A practical guide to bringing tech and AI into the classroom

In today’s classrooms, digital tools and emerging tech are becoming increasingly common. Lesson plans can be produced with simple written prompts, producing exemplar responses can now happen in seconds with AI, and role-playing scenarios with chatbots are becoming a handy way to generate engagement and genuine mastery.

Tech and AI are becoming increasingly common in teaching, both inside and outside of the classroom. As an educator, you’re well aware of this transition and likely asking: how do I practically implement tech and AI into my classroom in an ethical, impactful way? 

In this blog, we’re diving deep into the tangible ways you can leverage tech to fast-track feedback loops, leverage high-impact teaching strategies and structure engaging lesson plans with ease.  

The case for bringing tech and AI into the classroom

Tech and AI present plenty of unknowns for educators. But emerging technologies aren’t something to resist or avoid. In fact, these tools are here to stay and offer huge benefits for educators, such as automating admin-intensive tasks, delivering real-time student feedback and allowing for more engaging classroom experiences.          

We spoke with over 200+ Australian educators as part of our inaugural Tech in Schools report, and discovered that:

• 74% of educators believe that technology enhances the learning experience for students.
• 78% of teachers said technology helps to support differentiation.
• 60% of educators believe the use of AI in education will significantly change teaching methodologies. 

Now is the time to engage with and experiment with new tools, like AI, to stay ahead of the curve. The sooner you understand the benefits and limitations of these tools, the sooner you can develop school-wide policies that set clear boundaries around how students should and shouldn’t use them. 

The good news? You don’t need to overhaul your entire teaching approach overnight. Instead, it’s about starting off with quick wins and simple ways to incorporate tech into your existing lesson plans and taking a phased approach to implementing tech in your classroom.

Four simple ways to bring tech and AI into the classroom

1. Enabling differentiated learning experiences for students at scale 

Differentiating course content to suit a variety of student abilities doesn’t have to be a manual, time-intensive activity. With tech, it’s possible to not only assess students’ progress in real time but also assign tailored learning materials in seconds. 

In Atomi, you can easily gain class-wide insights into how everyone is performing and zoom in on individual students' progress. From there, you can help advanced learners progress with more complex tasks (such as analysing and interpreting a text) or give additional revision materials to students who are struggling.

But there are stacks of other ways to leverage tech and AI to implement differentiation in your classroom, including:

• Using ChatGPT or Gemini to build multiple lesson plans based on different learning materials (from video content to curated podcast lists).
• Leveraging an online learning platform (like Atomi) that uses AI to quickly assess a student’s area of strength and weakness and, with that, prompt them to revisit necessary areas with tailored revision resources.
• AI tools like ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini can effectively be integrated into teaching by helping you customise your lessons and classroom management techniques to suit the needs, learning profiles, and abilities of your students. 

AI prompt idea: I’m planning to run this exercise with my Year X students: [brief summary of the activity]. Suggest practical ways I can adapt this activity for students with attention difficulties. 

2. Fast-tracking feedback loops between teachers and students

Marking and providing feedback can be one of the most time-consuming parts of your role as an educator. But with the use of tech, you can allow students to assess their understanding quickly to easily track their progress throughout the year. 

With AI, you can produce resources and materials to reduce the time it takes for students to receive feedback, including:

• Quickly generating marking criteria for an upcoming assessment, helping students understand what steps they need to take to produce a top-performing piece.
• Creating an exemplary response to a long-form response or essay question to give learners a clear benchmark for what success looks like.
• Producing lists of follow-up resources or revision tools students should engage with based on the feedback they receive for a particular assessment or quiz. 

3. Easily integrate questioning into your teaching

Preparing lists of curated, insightful questions to share with your students in the classroom can be daunting. But with the strategic use of tech and AI, it’s possible to streamline this process at scale (without compromising on quality). 

With ChatGPT or Gemini, you can develop lists of hinge questions (a powerful formative assessment tool) that are designed to test student knowledge on particular topics. Take this AI prompt as an example: “Create 10 open-ended questions on how technology has improved the everyday life of people and pitch them to a Year 9 level." 

But that’s just the start of how AI can be used to implement questioning in your classroom. Consider these AI prompt ideas when planning your next lesson: 

• For large classroom discussions: Create 10 open-ended questions I can ask a class of Year [x] students about [topic], designed to [desired discussion outcome].
  
• For peer collaboration: Provide 3x think pair share prompts for my students when discussing the importance of [topic], exclude closed style questions.
  
• For role plays with bots: Pretend you are a fellow Year [x] student studying [topic]. You are debating me, a fellow student, on the topic of [x]. Please provide counter-arguments to the ideas I share and test my knowledge on this subject.

4. Easily structure memorable, engaging lessons

Preparation is key to designing impactful and engaging lessons. However, lesson planning can easily become an incredibly time-intensive task, particularly if you’re teaching multiple subjects across several year groups. 

But with GenAI tools, you can reduce the manual work involved with planning, preparing and delivering engaging lessons. Here’s how:

• Use AI to create lesson plans that you can share with students to explain what course content and learning outcomes you’ll be covering. ‍
• Design creative learning tasks and quickly ideate a range of potential classroom activities to suit different abilities and learning styles. ‍
• Produce your own exit tickets using AI-generated questions related to key concepts covered in your lessons (with the opportunity for students to self-assess their understanding). 

Ready to tap into the power of tech in the classroom?

AI and tech have the potential to elevate the classroom experience and free up your time to focus on more strategic, value-adding work as an educator. If you’re looking for more resources to get started, dive into our free resources on how to leverage AI in the context of high-impact teaching strategies, including differentiation, feedback, questioning and structuring lessons.

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