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I like your lesson on introducing AI concepts Kieran – I think that is where I will begin with introducing AI to my class. I have 6th class this year and while I think some of them have used it already I think their knowledge of it’s uses and capabilities are limited so I am looking forward to showing them all the possibilities while also ensuring they understand the implications and ethics involved. I think using Robo Garden will be a nice introduction to AI tools for the children and they will thoroughly enjoy using it.
Part 1:
I plan to integrate AI into my teaching by using it as both a teaching assistant and a learning tool for students. For example, I will use AI-driven platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini, Co-pilot and MagicSchoolAi to support my lesson planning and as a tool during lessons for brainstorming, summarizing, and enabling students to focus on critical thinking and creativity. AI-based formative assessment tools will help me to provide immediate feedback, allowing my students to gain understanding faster and allowing me to identify where certain children are struggling. I will also incorporate lessons on AI ethics, how to recognise bias, and on responsible use of AI to prepare my students for the real-world implications of this technology. When assigning projects on curriculum topics, AI can help students analyze large amounts of online information, come up with relevant examples for their projects such as newspaper articles or propaganda examples on history topics, and generate innovative ideas and designs. My approach will be to try to think outside the box when teaching new topics and using AI to facilitate that. I will use more group and project based learning and use AI to generate new and innovative ways to approach new topics and create fun interactive quizzes and lessons for my students. I want the children to learn with AI assistance rather than AI completing the work for them.
Part 2:
Lesson Plan: Propaganda in World War II
Class Level: 6th Class
Duration: 60 minutes
Strand: Politics, conflict and society
Strand Unit: World War II – causes, course, and consequences
Learning Objectives:
By the end of the lesson, pupils will be able to –
- Explain what propaganda is and how it was used during World War II.
- Identify different forms of propaganda (posters, radio, film).
- Analyse examples of propaganda to understand the messages they carried.
- Discuss how propaganda influenced people’s thoughts, actions, and morale during the war.
- Reflect on how propaganda can still influence people today.
Curriculum Links
History: Developing an understanding of how evidence can be used to learn about the past.
English: Oral language (discussion, interpretation of images).
SPHE: Media awareness, critical thinking about information sources.
Visual Arts: Poster design (creative activity).
Resources:
Chromebooks and AI platform like ChatGPT to create examples of propaganda for the children to analyse.
PowerPoint/slides, videos or printed images of WWII propaganda posters (e.g., British “Keep Calm”, American “Rosie the Riveter”, Nazi propaganda, Japanese posters).
Worksheet with guiding questions for analysis of the examples generater for the students by AI.
Lesson Structure
1. Introduction (10 minutes)
Begin with a Think-Pair-Share:
“Have you ever seen an advertisement that made you really want something? How did it convince you?”
Explain: Advertisements are a form of persuasion. In WWII, governments used propaganda to persuade people to think or act in certain ways.
Write key word PROPAGANDA on the board:
Definition: “Propaganda is information used to shape what people think and do – sometimes true, sometimes misleading.”
2. Main Lesson (30 minutes)
Activity A – Propaganda Analysis (15 minutes)
The children will use their Chromebooks and AI platforms like ChatGPT or an AI Image Creator to create examples of propaganda they can later analyse using the following prompt “generate an example of propaganda used by the allies/British/US/Axis/Nazis during WWII”.
Use guiding questions:
- What do you see/read?
- Who is the poster/article talking to?
- What message is it trying to give?
- How might it make people feel?
Discuss briefly as a class.
Highlight differences: Allied vs Axis propaganda, positive (“We can do it!”) vs negative (demonising the enemy).
Activity B – Small Group Work (15 minutes)
Each group gets a different propaganda piece (mixed Allied & Axis).
Task: Analyse it using worksheet questions and report findings to class.
3. Conclusion & Reflection (15 minutes)
Whole-class discussion:
- How did propaganda help the war effort? (e.g., encouraging men to fight, women to work, people to ration, hatred of the enemy).
- What were the dangers? (e.g., spreading lies, increasing fear or prejudice).
- Link to today: Do we still see propaganda or persuasive media in our lives? Where? (e.g., advertising, politics, social media).
Creative Extension (if time or as homework):
Pupils design their own modern-day propaganda poster for a positive cause (e.g., protecting the environment, kindness, anti-bullying).
Assessment
Teacher observation of participation in discussions and group work.
Quality of poster analysis (oral or written).
Creativity and understanding shown in extension activity.
Differentiation
Support: Provide sentence starters for poster analysis (“This poster is trying to…”, “It makes people feel…”
Challenge: Ask advanced students to compare WWII propaganda with modern advertising or political messaging.
I agree with you on the potential use of Robogarden Karen. It looks to be very user friendly and extremely fun and creative for the children. Lots of the staff in my school would be reluctant to use a lot of these applications but I think with a quick tutorial, they would be happy to introduce this in their classrooms and gain confidence on using AI applications more. I am planning to play around with it a bit more and offer to hold a quick tutorial for my colleagues to facilitate this.
I was interested to explore all of the AI applications mentioned in this module but Google’s Teachable Machine particularly caught my attention and I found the following YouTube video https://youtu.be/NY5-cco7TxA?si=gv_O60A_gf-WvwBl about it that I watched and then I spent some time exploring it myself.I would really like to introduce my students to it this year. I think it looks like something that they would engage with fully and would thoroughly enjoy. I would like to integrate it as part of a PE lesson on the fundamental movement skill of sprinting. I think it would be a really interesting lesson to train the machine to recognise good examples of sprinting and then film the children doing it to see if the machine recognises their efforts as sprinting too. There are limitless possibilities to create fun lessons in this way and explore within the application and I think the fact that it is so user friendly would also help all of the children that I teach experience success at their own level.
I have also previously used Scratch in my classroom to learn how to code a simple computer game and the children really enjoyed it. It was a great learning experience for me too because one of the children in my class at the time was quite an experienced scratch user and had done a lot of coding before so he became the instructor that day and I was able to follow his lead. The children really enjoyed the change in dynamic in that lesson and I learned a lot too. The boy in question was absolutely thrilled with himself at the end because he got to showcase his talent.
Another thing that this module has pointed out is the potential for using AI to demonstrate bias to children when exploring historical events and how they were perceived by different groups affected at the time. I am excited to show my students these examples and to help them to evaluate text in a critical way so that they can start to recognise examples of bias and propaganda.
I am very excited to try Immersive Reader in my classroom for the same reasons you have mentioned here Paul. I think it will be received very well by my students and will greatly help those who are reluctant or struggling.
I agree Pamela. I am quite excited to try out the Copilot Image Creator tool to enhance my literacy lessons. I think the children in my class will respond very well to it and it’s potential uses in my lessons will be great.
I am also very excited to try out the reading coach tool. I have quite a broad level of ability in my class so I think it will be very beneficial.
Part one:
One idea for using AI in literacy could be to give children an assignment to choose a sentence from the story/book/novel they’re currently reading or have already read that they would like to use as a prompt for Copilot Image Creator to make an illustration to go with the book. Once that has been completed you could ask them to critique what the AI tool has generated based on their own knowledge of the story with questions like – What has Image Creator left out? What would you change? What do you like/dislike about the illustration? How could you edit the prompt to make the illustration produced better?
I have already used MAGIC SCHOOL AI this year and I was amazed at the limitless capabilities to create tailored lessons and activities for my class. I have recommended it to many of my colleagues already so another idea for using this AI tool in my classroom would be to utilise the social stories generator shown in this module. I teach 6th class and often have to spend time helping students with the upcoming transition from primary school to secondary at the end of the year so I plan to use this tool to help some of my students with ASD prepare for the transition into secondary life.
I am also really excited to use the Microsoft Reading Coach tool – especially with my own 8 year old son who can be a very reluctant reader but I think the personalisation of it will appeal to him a lot and he will really enjoy using it.
Part two:
I think the potential for using AI tools in my classroom to improve my lesson plans, assessment and differentiation is very exciting and limitless. The DIFFIT AI tool shown in module 3 looks like a great tool for making sure that every child in the class can work at their own pace and level and will make differentiation and assessment much easier for me in the future.
One of the key challenges I face in my class is managing consistent engagement and behaviour. We have high rates of poor attendance, some regular school refusal, and limited access to technology at home. Many of our pupils come from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds, which often affects their readiness to learn so based on this module, I would like to try out some of the different AI tools mentioned, like Immersive Reader as I think it would benefit the children I teach.
I would like to use other AI tools available that allow for each pupil to have personalised reading or maths programmes which could offer differentiated lessons and activities tailored to each pupil’s level. I think this could help me to identify areas of weakness for some pupils which may result in them acting out and disrupting lessons – if these weaknesses can be addressed in a fun and engaging way then this could help to limit misbehaviour.
However, as I stated in my reflection on Module 1 – in my school limited home access to devices and the internet means most of this type of learning would need to happen during school hours. Despite these hurdles, I believe with proper training, planning and support, these tools have the potential to enhance learning in my classroom and across the whole school but training for all staff is key!
I totally agree about the need for CPD for all staff. I have tried out a number of AI tools in my classroom but there are a lot of my colleagues who would find them extremely overwhelming and difficult to navigate.
I am also excited to try out Immersive Reader with some of my struggling students this year – I think it will make a huge difference for them.
I agree on the need for us to use AI in a critical and ethical way and I think we need to spend some time in school teaching lessons to children on the ethics of Gen AI before we allow them to use it to create their own work – in my opinion children need to have some understanding of the implications of its use beforehand.
I have had an interest in using AI tools in the classroom for some time now (one of the reasons I enrolled in this course) and I follow a few different content creators on Instagram that suggest some great tools for teachers to use so I know already that AI tools can support differentiation, provide instant feedback, and assist me in my lesson planning while also helping me to meet the many different needs of my students.
AI tools that operate like tutors can provide instant feedback and learning support to children – which I have found really useful in the classroom and children really enjoy the autonomy of working at their own pace. I can also use AI to tailor lessons on specific topics to the right level for each child and it can help me to plan fun and engaging lessons that keep children interested.
However, I must mention that working in a DEIS Band 1 school means that there are children with limited access to technology at home so I am very conscious that it must be used as a way to support more traditional learning activities if I want children to complete homework assignments based on lessons taught in school and I have realised that I need to spend time trying to help to bridge the digital literacy gap between children in a DEIS school vs children in more mainstream areas if they are to engage meaningfully in AI generated lessons and activities.
I have previously done an activity with a 6th class group where we examined our carbon footprint based on the energy we use and the travelling we do. It was a real eye opener for everyone involved, including me, as we don’t tend to consider a lot of the energy usage we are responsible for outside of going on a flight abroad.
For this assignment it was interesting to do a bit of research into the sustainability practices in my local community; things that I was aware of and things that I was not.
Biodiversity is a huge area of interest where I live and a lot of the local estates are creating wildflower areas to encourage the bee population and other small wildlife. I think it looks really nice too! I think it would be great to allocate a section of our greenfield beside the school to a wildflower area and get the children to scatter flowerbombs and observe how it grows over the course of the year.
There is a cycle greenway under construction at the moment near my house and lots of new cycle lanes have been installed to encourage more people to cycle which I think is great. Our 5th class children take part in an 8 week session of cycling lessons and it has been really beneficial and our school has really noticed an uptake in the number of children who cycle to school since its inception.
There is also a local allotment and community farm near me for recreational gardening in the South Dublin area. I was unaware of this and I think a great initiative would be to contact them in September and see if they would be willing to accommodate a visit from my class to explore how a community farm works. We are lucky enough to have a school garden and each year a professional gardener comes to our school to teach the children about planting different types of vegetables and flowers and how to care for them and harvest when they are ready. The children really enjoy it and I learn so much from them myself!
I agree that children need to have better understanding of the different nutrients their bodies need and I think especially with the Olympics being on at the moment it will create an interest in sports nutrition so there is a definite opportunity there to incorporate this lesson about seafood nutrition.
I found this module extremely interesting and I am looking forward to applying the information I have learned about the nutrition of seafood to my classroom lessons. This will make for some very interesting research and discussion this year. I think it will be an excellent opportunity to instill a love of seafood into my class and show them how it can come in many different forms and not just the traditional fish fingers/fish and chips that many of them might be used to. Some ideas for lessons to promote healthy eating that incorporates seafood would be class discussions about sustainable fishing and its impact on the environment and human health. We could look at how different fish and seafood are packaged and sold in the local supermarket and compare the nutrition information on the labels and from the internet. The students can complete personal projects on an area of Aquaculture and seafood nutrition of their choosing and present their findings to the rest of the class.
