[David Hickey]

Reflective Piece on Integrating AI in Primary School Teaching
As a primary school educator, integrating Artificial Intelligence (AI) into the classroom presents a unique and exciting opportunity to enhance learning and better prepare students for the future. AI can transform teaching methodologies, making learning more engaging, personalised, and effective. My plan to integrate AI into my teaching focuses on three key areas: personalised learning, interactive learning experiences, and fostering critical thinking about technology.

Personalised Learning: AI-powered tools can analyse individual students’ learning patterns, strengths, and weaknesses. By incorporating these tools, I can tailor lessons to meet each student’s needs, ensuring that no child is left behind and advanced learners are continually challenged. For instance, AI-driven adaptive learning platforms can provide customised practice problems, quizzes, and feedback, enabling students to progress at their own pace. IXL, DreamBox, or Khan Academy are examples of programmes that I could use.

Interactive Learning Experiences: AI can make learning more interactive and fun. Virtual assistants like chatbots can help students with their queries outside of classroom hours, providing instant feedback and support. Additionally, AI can power educational games that adapt to the student’s level, making learning more engaging. For example, using AI in storytelling apps can help students learn to read and write by allowing them to interact with characters and create their own stories. Apps that could be used include: Osmo, Prodigy, CodeCombat, and DragonBox.

Fostering Critical Thinking: It’s crucial to teach students not just how to use AI, but also to understand its implications. I plan to introduce basic concepts of AI and machine learning through age-appropriate activities and discussions. This will help students develop a critical understanding of technology, its benefits, and its ethical considerations. For instance, discussing how AI makes decisions and what data it uses can open conversations about privacy and bias.

Lesson Plan Incorporating AI Concepts
Lesson Title: Introduction to AI and Machine Learning

Level: 3rd Class

Subject: Computer Science / General Studies

Duration: 60 minutes

Objective:

Students will understand the basic concept of AI and machine learning.
Students will be able to identify examples of AI in their everyday lives.
Students will engage in a hands-on activity to reinforce their understanding.
Materials:

Interactive whiteboard or projector
Computers or tablets with internet access
Video: “What is Artificial Intelligence?” (age-appropriate)
Worksheets for the hands-on activity
Colouring materials
Lesson Outline:

Introduction (10 minutes):

Begin with a brief discussion about technology and its role in our lives.
Show the video “What is Artificial Intelligence?” to give students a basic understanding of AI.
Ask students to share examples of AI they might have encountered (e.g., voice assistants like Siri or Alexa, recommendation systems on YouTube or Netflix).
Discussion (15 minutes):

Explain in simple terms how AI learns from data (introduce the concept of machine learning).
Use the interactive whiteboard to show a few slides with images representing different AI applications (e.g., self-driving cars, AI in healthcare, AI in education).
Discuss the benefits and potential challenges of AI (focus on privacy, job changes, and ethical considerations).
Hands-on Activity (25 minutes):

Divide students into small groups and give each group a worksheet with a simple machine learning activity.
Activity Example: “Teach the Machine” – Provide a set of images (e.g., pictures of cats and dogs). Students need to classify the images into two groups and then check their classification against a pre-trained AI model on the computer/tablet.
Allow students to explore and discuss their findings. Encourage them to think about how the AI model learned to distinguish between cats and dogs.
Conclusion (10 minutes):

Bring the class back together and discuss the activity. Ask questions like: “What did you learn about how AI makes decisions?” and “Can you think of other things we could teach an AI to recognise or do?”
Assessment:

Observe student participation and engagement during the discussion and hands-on activity.
Review the completed worksheets to assess understanding of the basic AI concepts.
Listen to the students’ reflections and examples shared during the conclusion discussion.
Reflection on Lesson Implementation
Implementing this lesson will require careful preparation to ensure the concepts are presented in an accessible and engaging manner. I anticipate that students will be excited to learn about AI due to its relevance to their everyday lives. However, I must be ready to address any misconceptions and provide additional support to students who might struggle with the new concepts.

By integrating AI into my teaching, I aim to foster a classroom environment that not only embraces technology but also encourages critical thinking and ethical awareness. This approach will help my students become informed and responsible digital citizens, ready to navigate the rapidly evolving technological landscape.

[David Hickey]

Introducing Scratch to 5th class pupils is usually an exciting and engaging experience. Here’s how I might approach it next year.

I would start by explaining what Scratch is – a visual programming language that helps create stories, games, and animations. I would highlight how it’s designed to be user-friendly and encourage creativity and problem-solving skills.

Next, I would demonstrate a simple project. I’d create a basic animation or game live in front of the class, showing how to drag and drop blocks to build the code. This visual demonstration helps pupils understand the interface and see the immediate results of their coding.

After the demonstration, I would have pupils pair up and work on their own simple project. This collaborative approach encourages peer learning and makes the initial steps less daunting. I would provide a starter project with clear objectives, such as creating an animation where a character moves and says something.

I’d circulate around the classroom, offering guidance and answering questions. At this stage, I’d encourage experimentation, emphasising that making mistakes is part of the learning process.

At the end of the session, I’d have a reflection period where pupils can share what they created, discuss any challenges they faced, and how they overcame them. This not only reinforces their learning but also builds a sense of community and achievement.

To foster continuous interest, I would introduce weekly Scratch challenges, gradually increasing in complexity, and encourage pupils to explore Scratch at home. I’d also provide resources like tutorials and online communities for further support.

Scratch is not really an AI tool in the way the other apps mentioned are. However, once pupils become proficient we could start to develop programmes that require input from users to generate useful or interesting outputs. In this way we could link to how AI works in terms of inputs and outputs at least.

[David Hickey]

I will definitely be testing and hopefully using Teachers are Magic and Diffit. I am hoping these tools will free up planning and resource generation time that I can then devote to classroom management.

I have always found that so much of my energy and time goes into having my plans up to date, researching resources and amending them, photocopying, buying, borrowing them that my ability to focus on the needs of individuals is compromised. By needs I mean, academically, behaviourally and socially.

I am reading a book by Rob Plevin called Take Control of the Noisy Class. I am experienced and a lot of the methods are common sense. However, because I am expecting a loud class next year and a class that has a wide range of issues that will need to be managed, I am finding the clear focus of the book really good. Then having these AI tools, I am hoping will really help me to reach both ends of the academic spectrum with ease and effectiveness and I can devote more energy and time to the interpersonal stuff that is incredibly important to a learning environment.

[David Hickey]

I used to use an LMS called Haiku for my class. The pupils loved having resources available to them for projects, but they especially loved having their Friday tests on them. For me it took care and attention to set the tests, but the benefit was at the other end. The results ended up in a grade book which was super convenient for me, and parents had access to it. However, the single biggest benefit for pupils was that they could work on their tests at their own pace. This was especially popular with pupils that finished faster. They then had tasks set for them involving computer work.

However, I will admit that there were drawbacks. It was a rare Friday that was IT problem free, and I spent valuable concentration fixing issues for pupils allowing opportunities for ‘collaborative testing’. The final straw that broke the camel’s back was when the laptops became too old to be reliable and too expensive to fix, I no longer had a laptop per pupil and the entire initiative went by the wayside.

Incidentally, as far as I know Haiku was bought by PowerSchool, now Microsoft Azure and I am super excited about trying that out as a result. We again, after several years, have a device per pupil so interesting times are ahead.

[David Hickey]

AI has so many uses in the classroom. However, one area I can see great potential for is in lesson design for topics that teachers are not overly confident with. For example, perhaps a teacher wants to dramatically improve their teaching of poetry in the following school year. Chat gpt and other AI are capable of providing very fast lesson plans, broken down by task or theme as you wish. It is unlikely you will be happy with the first attempt but as you keep trying you get better at providing prompts. Additionally, there is no rule that says you must follow exactly the lesson plan provided to you. AI is a wonderful blank page problem solver. You can then work with what it provided to tailor it to your own purposes.

Another use, would be to enable pupils to generate images based on the poem. Seeing where it takes pupils in attempts to understand the poem and everyone’s interruption of it. Or getting them to put the poem into different voices. There is a lot that could be tried. Some of it may be just playing around, but that is okay. In time as we understand the benefits it would be a lot easier to focus the use of AI to produce enhanced learning outcomes.

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