Week 4 Blog Assignment
Part 1: Link to Levels of Organization Lesson
The lesson provided from Magic School AI is a good starting place. It is nice how it gives you all aspects of a lesson. Currently our initiative at school is to do the Gradual Release Model. Meaning every day we need focused, guided, collaborative, and independent learning. This lesson has all of that. It does a nice job of tying to the standard HS-LS1-2: Develop and use a model to illustrate the hierarchical organization of interacting systems that provide specific functions within a multicellular organism but not to the ISTE standards. It has students learn the levels, create their own model, and then share their model with others. I do not feel like this lesson is rigorous enough for sophomores in high school because they need more than regurgitate information I tell them. The assessment does not align enough with the standard because the assessment has them making their model with different levels in it. They need to be able to show how the levels interact in order for the organism to properly function. I would suggest having students make the model like it says, but having to include two interacting organ systems to make it more complex and show the relationship between systems. I would also like the lesson better if it provided the rubric, video, and lecture materials. It is pretty much just a skeleton of a lesson. I do not think this tool is useful in creating a rigorous lesson. I think it is a good tool for getting an idea for where to go if you are stuck with lesson planning. My evidence is the lesson only has me telling the students about the levels and then them creating a model. It does not have a strong hook for the students to relate it to their world. Had it posed a question or a phenomenon to engage them, that would have improved it.
Part 2: I chose the Data Table Analysis because a big focus of mine is having students be able to analyze and draw conclusions from data. All you have to do is give the tool a suggestion of what you want in the data table and it will do the rest. I had it create a table about stats from runners after a race. After it made the table, I asked it to create questions to ask students about the data. I found this tool useful because it can be hard to find data for your students to analyze and this created it for me. It allowed me to not have to search or make up the data myself. Then the questions it created also would save me time. This is good for the basics and I would use it when teaching my kids the skills needed to think critically about data. Therefore, I would mainly use it to deliver learning because when I assess I would make sure it is tied to the standard and fits with what we are learning about in class. This would be good for my bell ringers at the beginning of class and during reviews.
Part 3: I enjoyed trying out Magic School AI. It is a resource I could see myself using for creating data tables and getting started if I am stuck lesson planning. I would share it with my colleagues so if they are in the same place, they have a resource they can go to. A lot of people in my building use AI to make rubrics, and this could do that as well. Some of the challenges are, it does not tie into the ISTE standards well, it is very surface level information, and the assessment is not tied to the standard. You also have to still do a lot when using it. Mine wanted me to create a lecture, rubric, and find a video. The benefits on the other hand would be it can help you get started, you might see a new teaching strategy, and it incorporates multiple methods of teaching. The only other AI tool I use is Chat GPT to help me word some tough emails. It helps me communicate my thoughts and will check my grammar before I send it.
Claire: Im kinda geeking out about your post here. Science girl here---So I know what you are talking about.
ReplyDeleteYou said "The assessment does not align enough with the standard because the assessment has them making their model with different levels in it. They need to be able to show how the levels interact in order for the organism to properly function". I have not used Magic School before and had never heard of it, but I was wondering if it's lack of standard alignment was due to wording on the prompt? I wonder if you could play around with the wording of the prompt and find that it CAN do what you want it to--or not?
I had Magic School write a lesson plan for 7th grade level Atomic Structure to see if it aligns with what I am already teaching....I felt like it was a good outline but not enough content. There are key terms such as protons, neutrons, valence, orbits, etc that the lesson never went over. That was a little frustrating but I thougt later that I need to be more specific in my prompt for it.
The tool that I tried out was the slides generator. NICE! It took the information from the lesson and placed it in a Google Slides Document that I can put on the Smartboard to use as notes during discussion time. You should try it out if you haven't yet. Very helpful.