Beyond Automation: Using AI to Reflect on Classroom Insights
A hallmark of independent school education is the narrative student comment. These personalized comments not only give families insight into their child’s classroom experience but also offer assurance that both the school and the teacher truly know their student.
While AI shouldn’t be used to write student comments, it can serve as a powerful tool for teachers by offering insights into classroom dynamics and suggesting actionable strategies. As an experiment, I uploaded a set of comments (names scraped, of course) from an old Calculus class to see how AI might assist me in reflection.
Here are three valuable outcomes:
Course Summary: I asked the AI to summarize my class based on the comments I had written, paying particular attention to how my values were captured in my feedback. The result was an insightful reflection that allowed me to align my personal beliefs with my written observations.
Advice for Students: Next, I requested advice for my students. The AI generated seven actionable tips that could serve as a reflective guide for students throughout the course or as a helpful checkpoint for quarterly reviews.
Class Activities: I asked for three class activities that I could implement the next class to target student needs. While the activities provided were decent, I realized that I could refine them further by either using AI to iterate or generating my own ideas.
BUT, the best outcome came from asking the AI to suggest student pairings based on their individual strengths and challenges. Here are two example responses:
Erin has a solid understanding and consistent effort, while Ryan sometimes misses the bigger picture by focusing too much on mechanics. Erin’s confidence and conceptual clarity could help Ryan see the broader connections between concepts, while Ryan’s drive and determination could challenge Erin in return.
Will has great insights and a natural ability to connect concepts, while Kevin is strong with calculators but needs to improve his focus on non-calculator work. Will’s conceptual understanding could help Kevin think more deeply about the concepts rather than just relying on mechanical calculations, while Kevin’s quick thinking with calculators could sharpen Will’s computational efficiency.
Ultimately, AI isn’t just a tool for generating content. Yes it can write emails, blog posts, or summaries, but it can also be a reflective tool providing a mirror into classrooms that we may not see day-to-day.
