Using Generative AI Tools in Your Classroom Engagement Strategy

AI tools are both consistently evolving and being applied in new or different ways than the day before. What applications of generative AI tools have you tried in your classroom that have worked well? What classroom use cases for AI tools excite you? What AI tool application or function do you think we’ll see next? 

One way to personally experiment with AI tools and apply them directly to your classroom strategy, is to utilize them to support your classroom engagement practice.

1. Generate an icebreaker prompt

When building an inclusive classroom, getting to know your students is imperative. One way to do this is by including get-to-know-you activities at the top of a live session.

In addition to you and your student’s favorite icebreaker questions, using generative AI tools like ChatGPT to source an icebreaker prompt can be a great way to find your new favorite question. Including information in your prompt like anticipated time spent or details about the audience, can help you to curate a go-to list to have on hand for any “get-to-know-you” classroom need throughout the course. This could also be a way to encourage students to experiment with AI tools. Encourage students to generate icebreaker questions using AI tools and then have a discussion about what you like or dislike about the prompts. 

2. Generate design challenges

Design challenges are a common practice in creative industry classrooms or workplaces. Typically, small groups will be presented with a prompt and spend a specific amount of time ideating solutions to the problem at hand. While often used for goal-oriented idea generation (to solve a problem) when used as an exercise, design challenges can be impactful in introducing design thinking to a new working group. Encouraging design thinking within small working groups can help to foster a collaborative and open learning environment. Using generative AI tools to create design thinking challenge prompts can help you to source a list of specific, short- term, prompts that will allow you to adapt to the time, audience, and needs of the small groups in your classroom.

3. Generate closing reflection questions

Reflection is a powerful tool in the learning process that is likely already a significant part of your classroom engagement strategy. According to a study referenced in this article, research participants who reflected on their approach after solving a problem, went on to do 18% better when attempting the problem again, than their peers who hadn’t set aside time to reflect. Using AI tools to generate closing reflective prompts to pose to students at the end of a session can make it easier to prioritize, amplify, and include reflective practice in your learning strategy.

4. Generate small group work summaries

Encourage students to use AI tools in order to generate summaries of their breakout room discussions and compare them to their own summaries of the session(s). What did the generated summary miss in their conversation? What did the generated summary emphasize? What context is missing in the generated summary? By generating the summary and analyzing the impact, learners are encouraged to reflect on their own conversation and discuss the key points/ takeaways.