, 2023, OpenAI released GPT-4– an improved version of ChatGPT.
How is it helpful for educators?
It gives you better ideas and more accurate information. It’s also safer to use– enhanced data privacy for you and your students.
“ChatGPT is just another example of why we can’t keep doing things the old way for schools in the modern world.”
— Survey by Walton Family Education.
Over 72 % of teachers stood by this statement.
Can you believe the revolution ChatGPT has brought to classrooms?
ChatGPT: Magic wand for Educators
I told you from the start– you’re about to find a magic wand.
ChatGPT is an excellent teacher tool that saves you time and peace of mind. I know you’re busy and burned out.
Now that you have it in your hand, why not give it a try?
FAQ:
Can teachers use ChatGPT?
Teachers can use ChatGPT to create writing prompts for students, learning content, quizzes, and games, and find ideas to engage special learners. Teachers can also ask ChatGPT to suggest classroom management strategies and even write their teaching resumes.
What does ChatGPT mean for Education?
ChatGPT has multiple uses in Education. Apart from helping in classrooms, ChatGPT helps educational administrators and managers in test preparation and grading, curriculum development, language teaching-learning, career counseling, interviewing, and portfolio creation.
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By Manika Pant
A Content Writer, EdTechxpert and Education Enthusiast! Manika Pant is a trained teacher, having done B.Ed. and M.A. Education. She has 8+ years of school teaching experience. Creator of ‘Learning with M’, a Math educational YouTube channel, Manika is a content creator in the morning, a nature lover in the evening, and a poet by night.
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