MAKING IT EASIER TO BE A BETTER TEACHER

NOTEWORTHY NEWS

Here’s our weekly roundup of interesting education stories from around the world. Click each link to learn more:

• Students skipping class isn’t new - but now teachers seem to be doing the same more than ever before.

• This teacher made it a point for all kids to feel included - regardless of financial status.

• This EdTech mogul is all about building communities for change.

TECH TALK

Lesson Planning Taking Up All Your Time?

For many teachers, lesson planning is an art — but it’s also one of the most time-consuming tasks. 

Between aligning lessons to standards, making them engaging, and ensuring they address student needs, many teachers end up working well beyond school hours.

The Solution: Almanack AI

Almanack AI helps reduce the workload by generating customizable, curriculum-aligned lesson plans based on the grade level, subject, and learning objectives you provide. 

Once you input your key goals, the app drafts lesson outlines that include pacing, activities, and even supplemental resources like worksheets or resource suggestions.

It’s not about replacing your expertise as a teacher but serving as a starting point, helping you spend less time on the administrative aspects of planning and more on refining lessons to suit your unique classroom and students.

For those in the US it gets even crazier - Almanack will align with state and national standards .

This ensures every lesson supports your district’s requirements, saving you hours of cross-referencing. For teachers juggling multiple classes or subjects, this feature can be especially useful.

How About YOUR Classroom?

Lesson planning can often feel like a never-ending task, but Almanack AI turns it into a manageable process. Here’s how you can use it:

Strategies:

• Streamline Weekly Planning: Dedicate one session each week to inputting your class objectives. Almanack will handle the heavy lifting, delivering ready-to-teach lesson plans that you can adapt further if needed.

• Differentiate for Diverse Learners: Use the tool to create alternate lesson versions for students who need additional support or enrichment, saving time while meeting individual needs.

• Incorporate Cross-Curricular Links: Almanack offers suggestions for integrating other subject areas into your lessons, helping you create more dynamic and engaging classroom experiences.

With pricing tailored to school budgets and free trials available, it can be a valuable investment in both time and quality. A single lesson plan could save hours each week - especially for new teachers - allowing you to focus more on teaching and less on planning.

BRAINY BITS

Are AI-made lessons better?

A recent study put this to the test, generating a lesson plan in just 30 minutes from a beginner’s point of view.

Researchers prompted ChatGPT with education theories and models before feeding it first-grade curriculum to see what it could come up with.

The Study: Opportunities and risks involved in using ChatGPT to create lesson plans

Using an exploratory case study, researchers prompted ChatGPT to generate a first-grade lesson plan. Outputs were evaluated for curriculum alignment, engagement, and accuracy. 

What makes this case study different is the effort put into prompting beforehand. 

This means that they didn’t just ask ChatGPT for a lesson, but instead, prompted it by telling it various educational models to use, particularly in the fields of engagement, elaboration, explanation, exploration, and evaluation (the 5E model).

The lesson plans were then compared to typical non-AI examples by the research team.

The Results:

The study found that ChatGPT could produce a functional, standards-aligned lesson plan within 30 minutes, making it an efficient tool for teachers.

However, issues emerged with accuracy—several details were either incomplete or fabricated, such as references to nonexistent engagement resources. 

Despite these shortcomings, the lesson plan followed the 5E instructional model and included elements that could engage students. 

Importantly, researchers emphasized that while ChatGPT offers a solid starting point, teachers’ expertise is essential to adapt and refine AI-generated plans to ensure they meet classroom needs and learning goals.

It should also be noted that ChatGPT is ever-evolving and the version used has since been upgraded.

In Your Classroom:

AI tools like ChatGPT can streamline lesson planning but require critical teacher oversight. This study emphasizes that teachers, not technology, ensure that quality.

Strategies

• Refine the AI's Output: If using AI-generated lesson plans, start by using them as drafts first and adjust them based on your classroom’s needs.

• Cross-Check Resources: Validate references and information in AI outputs to maintain credibility.

• Leverage AI for Structure: Use ChatGPT and other forms to organize teaching frameworks (like the 5E Model) and add your expertise to flesh out any details.

By balancing innovation with expertise, teachers can maximize AI's potential while avoiding its pitfalls. It’s not a matter of replacing your skills, but using these tools as a co-pilot to save time without sacrificing lesson quality.

REFERENCES

This week’s issue adapts information from the following sources:

Tech Talk:

Almanak. (2024). Unlock personalized learning. Retrieved from https://www.almanack.ai/en-CA

Brainy Bits:

Powell, W., & Courchesne, S. (2024). Opportunities and risks involved in using ChatGPT to create first grade science lesson plans. PloS one, 19(6), e0305337. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0305337