Tag Archives: ai

How I use Generative AI with my students

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Late last year, NSWEduChat was released to all NSW public school students in Years 5–12. Since then, I have been intentionally exploring the use of generative AI. It can serve as a learning support tool in the classroom. This is preferred over it being used as a shortcut or replacement for thinking.

Here are some of the ways I’ve used NSW EduChat with my students. I will outline what’s worked well. Finally, I’ll share where I’d like to take this next.

Laying the Foundations Before Using NSWEduChat

Before students even typed a prompt into NSWEduChat, we spent time building a shared understanding of what generative AI is. We also discussed how it should be used responsibly. This foundation was essential.

We explicitly covered:

  • An introduction to generative AI – what it is, what it can and can’t do
  • An introduction to prompting – how the quality of input affects the quality of output
  • Teaching students when to prompt – helping them understand that AI is a tool to support learning, not replace it

This upfront work helped frame NSWEduChat as a thinking partner rather than an “answer machine”. All of these lessons are in the NSWEduChat staff resource library are in differentiated for Stage 3, 4, 5 and 6 students.

Supporting student writing

One of the most effective uses of generative AI in my classroom has been to support student writing.

Students were writing an informative text on adaptations of Australian animals, and NSWEduChat was used in a differentiated way:

  • Helping students get started when they were unsure how to begin
  • Expanding on ideas by asking for examples or explanations
  • Providing feedback on drafts to help students improve clarity, structure, and scientific accuracy

Importantly, students were still responsible for evaluating the responses, selecting what was useful, and rewriting in their own words. The AI supported the process, not the product. An example of their activity sheet is below.

Supporting understanding and communication of complex concepts

NSW EduChat has also been valuable in helping students consolidate learning after hands-on activities. One example was to explaining the difference between experimental probability and theoretical probability. A samples of the activity sheets is below.

Supporting revision and retrieval practice

Another effective use was for revision. Students used NSWEduChat to:

  • Test their knowledge on a topic
  • Generate practice questions
  • Identify gaps in their understanding

This allowed students to take more ownership of their revision while still engaging in meaningful retrieval practice.

We found NSWEduChat started with simple questions first and asked students to explain their understanding. If students answered questions correctly, it will then move onto more challenging questions. The questions impressively aligned correctly with NSW syllabus outcomes.

What I Liked Most About Using NSWEduChat

What stood out most was how NSW EduChat supported independent extension.

Students with a strong foundation understanding were able to:

  • Extend their thinking
  • Ask deeper questions
  • Clarify misconceptions independently

This, in turn, freed me up to spend more time providing one-on-one support to students who needed it most. The classroom dynamic shifted in a really positive way.

What I’d like to do next

My next focus is to create a range of prompt scaffolds for different learning situations. The goal is to help students better understand:

  • When it is beneficial to use NSWEduChat
  • How to prompt effectively depending on the task

Something like the below.

Using generative AI tools like NSWEduChat in the classroom has reinforced for me that their real value lies in how thoughtfully they are used. When embedded with clear expectations, explicit teaching, and strong learning intentions, these tools can enhance understanding, support independence, and free teachers to focus on what matters most — meaningful interactions with students.

This is very much an evolving space, and I know there are many creative, effective approaches being prototyped in classrooms. I’d love to learn from others.

  • How are you using generative AI with your students?
  • What’s worked well, and what are you still grappling with?

Please share your experiences, ideas, or questions in the comments below.

Empowering students and teachers: navigating AI in schools

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An AI ‘takeover’ in schools is often portrayed as being inevitable and the teaching profession has little control over it. That teacher skepticism to AI tools is a barrier to “progress”. This false narrative displaces teachers as the experts of teaching and learning. Is student uptake of AI more unprecedented than expected? Yes. Can more be done in the space of professional support for teachers? Yes, a lot more. This is why Michael Sciffer and I led a session at the Quality Teaching in Practice Conference (QTiP25) at Newcastle University. We aimed to show teachers how they can empower their students to become ethical and critical learners in the age of AI; to challenge situations when AI diminishes rich learning opportunities. When we designed our session, we found the space was dominated by for-profit technology companies promoting their AI products (often under the guise of professional learning and teaching resources). What was missing was supporting teachers to teach students how to have conversations on the ethical and critical use of AI, and challenge each other’s assumptions, from academic situations to everyday life scenarios. That’s what our QTiP25 session focused on and this blog post summarises our session and resources. Our session was strongly influenced, and builds on, the fantastic professional learning on generative AI from NSW Department of Education.

Literature scan

Our literature scan draws on the Australian Framework for Generative AI in Schools along with Australian research to focus on:

  • Can teachers exercise professional control over AI?
  • Is Gen AI intelligent?
  • What are the limits of AI?
  • What are the harms of AI?
  • What are the necessary student skills to engage with Gen AI in a critical, ethical and creative fashion?
AI literature scanDownload

Thinking scaffold to decide IF and HOW AI should be used

We adapted the GENAI assessment scale into a thinking scaffold that school-aged students and teachers can use to discuss how AI and enhance and diminish their learning. The scaffold has six levels of AI integration and asks students/teachers to think about the positives (pluses), negatives (minuses) and interesting considerations for each level of AI integration. Students/ teachers then use scaffold to decide and justify on a level of AI integration that would best enhance their learning. the The scaffold can be used to co-create agreed expectations of the uses of AI in a range of learning tasks, projects and units of work. The scaffold is designed to be used in small group situations, but can used individually.

Download a copy of the AI thinking scaffold here. Make a copy of the document to edit to meet the needs of students and teachers in your context.

Classroom conversations to co-create expectations of AI use

After each small group completes the AI thinking scaffold, the group nominates one representative to join a Socratic seminar. To support students (and teachers) to have robust conversations to co-create agreed expectations of AI use from diverse opinions, we selected specific Socratic sentence starters. The sentence starters are selected to encourage students (and teachers) to present different views, challenge each other’s assumptions, to ask each other to justify their reasoning and to support each other.

Download the Socratic sentence starters here.

More for students and teachers to think about

We also designed additional scenarios for students and teachers to think about where the use of AI extends beyond a learning activity and the classroom. They are designed to be used with the Socractic sentence starters to challenge the impacts of AI use in the context of integrity, equity, honesty and essentially, what it means to be human.

Download the scenarios here.

Conclusion

Our session at the QTiP25 conference emphasised the importance of equipping teachers and students with the skills to engage critically and ethically with AI. By enabling robust discussions to co-create expectations around AI use, teachers, as the experts of teaching and learning, can lead their students to collectively decide how AI is used (or not used at all) to enhance and protect rich learning opportunities.