Table 3 Illustration of examples how teachers are using AI in their classrooms

AI Experiments

Some teachers have assigned their students to create accounts at major AI providers. As such, they get access to models like ChatGPT by OpenAI or Bard by Google. Once they have it, teachers can prompt students with specific tasks, like for example: “Go and experiment with GPT to discover how to best find good sources for academic papers. Then compare the results with responses from Bard. Critique what you find and discuss your thoughts in groups of three.”

This is an easy way to get students into the “doing”-stage and to gather first-hand experiences. It is also not difficult to implement since it can be combined with just about any class and topic. However, it only works if one has access to free accounts or if the school provides subscriptions

Case Study Construction

Some supervisors and lecturers have used LLMs to create case studies that they can then use in their classes for the students to work through, either alone or in groups. This helps them to connect the theories with ideas of how to apply them in real life

Constructing case studies sounds like a good idea to generate ideas of how to engage the students better with the presented material. The problem is that prompting the model correctly to get a high-quality case study can take a long time and at times one may be more effective simply doing it oneself

AI Recommendation

Creating curricula for one’s classes is a complex and time-consuming task. It requires a vision for social interaction, practical engagement and theoretical understanding. AI tools (such as teachino) can help creating curricula and making interactive suggestions how one can set up the class

AI tools can greatly help to be more effective and efficient in the construction of curricula. If used as patient sparring partner, it can enhance the classroom setting. At the same time, there is the downside that the AI does not share one’s experiences and to “indoctrinate” them into the system can sometimes take considerable time

Gamification

There are teachers that have now used AI-driven games to enhance the learning experience of students. This leads to interactive settings where students can apply what they have learned in a fun and engaging way

Gamification is a valuable tool that often excites students and teachers alike. However, they can sometimes be rather expensive and not all schools are willing to account for them in their budgets

Immersive & Virtual Reality

Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality or Mixed Reality – there are many ways in which students can be introduced into an AI-powered virtual world, which can also be used for a learning setting. At the moment, some lecturers at the current university are applying these technologies

Using immersive technologies is highly engaging for students and creates an engaging learning environments. The problem is that there is not always a budget to include them and not all teachers know how to use them. Sometimes, it is not a straight-forward use-case for certain learning tasks