Week 4 Blog

Part 1

Magic School AI Lesson Plan

Evaluation of the Lesson Plan

The lesson that was created by the online platform Magic School AI for the Oklahoma Academic Math Standard K.N.1.7 "Find a number that is 1 more or 1 less than a given number up to 10" (Oklahoma State Department of Education, 2022) provided a thorough outline for a lesson plan. This lesson plan addressed this standard and included some pieces of another standard by including vocabulary terms such as more and less. There are opportunities for students to use manipulatives and answer questions related to the standard in various ways throughout the lesson, including written and verbal responses. The lesson aligns with ISTE Standard 1, as it allows students to work with hands-on technology tools and manipulatives such as number lines and counting bears. This lesson is a beginning outline for a lesson that can be rigorous; however, it lacks certain aspects that I believe create engagement and thinking opportunities for students, which are necessary for rigor. The lesson provides many opportunities for students to practice straightforward questions that are linked to the standard, but it could be adapted to create real-world applications and encourage critical thinking. This lesson could be improved by adding real-world examples, such as having a set number of items and giving one away to have one less, or finding one more to increase a total. This would provide additional support for using vocabulary words and create a critical thinking opportunity for students. Additionally, allowing students a chance to turn and talk with partners to create their own real-world example of one more or one less would also enhance understanding. The assessment provided by the online platform is appropriate for kindergarten students and will give insight into each student’s level of understanding.

Magic School AI Usefulness

Magic School AI created a lesson plan that is useful as an outline. However, to qualify as a rigorous lesson, it will need modifications and more specific activities. I did ask Magic School to add in opportunities for students to think critically. After this element was added, in my opinion, the lesson could qualify as rigorous. It includes a review of simple counting concepts and a hands-on introduction of the new skill. It follows the teaching strategy of “I Do, We Do, You Do,” providing time for students to learn the new skill and then work with it independently.

Reflecting our Readings

The Triple E Framework is one of the readings and concepts that I have learned through this course. This lesson allows students to use math manipulatives as the technology, and these tools help students be engaged and enhance their understanding of the math concept they are working on. The students are able to use different tools to extend their learning and connect what they are working on to everyday life experiences. So this lesson does reflect the reading and the Triple E Framework by Kolb.

Part 2

I chose to explore the YouTube Video Questions tool. This tool allows you to copy the transcript of any YouTube video into the chat box, and it will give you questions that are directly from the video. I used this tool last year when showing a video about the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. It quickly provided me with comprehension questions about the video to ask my students. Today I input a Cinco De Mayo video that I had shown my students last year. It first gave me multiple-choice questions in Spanish, which would not work for my kindergarten students, but it gave me the idea that if you were a Spanish teacher, this could quickly create a bilingual worksheet for students after watching a video related to what they were learning. I will use this in the future to help create comprehension questions. I hope to do more independent listening activities with stories for my students. This tool could take a video that students watch independently and provide questions that could be recorded for the students to listen to and answer afterward to reflect on what they watched. This helps students build independent comprehension skills.. 

Part 3 

Reflection

I have previously worked with the worksheet generator, and I do not believe that tool is great for kindergarten students as we use fewer worksheets. If my students complete a worksheet, it is more picture-based, as they are not able to independently read instructions. I have shared this with a friend of mine who is a third-grade teacher. I also realized throughout this assignment that it would be a great tool for my tutoring group that I have after school. That group may include students from first to fourth grade, so creating different activities for different skills can be time-consuming. I think in the end this tool is most helpful in saving teachers time in creating specific tasks. While I know what my students need to learn, and some fun activities to help them, I may not always have the time to create them if needed. This tool helps reduce that time and cognitive load. I do believe it is a guideline or outline, though. It gives a starting point for where to guide your students. If you are using it to create a worksheet, you still need to understand the content as a teacher and be able to give your students the knowledge of the standard they are working on, as well as the background knowledge to complete the worksheet.

The Guidance and Considerations for Using Artificial Intelligence in Oklahoma K-12 Schools document shared a graphic that outlined the potential benefits and risks of AI in the classroom. In my own personal use, these risks and benefits need to be balanced for me to be able to justify using them. While it is a helpful tool that reduces time spent on certain tasks, our job is still to educate children, which involves interacting and creating educational opportunities for them—and partnering with their parents. One of the sections in this document was titled “Enhancing, not Replacing” (OSDE, 2024). Just as technology should not replace a paper worksheet with an electronic one, AI should not replace learning experiences or student thinking. AI use should enhance a student's learning experience and support critical thinking.

We are using Amira next school year as a reading tutor in our classrooms and for standardized testing. We began practicing using it last year with some of our students to become familiar with the tool. It is an AI-powered reading tool that listens to students read, provides personalized practice, and highlights areas of improvement for teachers and parents. This AI program enhances students’ independent reading practice, powered by an AI reading coach.

References

International Society for Technology in Education. (n.d.). ISTE standards for students. ISTE. https://www.iste.org/standards/students

Oklahoma State Department of Education. (2022). Oklahoma Academic Standards for Mathematics. https://oklahoma.gov/content/dam/ok/en/osde/documents/services/literacy-policy-and-programs/oklahoma-academic-standards/2022-OAS-Maths-Standards.pdfoklahoma.gov

Oklahoma State Department of Education. (2024, April 30). Guidance and considerations for using artificial intelligence in Oklahoma K‑12 schools. https://oklahoma.gov/content/dam/ok/en/osde/documents/services/standards-learning/educational-technology/Guidance-and-Considerations-for-Artificial-Intelligence-in-Oklahoma-Schools.pdf