Category: AI and EduProtocols

When CDs, cassettes, and digital streaming entered the music scene, they didn’t kill live concerts—they transformed them. Artists had to rethink their performances, adding more visual spectacle, audience interaction, and unique live experiences that couldn’t be replicated by simply listening to an album at home. Similarly, photography didn’t make painting obsolete—it forced artists to innovate. Impressionism, modernism, and abstract art emerged because photography handled realism better.

The lesson? When technology changes, we don’t abandon what we do—we adapt.

Now, AI is reshaping education. Students can ask ChatGPT for answers, generate essays, and get instant explanations for concepts. If we continue teaching the same way we did before AI, we risk making our classrooms irrelevant. Instead of resisting, we need to rethink lesson design, focus on critical thinking, and embrace strategies that make learning more interactive, meaningful, and student-driven.

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Rethinking Lesson Design in the Age of AI

Just like concerts became more immersive and art evolved beyond realism, our lessons need to shift from simple content delivery to engagement, creation, and analysis. Here’s how:

1️⃣ Prioritize Higher-Order Thinking

• If students can Google or AI-generate an answer in seconds, we need to ask better questions. Instead of “What were the causes of the War of 1812?” ask, “If you were an advisor to Madison, how would you justify going to war?”
• Shift from fact recall to argument-building, analysis, and problem-solving.

2️⃣ Make Learning Active

• Move beyond passive note-taking. Use strategies where students do, create, and explain rather than just memorize.
• Example: Instead of a worksheet on Jacksonian Democracy, students can use a 2xPOV activity—writing from both the perspective of a Jackson supporter and a critic.

3️⃣ Teach with AI, Not Against It

• AI isn’t going away, so we should show students how to use it effectively—as a research tool, for feedback, and to refine their thinking rather than just generate quick answers.
• Example: Have students draft a paragraph, run it through Class Companion for feedback, and revise based on AI suggestions.

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EduProtocols That Fit the Future

Teaching in an AI-driven world doesn’t mean we need students to use AI all the time—it means we need to design lessons that push beyond what AI can do. Here are a few EduProtocols that naturally work in a world where instant answers are at their fingertips:

• Fast & Curious (Gimkit/Quizizz) → AI can provide definitions and summaries, but students still need retrieval practice. This strategy ensures repetition, reinforcement, and real understanding—not just quick lookups.
• Thin Slides (Padlet) → Students must create quick, one-word, one-image explanations and then present their ideas in 8 seconds or less. This forces concise, critical thinking—something AI-generated responses can’t do for them.
• MiniReport → Instead of copying an AI-generated summary, students compare two different sources to analyze perspectives, evaluate bias, and construct an argument.
• Sketch & Tell → Forces students to translate complex information into visuals, proving they truly understand a concept rather than just regurgitating words.
• Parafly (Socrative/Padlet) → AI can provide summaries, but students still need to develop their own voice. This activity builds paraphrasing skills by having students rewrite key information in their own words—a critical skill in an AI-driven world.

These strategies go beyond recall and require students to think, create, and engage, ensuring that AI remains a tool—not a replacement—for deep learning.

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The Bottom Line: Change is Inevitable, So Let’s Adapt

Technology has never eliminated the need for human creativity, thinking, or teaching—it has forced us to evolve. AI is doing the same to education. The key isn’t banning AI but designing learning experiences that AI can’t replicate.

Concerts didn’t die because of CDs; they became bigger and better experiences. Art didn’t disappear because of photography; it became more expressive and boundary-pushing.

Education won’t disappear because of AI, either. But it’s on us as teachers to rethink how we engage students, challenge them, and prepare them for a future where knowing information is less important than knowing what to do with it.

A Step-by-Step Guide to Designing a 5-6 Day Unit on Native American History: A Collaborative Journey with AI

Introduction: As educators, we constantly strive to create units that not only align with educational standards but also address the specific needs and skills of our students—especially those with IEPs. Balancing these demands while keeping lessons engaging and accessible can be challenging. In this blog post, I’ll walk you through how I collaborated with AI (ChatGPT) to develop a comprehensive 5-6 day unit on Native American history, tailored specifically for my 8th-grade students. This unit focuses on student deficits, builds critical skills, aligns seamlessly with Ohio’s educational standards, and incorporates the rich local history of Clermont County.

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Step 1: Identifying Student Needs and Establishing the Unit’s Foundation

To start, I needed to ensure that the unit would directly address the literacy and comprehension deficits my students face. Many of my 8th graders have IEPs and are working below grade level, so it was crucial that the lessons be both accessible and skill-focused.

• Prompt: “Analyze these literacy skills my 8th graders need to work on and pull out a DELTAS skill that correlates.”
• Context & Results: ChatGPT identified that my students needed to work on skills such as finding the main idea and understanding vocabulary in context. It then correlated these skills with the DELTAS framework, which helped me focus the unit on building essential literacy skills. This step provided a clear foundation for the unit, ensuring that each lesson would target these specific deficits.

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Step 2: Aligning with Standards

With student needs in mind, the next step was to ensure that the unit was aligned with Ohio’s educational standards for 8th-grade social studies, specifically focusing on Native American history.

• Prompt: “Based on Ohio’s standards, what should 8th graders know about American Indians?”
• Context & Results: ChatGPT analyzed Ohio’s standards and highlighted key content areas, such as Native American history in the context of colonization, human systems, and geography/conflict. This alignment was crucial in making sure that the unit was not only skill-focused but also met the required academic benchmarks. By tying the lessons to these standards, I could ensure that my students were gaining the necessary knowledge while also working on their literacy skills.

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Step 3: Structuring the Unit Around a Compelling Question

To drive inquiry and keep students engaged, I needed a compelling question that would guide the entire unit. This question would be broken down into daily supporting questions, each addressing a different aspect of the topic.

• Prompt: “Organize this over 4 days with an overall compelling question for 8th grade; each day needs a supporting question. I teach 8th graders mostly with special needs and IEPs. I also teach 65-minute classes.”
• Context & Results: ChatGPT suggested structuring the unit around the compelling question, “How did the Native American tribes of Clermont County, Ohio, adapt to their environment and interact with European settlers?” It then provided supporting questions for each day, which I adjusted to extend the unit to 5-6 days. These questions broke down the overarching theme into manageable daily lessons, each building on the last. This structured approach ensured that students could progressively deepen their understanding of the material.

Unit Overview:

• Day 1: What were the distinct ways of life of the Native American tribes in Clermont County, Ohio, before European colonization?
• Day 2: How did European exploration and colonization disrupt the lives of Native American tribes in Clermont County, Ohio?
• Day 3: How did cultural biases and U.S. policies contribute to the displacement of Native American tribes in Clermont County, Ohio?
• Day 4: How did the geography of North America contribute to conflicts between Native American tribes and European settlers?
• Day 5 (and possibly Day 6): How can we use what we’ve learned to understand the broader impact of colonization on Native American tribes? (This final day focuses on synthesis and assessment.)

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Step 4: Combining Pre-Existing Readings with Textbook Style

I had several pre-existing readings about Native Americans in Clermont County that I wanted to use. However, I needed these readings to be consistent with the style and tone of the McGraw Hill textbook sections my students were familiar with. This consistency would make the materials more accessible and ensure a smoother learning experience.

• Prompt: “What do you notice about the style of writing for these textbook sections?” After receiving the analysis, I followed up with, “Take each one of these readings and match the style of the previous readings/lessons. Combine the information from both—I want students to understand how local American Indians adapted to their environment and interacted with Europeans.”
• Context & Results: ChatGPT analyzed the textbook style and identified key features such as clear language, bolded vocabulary, and structured headings. It then blended these features with the content from my pre-existing readings about local Native American history. The result was a set of readings that were both consistent with the textbook and tailored to the specific historical context of Clermont County. This approach ensured that students could easily transition between different texts without losing comprehension.

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Step 5: Consistent Use of EduProtocols

To build confidence and ensure that students were prepared for the final assessment, I wanted to use EduProtocols consistently throughout the unit. This would allow students to become familiar with the formats and expectations of these protocols.

• Prompt: “How can we keep the EduProtocols consistent so that the final assessment can use that EduProtocol to show what they know?” Followed by, “Take Day 1 of the unit and add more details to it—vocab and activities.”
• Context & Results: ChatGPT suggested integrating EduProtocols like Thin Slides, Sketch and Tell, and Iron Chef into each day’s lesson. By using these protocols consistently, students had repeated opportunities to practice and master the formats. This consistency helped build their confidence, ensuring they were well-prepared for the final assessment.

Daily EduProtocol Integration:

• Day 1: Thin Slides: Students create a slide focusing on how one tribe in Clermont County adapted to their environment. This introduces them to summarizing key ideas visually.
• Day 2: Jigsaw Reading and Mapping Activity: Instead of a full Iron Chef, students engage in a Jigsaw reading activity followed by an interactive map session to explore how European colonization impacted specific tribes.
• Day 3: Sketch and Tell: Students draw a picture and write a brief explanation about how cultural biases and U.S. policies affected Native American tribes, reinforcing the connection between visuals and text.
• Day 4: Thin Slides or Mapping Activity: Depending on student needs, they either revisit Thin Slides or continue with mapping activities to understand how geography influenced conflicts.
• Day 5 (and possibly Day 6): Final Assessment – Iron Chef or Sketch and Tell: Students choose between creating an Iron Chef presentation or a series of Sketch and Tell pages that synthesize what they’ve learned throughout the unit.

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Step 6: Scaffolding and Success Criteria

Recognizing that many of my students require additional support, I needed clear, plain language success criteria to guide them through the EduProtocols. This would ensure that all students, including those with IEPs, understood what was expected of them and how they could succeed.

• Prompt: “Create a simple, plain language success criteria aligned with the compelling and supporting questions that can help students with IEPs understand the Sketch and Tell or Iron Chef.”
• Context & Results: ChatGPT provided clear, scaffolded success criteria that were easy for students to understand. This included expectations for each activity, such as ensuring that each Thin Slide had a clear image and word that connected directly to the day’s question, or that each Sketch and Tell page clearly depicted the impact of policies or cultural biases. These criteria helped students focus on the key objectives of each lesson and understand how to achieve success.

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Step 7: Reflection and Continuous Improvement

Throughout the unit, I used reflective prompts to ensure that the plan remained focused on student deficits, skills, and standards alignment. I made adjustments based on AI’s suggestions, ensuring that each activity was purposeful and accessible.

• Prompt: “Analyze this entire conversation and create a well-written, clear, and concise blog post walking teachers through how to set up this unit.”
• Context & Results: ChatGPT provided a cohesive overview of the entire process, reflecting on how each step contributed to the overall success of the unit. This reflection allowed me to ensure that the unit was cohesive, effective, and aligned with both student needs and educational standards. It also emphasized the importance of adaptability and continuous improvement in lesson planning.

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Conclusion: Collaborating with AI allowed me to design a 5-6 day unit on Native American history that is not only standards-aligned and skill-focused but also tailored to the specific needs of my students, including those with IEPs. Each step—from identifying student needs to structuring the unit around a compelling question, blending local history with textbook materials, and integrating consistent EduProtocols—was carefully planned to ensure a cohesive and effective learning experience. The clear success criteria and continuous reflection throughout the process further enhanced the unit’s accessibility and impact.

This experience highlights the potential of AI as a powerful collaborative tool in education, supporting teachers in creating units that are both engaging and academically rigorous, while also being responsive to the diverse needs of their students.

Last week I gave a Literacy Skills entry assessment. I used AI to analyze the results…

The literacy skills analysis reveals that 8th grade students need to improve in several key areas. Finding the Main Idea remains a challenge, with students struggling to consistently identify central themes across texts. Understanding Vocabulary in Context shows fair performance, but there’s room for improvement in deriving word meanings from context. Students demonstrate moderate ability in Recognizing Important Details, but often miss key information or focus on less relevant points. While Comparing Perspectives is fair to good, students could benefit from more practice in contrasting viewpoints. Making Inferences needs significant improvement, as students struggle to draw conclusions beyond explicitly stated information. Lastly, Making a Claim with Evidence is identified as the weakest area, with students failing to make clear claims or support ideas with specific textual evidence. These findings suggest a need for targeted instruction and practice in these critical literacy skills to enhance students’ overall comprehension and analytical abilities in social studies.

Next, I asked AI to develop some themed days that we could devote to working on these skills. I also had it correlate the skills and themes with EduProtocols. Here is the outcome….

Main Idea Monday (Addressing: Finding the Main Idea)

• Thin Slides: Students create one slide with a key image and one word to represent the main idea of a historical event or concept. Present and discuss why each represents the main idea.
• Cyber Sandwich: Students read a historical text, discuss with a partner, and write a one-sentence summary focusing on the main idea. Expand to a paragraph summary. Use “What is this passage mostly about?” as a guiding question.

Text Detective Tuesday (Addressing: Understanding Vocabulary in Context & Recognizing Important Details)

• Frayer Model: Students complete a Frayer model for key historical terms, focusing on contextual usage and decoding strategies.
• ParaFLY: Students paraphrase complex historical quotes or paragraphs, underlining key points and writing margin notes. Use “5 W’s and H” questions to identify important information.

What’s Important Wednesday (Addressing: Recognizing Important Details)

• 8pARTS: Students analyze a historical image using the 8pARTS protocol, focusing on identifying crucial details and their significance.
• Number Mania: Students create infographics highlighting key statistics and facts from a historical period or event. Present and explain why these details are important.

Thinking Thursday (Addressing: Making Inferences)

• Sketch and Tell: Students create visual representations of historical events or concepts, including inferred information not explicitly stated. Explain their drawings using “Based on… I can infer that…” statements.
• Hero’s Journey: Students map a historical figure’s journey, making and explaining inferences about motivations and challenges not explicitly stated in texts.

Multiple Viewpoints Friday (Addressing: Comparing Perspectives & Making a Claim with Evidence)

• 3xPOV (Three Times Point of View): Students examine a historical event from three different perspectives:
  1. A direct participant in the event
  2. A contemporary observer not directly involved
  3. A modern historian looking back on the event Students use T-charts or Venn diagrams to compare and contrast these viewpoints.
• 3xCER (Claim, Evidence, Reasoning): Students engage with a historical topic or event using the following structure:
  1. Make three different claims about the topic
  2. Provide specific evidence from historical sources to support each claim
  3. Explain the reasoning that connects the evidence to each claim Students present and discuss their CERs, focusing on the strength of their claims, the relevance of their evidence, and the logic of their reasoning.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has rapidly become an invaluable tool in education, transforming how teachers plan, instruct, and assess their students. Here’s an in-depth look at how AI can serve as a personal assistant for educators and the importance of editing and the 80/20 rule in maximizing its effectiveness.

Lesson Planning and Curriculum Development

AI tools, such as ChatGPT, are revolutionizing the way teachers approach lesson planning and curriculum development. These tools can generate lesson plans, create outlines, and provide a wealth of resources tailored to specific subjects and grade levels. Here’s how AI can streamline this critical process:

1. Generating Ideas: AI can help teachers brainstorm innovative lesson ideas. By inputting a general topic or theme, AI can suggest various activities, discussion points, and multimedia resources that can make the lesson more engaging and comprehensive.
2. Creating Outlines: Once a lesson idea is generated, AI can assist in organizing the content into a coherent structure. This includes breaking down the lesson into segments such as introduction, main content, activities, and assessments, ensuring a logical flow that enhances student understanding.
3. Producing Full Lesson Plans: AI can take the outlines and expand them into full-fledged lesson plans. This involves detailing each segment, including step-by-step instructions, necessary materials, and timing. Teachers can then review and tweak these plans to suit their specific classroom dynamics.
4. Resource Compilation: AI can compile relevant resources such as articles, videos, and interactive activities that align with the lesson objectives. This saves teachers significant time and effort in searching for high-quality materials.

Differentiation and Personalized Learning

Differentiating instruction to meet the diverse needs of students is a critical aspect of effective teaching. AI tools can significantly aid in this by providing customized learning materials and activities. Here’s how:

1. Tailoring Reading Levels: By inputting specific reading levels, AI can generate texts that are appropriate for students’ comprehension abilities. For example, creating a 500L reading passage ensures that even struggling readers can grasp the content without feeling overwhelmed.
2. Adapting Learning Styles: AI can create materials that cater to different learning styles, such as visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learners. This includes generating visual aids, audio recordings, and hands-on activities that make the content accessible to all students.
3. Providing Multiple Formats: AI can produce various formats of the same content, such as summaries, detailed explanations, and interactive quizzes. This allows students to choose the format that best suits their learning preferences and needs.
4. Creating Adaptive Assessments: AI-driven assessments can adjust their difficulty based on student responses, providing a personalized evaluation experience that accurately reflects each student’s understanding and progress.

Student Engagement

Engaging students is one of the most challenging aspects of teaching. AI can enhance student interaction through innovative and interactive activities. Here are some examples:

1. Factual Scavenger Hunts: AI can create scavenger hunt activities where students search for facts within provided materials. This not only makes learning fun but also encourages active participation and critical thinking.
2. Argumentative Writing Prompts: AI can generate prompts for argumentative essays, helping students develop their writing and reasoning skills. By providing diverse and thought-provoking topics, AI can stimulate deeper engagement and discussion.
3. Q&A with Historical Figures: Tools like storyfile enable students to interact with virtual representations of historical figures. Students can ask questions and receive answers based on historical data, making history lessons more immersive and engaging.
4. Interactive Simulations: AI can develop simulations and role-playing scenarios that allow students to experience historical events, scientific processes, or mathematical concepts in a hands-on manner, fostering a deeper understanding of the material.

Assessment and Feedback

AI can transform how teachers assess student performance and provide feedback. Here’s how:

1. Automated Quiz Generation: AI can quickly generate quizzes and tests that align with lesson objectives. These assessments can include various question types, such as multiple-choice, short answer, and essay questions.
2. Instant Feedback: AI tools can provide immediate feedback to students on their assessments. This helps students understand their mistakes and learn from them in real time, enhancing the learning process.
3. Data-Driven Insights: AI can analyze assessment results to identify patterns and trends. This enables teachers to pinpoint areas where students are excelling or struggling, allowing for targeted interventions and support.
4. Formative and Summative Assessments: AI can assist in creating both formative assessments, which monitor student learning during the instructional process, and summative assessments, which evaluate student learning at the end of an instructional unit.

Organizing and Analyzing Data

Managing and analyzing educational data is crucial for informed decision-making. AI can assist teachers in this area by:

1. Organizing Student Performance Metrics: AI can compile and organize data on student performance, making it easier for teachers to track progress over time. This includes grades, attendance, and behavioral records.
2. Curriculum Alignment: AI can ensure that lesson plans and assessments align with curriculum standards and learning objectives. This helps teachers stay on track and meet educational requirements.
3. Identifying Learning Trends: By analyzing data, AI can identify trends in student learning, such as common misconceptions or frequently missed questions. This information is valuable for adjusting instructional strategies.
4. Generating Reports: AI can create detailed reports that summarize student performance, highlight areas for improvement, and suggest next steps. These reports can be shared with students, parents, and administrators to support collaborative efforts in improving education.

The Importance of Editing

While AI is a powerful tool, it is not infallible. It is crucial for teachers to edit and review the output generated by AI. Here are key reasons why:

1. Accuracy: AI may produce content that includes factual errors or outdated information. Teachers must verify the accuracy of this content before using it in their classrooms.
2. Relevance: The content generated by AI should be relevant to the specific context and needs of the students. Editing ensures that the materials are appropriate and tailored to the class’s current learning objectives.
3. Quality: AI-generated content might lack the nuanced understanding and creativity that human teachers bring to their work. Editing helps to polish the material, making it more engaging and effective.

The 80/20 Rule

The 80/20 rule, also known as the Pareto Principle, is particularly relevant when using AI in education. It suggests that 80% of results come from 20% of efforts. In the context of AI as a personal assistant:

• Focus on High-Impact Tasks: Teachers should leverage AI for routine and time-consuming tasks, such as grading and lesson planning, which frees up more time for them to focus on the 20% of activities that have the most significant impact on student learning and engagement.
• Maximize Efficiency: By allowing AI to handle the bulk of administrative tasks, teachers can dedicate more energy to innovative teaching methods and personal interactions with students, which are crucial for fostering a positive learning environment.

Conclusion

AI is not a replacement for teachers but a tool that, when used effectively, can enhance their capabilities and improve educational outcomes. By understanding the importance of editing AI-generated content and applying the 80/20 rule, teachers can make the most of these technological advancements. Embracing AI with intentionality and purpose will ensure that it serves as a valuable assistant in the modern classroom, empowering educators to focus on what they do best: inspiring and educating the next generation.

As educators, time is precious, and maximizing productivity is crucial. Whether you’re using a Mac or a Windows computer, keyboard shortcuts can save you time and streamline your workflow. These shortcuts are particularly helpful when integrating EduProtocols into your classroom activities. Here’s a handy guide to some essential keyboard shortcuts and how they can enhance your use of EduProtocols.

Copy and Paste with Command+C and Command+V or Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V

The basic shortcuts for copying and pasting are Command + C and Command + V for Mac users, and Ctrl + C and Ctrl + V for Windows users. These are fundamental for a variety of tasks:

• Copying Text and Images: Quickly transfer text and images between documents and slides.
• Organizing Information: Easily move elements within your EduProtocols templates.

Duplicating Shapes and Text with Command+D or Ctrl+D

One of the frequent tasks in activities like Sketch and Tell or Thick Slides is duplicating shapes and text. On a Mac, you can use Command + D, and on Windows, you can use Ctrl + D. This shortcut makes it easy to create multiple copies of an image, shape, or text box, speeding up the design process. For example:

• Sketch and Tell: Quickly duplicate images to create multiple illustrations.
• Thick Slides: Duplicate word art fonts to maintain consistent styles across slides.
• Iron Chef: Clone elements to create uniform layouts for collaborative work.

Selecting All Text with Command+A or Ctrl+A

When you need to select all the text on a page for copying and pasting, Command + A (Mac) or Ctrl + A (Windows) is your go-to shortcut. This is particularly useful for:

• Copying Text for AI Integration: Select all text on a webpage or document to easily copy and paste it into AI platforms for processing.
• Organizing Information: Gather all text from a source to ensure no details are missed when transferring information to your EduProtocols templates.

Finding Specific Items with Command+F or Ctrl+F

Searching for specific terms or phrases within a document or webpage is made simple with Command + F (Mac) or Ctrl + F (Windows). This shortcut is indispensable for:

• Research and References: Quickly locate key terms or facts on a webpage or document.
• Text Analysis: Help students find and highlight important information during reading activities.

Inserting Hyperlinks with Command+K or Ctrl+K

Hyperlinks are essential for connecting resources and references. Use Command + K (Mac) or Ctrl + K (Windows) to insert hyperlinks efficiently. This can enhance:

• Thick Slides and CyberSandwiches: Link directly to sources, ensuring students have access to relevant information.
• Resource Compilation: Create interconnected documents and slides for comprehensive study materials.

Commenting on Google Docs and Slides

Adding comments in Google Docs or Slides is crucial for collaborative work and feedback. Use Command + Option + M on a Mac and Ctrl + Alt + M on Windows to quickly add comments. This is especially useful for:

• Feedback and Collaboration: Easily provide feedback on student work.
• Peer Review: Facilitate peer review processes by enabling students to comment on each other’s work.

Other Essential Keyboard Shortcuts

Here are a few more shortcuts that can further streamline your tasks:

• Reopen Closed Tabs with Ctrl+Shift+T: Accidentally closed a tab? No problem. Ctrl + Shift + T (Windows) or Command + Shift + T (Mac) will reopen it.
• Paste Without Formatting with Ctrl+Shift+V: Need to paste text without bringing over unwanted formatting? Ctrl + Shift + V (Windows) or Command + Shift + V (Mac) will do just that.
• Undo with Command+Z or Ctrl+Z: Made a mistake? Quickly undo it with Command + Z (Mac) or Ctrl + Z (Windows).
• Redo with Command+Shift+Z or Ctrl+Shift+Z: Redo an action with Command + Shift + Z (Mac) or Ctrl + Shift + Z (Windows).

Teaching Students Keyboard Shortcuts

Teaching students these shortcuts can significantly boost their productivity and digital literacy. By mastering these tools, students can:

• Work More Efficiently: Complete assignments and projects faster.
• Enhance Learning: Spend less time on technical tasks and more time on critical thinking and learning.
• Develop Digital Skills: Build essential skills for future academic and professional success.

Conclusion

Integrating these keyboard shortcuts into your daily routine can significantly enhance your productivity and effectiveness, especially when using EduProtocols. By mastering these simple yet powerful tools, you can focus more on teaching and less on navigating through software. Happy shortcutting!