All posts tagged: classroom

How to encourage smarter AI use in the classroom

How to encourage smarter AI use in the classroom

Nevertheless, the generative AI boom increased the burden on teachers, who were already working long hours to plan lessons, make homework assignments, and grade exams, and now needed to adapt to a new technology. For many, it still feels like there’s no clear path forward. Organizations ranging from OpenAI to UNESCO encourage AI use in the classroom, but many teachers feel confused about how exactly to handle it.  Case study Cheshire Academy is a private boarding and day school in Connecticut with about 400 students in grades 9 through 12. Administrators there don’t force instructors to use AI at all, though the school’s librarian and technology coordinator George Aiello claims the “vast majority” of instructors use it in some way. The educators there are trying a patchwork of programs, including general-purpose chatbots like ChatGPT and Perplexity as well as more specialized tools like MagicSchool, an AI-powered platform meant specifically for educators. That patchwork approach is partly because the school, on the advice of consultants, opted to train its staff on general techniques for how to …

The Bible Belongs in the Classroom

The Bible Belongs in the Classroom

This summer, the Texas State Board of Education approved a new required-reading list for public schools, mandating what the state’s 5.4 million students will read in every grade from kindergarten to 12th. If you were a student in the past 20 years, or raised one, you’ll recognize most of the titles: picture books such as The Cat in the Hat and The Snowy Day, parables such as The Giver and Fahrenheit 451. What made the Texas list controversial is the inclusion not of a new book, but of a very old one: the Bible. Students will be assigned short excerpts and adaptations from the Old and New Testaments, starting with vivid tales (Jonah and the whale, David and Goliath) and building to more complex and morally challenging passages, such as Job’s complaint against God. Texas’s decision to start teaching Bible stories—like its requirement to display the Ten Commandments in classrooms, which the state legislature approved last year—is clearly meant to send a political message. But regardless of your political or religious beliefs, there are good …