Teachers spend so many hours on stuff that isn’t really teaching. Grading, lesson planning, writing feedback, creating worksheets. But now AI tools have advanced enough to actually make a dent in all of this, meaning you get more hours left for the portion of the job that is actually the point – the students in front of you. Here are the tools that are worth your time.
MagicSchool AI for Lesson Planning
MagicSchool was designed with teachers in mind and that is evident. It can create complete lesson plans, rubrics, and worksheets based on your grade level and subject, and it is equipped with tools designed for very specific functions like writing an IEP accommodation or differentiating an assignment for different reading abilities. As a program built specifically for education it often creates results that seem more realistic to an actual classroom.
ChatGPT for Quick Drafts and Brainstorming
ChatGPT is great when you need those small mundane tasks that consume your time. Such as: Write five discussion questions for tomorrow’s reading. Write an email to a parent that is clear and concise about a grading policy but not rude.
Find a quick warm up activity to be completed within the first five minutes of the class.
These quick questions are now seconds instead of the ten or fifteen minutes they used to take when you had to plan it out and personally write them each time.
Gradescope for Faster Grading
Grading One of the most time-consuming parts of teaching is grading. Google Appgradescope helps by using AI to sort Similar answers into batches so that you can grade many at once rather than read each on separately. It works particularly well for anything involving math or science as there are often clearly defined correct answers.
Diffit for Adjusting Reading Levels
Every classroom has students reading at various levels, and Diffit takes any text and automatically creates various reading levels. Take one article about a science concept and get an easier and an advanced student level without having to write three or four different versions yourself.
Curipod for Interactive Lessons
Curipod. Creates 4-5 minute interactive lesson slides that contain embedded polls, open ended questions, drawing activities, etc., that students can complete in class from their own devices in real time. It is a great break from a lecture heavy lesson and the AI can pull together an entire lesson based on the ‘subject’ you enter.
Using These Tools Without Losing the Human Part
Our objective with all of these tools is to free up our time, not to eliminate those aspects of instruction that benefit from the presence of a person. An essay written by a struggling student still needs to be read by you. A lesson plan created in 30 seconds still needs to be reviewed by you to make sure it meets the needs of your specific students in your specific classroom. If utilized properly, these tools have the potential to make us more effective teachers by enabling us to spend less time on the mundane and more time on the authentic teachering parts.
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