3 ways to educate your students about AI
Thomas Courtley
Education Specialist
AI-driven education often fails to recognise the fundamental nature of education, which is inherently human. Education revolves around fostering development, nurturing emotions, and building connections. AI can be a very useful tool, but not a substitute for good teaching.
Why AI will never replace teachers
We've all been fortunate to have some exceptional teachers in our lives. What truly set them apart, was not just their efficiency but rather their remarkable capacity to establish connections, inspire us, and make us feel special.
Teachers could encourage this same ability in students. It's essential that educators reconsider how they prepare assignments and approach teaching in the era of AI. Technology should never act as a barrier, but as a support to help your students understand, and live in, our digitised world.
Understanding the role of AI in education
When used appropriately, AI has the potential to reduce workload across the education sector, and free up some of your time, allowing you to focus on what you love the most—delivering excellent teaching, interacting with students, and experiencing the magic of their progress.
This is the reason we at LessonUp decided to jump on the AI train and integrate a generative language model within our toolkit. Her name is Maia, and she is a very efficient AI assistant for teachers. You could try to create the first draft of your digitals lessons with Maia, to reduce your workload, and save precious time. If you are starting to use AI, chances are your students are already doing so too. If done correctly it could support them and enrich their journey, but there are some risks. As their teacher, you could start talking about this topic with them, and modelling healthy AI-related practice. Check out three ways to educate your students about AI:
1. Use ‘created with Maia’ labels
Try to create the first draft of a lesson (if you don’t already do so) with the help of your free AI assistant Maia, and make sure to label it as ‘created with Maia’. In the classroom, inform your students that you are going to always label lessons you create with the help of AI, and that you expect them to do the same when they use AI for homework or assignments. If you promote an atmosphere of transparency, chances are that students will do so too. You are teaching them to be responsible, and showing them how to work with AI in a responsible way. Download our ‘created with Maia’ label to set a good example!
2. Show students how to double-check AI-provided information
Create two different digital lessons with Maia, both based on the same prompt, one checked and edited by you, and one not. Ask students to spot the difference. Then ask them to explore a topic with the help of ChatGPT, and go through it together to see if there are inconsistencies and incorrect information. By modelling responsible behaviour and the attitude of thinking critically about AI-provided information, you show learners how normal and healthy it is. If you want to dive deeper into this topic, inform them about using AI in an ethical and responsible manner, and research this present-day theme together.
3. Talk to them about protecting sensitive data
As stated by the Department of Education, ‘Education institutions must ensure that children and young people are not accessing or creating harmful or inappropriate content, including through generative AI.’ Keeping children safe in education is fundamental—you are the best person to talk to them about being careful and not submitting private information within generative AI tools. It is also important to inform them about scammers who use AI language models to sound more professional or trustworthy. You could show them some examples of emails or text messages sent by con artists.
Start by downloading our free 'created with Maia' labels!
