AI In The Primary Classroom – A Handy Guide For Newbies
By Gemma Clark
As teachers’ use of artificial intelligence gathers pace, Gemma Clark offers some tips to help you save time and energy with the latest AI tech.
As someone who has become an advocate of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in teaching, I have always been quite a technophobe. I would rather have a chalkboard than a whiteboard, and as soon as a printer won’t connect, I am a damsel in distress. I detest spreadsheets so much that I point-blank refuse to ever learn how to use them. So, if someone like me can use AI, anyone can!
As a dyslexic person, I often hear that technology is my friend. However, it doesn’t feel that way when it becomes another item on my never-ending to-do list and a new thing to learn and remember how to use. But AI is different, and I am finding it incredibly useful in a variety of ways.
Firstly, you do not need to pay for AI; many good apps are completely free. Chat GTP is free online and works very well. Some AI apps are hit or miss for creating images, but I find Gencraft a good app and the free version will let you create 10 images a day, which is more than enough for me.
AI apps work with simple prompts, and once you get used to using them, it’s just a matter of finding out all the ways that AI can save you time. I have found a lot of ways that AI can save you time in performing classroom and other administrative tasks. The following is by no means an exhaustive list of all the things you can use AI for, but it will help you get started.
- Literacy
Literacy is a curricular area where AI can free up a lot of time. As a primary teacher, I often spend a lot of time either looking for examples of writing to show a class (or even creating these myself) before a writing lesson. A simple AI app can very easily do this for you. For example, you can use a simple prompt such as ‘write a persuasive piece of writing arguing that fireworks should be banned that is suitable for 10-year-olds’ and the app will generate a good piece of writing very quickly. It is worth adding ‘use British English spelling and conventions’ as most apps seem to default to American English, but this simple prompt will change this. If you have a specific focus for your writing, you can add in ‘include a range of persuasive sentence openers’ or ‘use the words, ‘arguably’, ‘obviously’ and rhetorical questions’ if you want to include anything specific in the piece. It is also easy to make edits, for example, ‘include a paragraph about animal safety and fireworks’, etc.
- Creative Writing
AI can also be used to enhance creativity in writing. For example, when children are writing stories and creating characters, you can use AI to generate images of the characters. For instance, they could create an alien with purple skin, multiple eyes, etc. If the character doesn’t look the way the children hoped, there is valuable learning in considering the prompt given to the AI app. Could more descriptive adjectives create a character closer to what they envisioned? An AI app allows you to create an image in seconds, which you can display on your whiteboard (I simply use the app on my phone and then email it to myself). I have also used AI apps to create story-setting images with classes to inspire their writing. AI can also create nice extension activities like VCOP challenges with a simple prompt, e.g., ‘give me a VCOP challenge for 8-year-olds’.
- Reading Comprehension
You can also use AI to create fact sheets or reading comprehension to meet your pupils’ needs and interests. For example, you can ask an app to ‘write me a reading comprehension passage on foxes for 12-year-olds with inferential and literal comprehension questions, including answers.’ You could then prompt it to ‘make the passage suitable for a younger child’, or tailor it to whatever you need. A few years ago, I taught a child who would engage with reading activities very well if the topic was based on one of his interests. If I had AI technology available back then it would have been easy for me to create resources to suit his interests even when the main cohort of the class were working on something different.
- Maths
AI can similarly save you time when planning maths lessons. Instead of generating your own questions, you can get AI to do this with simple prompts, e.g., ‘give me 10 questions adding four-digit numbers with answers’. AI will generate the questions which can easily be copied and pasted onto a document and displayed. To provide a greater challenge, you can ask AI for worded versions of the maths questions, which it will quickly generate along with answers, and you can even have the questions made to suit a particular theme, for example, ‘give me worded versions of these questions and make them about TikTok followers’.
- Translating Languages
With the sad state of the world, many of us are working with children who have had to flee their home countries. With the best will in the world, support is not always put in place for children who are learning English. Although it is not a substitute for an adult who can speak the child’s language, an AI app can translate anything into any language. This can be very helpful when a child is new and feeling lost. AI can also translate English phrases into the child’s first language for you and provide pronunciation. This is all very helpful when a child is trying to settle into a school and learn a new language.
- PE
If you are a primary teacher, you are expected to be an expert on the entire curriculum. Even as someone who enjoys running, yoga, and physical activity, PE is not my strong point because I have never been into sports. Even this is part of the curriculum where AI can come in handy. For example, if I was due to teach a block of tennis lessons, I could ask an app to ‘plan me a tennis lesson for aged 8-10-year-olds’ (inputting age works well with these apps). An AI app will give you warm-up games and ideas, skills to introduce and work on, and cool-down activities.
- Inclusivity
When many teachers are trying to ensure that they are delivering inclusive and decolonised curriculums, AI can be very helpful. Teacher workload is no joke, and I understand why people get anxious when they think something is going to increase their workload. Even simple additions can enhance creativity, and AI can help to facilitate these. For example, you can ask AI to recommend LGBT-friendly, child-appropriate books, and it will make recommendations such as ‘And Tango Makes Three’ and ‘Julian is a Mermaid’. Regarding a decolonised curriculum, it is important to know that AI apps will usually default to a Western-centric narrative, for example, if you ask it to plan lessons on the Second World War. However, if you are aware of this and prompt it accordingly, it can be useful. So instead, if you use the prompt ‘can you tell me some racially diverse Second World War history’ it will make suggestions e.g. about Sikh soldiers and the Ethiopian resistance. This can be a good place to start, and AI can even help you plan further lessons e.g. ‘can you plan a lesson on the World War 2 Ethiopian resistance’.
- Admin
Admin jobs can also be made a little bit faster and easier with AI. For example, when writing letters to parents and carers. A simple prompt and AI can draft a decent letter (which you can edit to suit your needs) e.g., ‘draft a class newsletter to say that this term we will be working on fractions for maths, direct speech for writing, reciprocal reading skills, the Victorians, and Buddhism for RE’, and the app will produce a good letter. It can also free up a little mental load for other letters to families e.g., ‘draft a letter to parents and carers saying I intend to show a PG-rated film of the book we have been reading in class and to contact me if they have any concerns.’
AI can make other admin tasks such as writing learning evaluations easier. When writing learning evaluations, you can ask AI e.g. ‘provide evaluative statements on pupil learning on the following benchmarks…’ and AI will create helpful statements to help you sum up how the children have managed with the learning. If you are in a leadership role, AI could even assist you in creating policies e.g. on menopause adjustments, facilitating IVF appointments, etc.
Just like the differences in education brought on by the internet and social media, AI will inevitably bring challenges and a need to rethink and adjust how we do things. However, AI is here whether we like it or not, and in my opinion, we may as well learn how we can use it to our advantage.
Gemma Clark is an experienced primary teacher based in Scotland. Her new book Artificial Intelligence in the Primary Classroom (Crown House Publishing, 2024) is out now: https://www.crownhouse.co.uk/artificial-intelligence-in-the-primary-classroom
