[audio logo] OTAN. Outreach and Technical Assistance Network.

Marjorie Olavides: Hello everyone. My name is Marjorie Olavides. I'm a project specialist for the Outreach and Technical Assistance Network or OTAN, and I'd like to welcome you all to this month's OTAN Tech Talk. Our speaker today is Susan Coulter. She's an OTAN Subject Matter Expert. Her topic today is Streamline Planning with AI: Craft Custom Lessons. And let's get started. Go for it, Susan.

Susan Coulter: OK. Thank you, Marjorie. Well, welcome to today's OTAN Tech Talk. It's titled Streamlining Planning with AI: Craft Custom Lesson Plans. My name is Susan Coulter, and I am one of OTAN's Subject Matter Experts. More affectionately known as OTAN SMEs. I am excited to share what I've learned about lesson planning with AI.

Today's agenda includes a quick overview of AI, and then we'll talk about a couple of different prompt frameworks. More specifically, we'll talk about prompts you'll need to consider as you plan your lesson. Finally, we will talk about some free generative AI platforms. But due to time, we will focus only on ChatGPT.

Every district has their own format for writing lesson plans, and I remember it being a manual and very time-intensive process. Typically, this involves crafting lesson objectives, carefully choosing, arranging and presenting different activities to address a particular learning goal. The conventional approach, while tried and true, can be laborious and may not always adapt seamlessly to the diverse learning styles within a classroom.

What is AI? AI or artificial intelligence is a wizardry that allows machines to learn, adapt, and perform tasks without explicit programming. In education AI is like a tech savvy tutor, bringing innovative solutions to your classroom. It analyzes data to personalize the learning experience, making lessons as unique as each student.

AI helps educators create a dynamic and tailored educational journey. It's not just about fancy tech. It's about making learning more engaging, efficient, and personalized for everyone in the classroom. The California Adult Education Digital Learning Guidance was developed by OTAN on behalf of the California Department of Education and serves as a practical resource for adult educators.

Chapter 4 titled, Designing Flexible Learning Experiences, introduces different strategies for designing flexible digital learning experiences. With AI you are the designer or prompt engineer. AI can create interesting and effective lesson plans and personalize the learning experience for individual students given clear and precise prompts.

There are many different prompt frameworks. In the open prompt book from camp ChatGPT they use the RACEF prompt framework. Which is ROLE, ACTION, CONTEXT, EXAMPLE, FORMAT. There's another AI prompting framework known as RICCE, outlined by Dara Walsh in his YouTube videos.

This framework breaks down into ROLE, INSTRUCTIONS, CONTEXT, CONSTRAINTS, and EXAMPLES. While both prompt frameworks, RACEF and RICCE, serve as general structures for guiding AI responses, our attention today will be on the specific requirements for lesson planning and the prompts necessary for generating comprehensive lesson plans.

The following lesson plan prompts have been adapted from Casey Bell's K-12 template and other known prompt frameworks. There are 10 prompts we will be addressing today. Some prompts may not apply to your classroom. However, the more AI knows about your specific classroom, the better it will be able to give you the results you want.

I want you to think about your class and the lesson plan you would like to create. Open a blank document and follow along as we discuss each prompt. Remember, you only need to answer the prompts that apply to your class. We need to begin by defining the author's identity and role for AI.

Assigning a role provides a distinct personality or persona, creating a foundation before outlining the specific task or action we want AI to do. The basic question is, who is AI writing this for? You always need to define the role before stating the task.

A sample prompt is, you are a curriculum expert as well as an experienced adult education teacher. Next, we want to specify the task. What do you want AI to do? The sample. Create a student-centered lesson plan for Adult Basic Education students on fractions.

Context in AI prompt refers to any extra details or information that AI requires to enhance its understanding of the task you want it to perform. What more does AI need to know about your class or agency? The sample prompt. Our school is preparing for a WASC visitation and this lesson needs to be engaging and focused on the learning goal.

You-- also you might include a majority of students in this class are English language learners. Next, what kind of lesson is this? Is it an introductory lesson where you are introducing the topic for the first time, or a review lesson where you want to review what your students have learned in a previous lesson, or perhaps you just want to give your students time to practice this skill?

Sample. This is an introductory lesson. Time. How much time have you set aside for this lesson? You may want to spend an hour a day for an entire week. Be specific. The sample. This lesson should take approximately 60 minutes to complete. What is a specific learning goal you want this lesson to cover?

It doesn't have to be a state standard. What do you want your students to learn? This is the fun part of the lesson plan. What kind of activities do you want to include such as collaborative activity, independent work time, pair share, hands-on, class discussion, interactive technology use, role playing, debates, peer teaching, or perhaps a problem solving activity?

The sample. Include a collaborative activity and interactive technology use. Use math games to reinforce fractions skills. Next, we want to specify any tech tools you have in the classroom. Do you have a smart board, a document camera, desktop computers, Chromebooks, tablets, or smart TV?

There are six desktop computers in the classroom. Do your students need any special accommodations? The sample. Include accommodations for hearing impaired students. The format is one of the most important elements.

Do you want a detailed outline, a table, or a timeline of each step, or perhaps a lesson plan in a particular format such as WIPPEA? What does your agency require? If you want a table, be sure to indicate titles for rows and columns.

The QR code is a link to information on all the prompts. I've also included a short link below the QR code. While crafting your lesson plan, it's not required to incorporate all the provided prompts. Nevertheless, by providing as much detail as possible to your AI platform, it will likely yield better outcomes.

If a particular section doesn't meet your preferences, feel free to instruct AI to rewrite it. You also have the flexibility to request a complete rewrite of the entire lesson plan. Your level of input and customization will play a crucial role in redefining the results to meet your specific needs.

This is our sample prompt that addresses all the prompt categories. It is a lot, and the thought of always having to enter this long prompt into AI is a little overwhelming. Think about what changes between each lesson plan you write. The things that remain constant can be entered into ChatGPT and then turned on and off as needed. I will show you how in a little bit.

There are numerous AI platforms available. All of these, ChatGPT, Google Bard, Claude, Twee, and Diffit for teachers have a free version. Each one is a little different and worth trying out. Due to time constraints today we are only going to talk about ChatGPT. I have put the link at the top of the slide.

If you are on your phone you will only see the right side of the screen. If you have an account go ahead and log in. If not, select Sign up. Getting a ChatGPT account is quick and easy. If you put in your email address you will have to go to your email and verify.

The easiest way is to use your Google, Microsoft, or Apple account. Please go ahead and sign into your ChatGPT account. This is ChatGPT home screen. Please note that this is ChatGPT 3.5 and this is the free version. ChatGPT 4.0 is a paid version and currently costs $20 a month.

To start a chat we need to paste our prompt in the message ChatGPT field at the bottom of the screen. Now, let's go to ChatGPT. I entered our sample prompt at the bottom where it says message ChatGPT. Let's look at the results. The lesson is 60 minutes.

I have the objective. There is a warm up using the interactive smart board. The introduction is an engaging fraction story, although it doesn't give any details. There is another interactive smart board activity as part of the presentation.

There are two practice activities. One is using the classroom computers, and the other is a collaborative activity. The evaluation is a class discussion and reflection, and the application is a real life scenario where fractions are used. There are accommodations for my hearing-impaired students.

And it tells me how technology was integrated into the lesson. And gives me a closure. Nice. If I don't like the lesson plan I could ask ChatGPT to rewrite it. Each time you will get a different version.

If you do, be sure to tell ChatGPT why you don't like it. But, I wanted more information, So I asked what is an engaging fraction story that I could use, and I got the pizza party dilemma. I then went on.

Let's take a look at this first. I then asked ChatGPT, present a real life scenario where fractions are used. And I got baking a batch of cookies. I want you to know that you can ask ChatGPT to rewrite a section and you will get different results.

Chats are stored on the left navigation panel. By selecting the three dots, I can share this chat, rename it, or delete it. If you are going to create several lesson plans in ChatGPT, you will want to rename them so you can easily find them. In the upper right hand corner is another way to share your chat.

A shared chat in ChatGPT 3.5 will list you as anonymous. And let's see. Right up here. If you want to start a new chat, you need to select New Chat up here.

If you want to start a new chat, you need to select New Chat in the upper left hand corner. Now, I want to show you how you can save custom instructions. Select your name at the bottom of the screen and then custom instructions.

In the top box write all the prompts that do not change for your class, and any information on how you want ChatGPT to respond. And you can turn on and off your custom instructions at the bottom of the screen. Don't forget to select Save. In the bottom box, I have written provide reliable sources.

Cite credible sources for factual information and include URL links for further reading and verification. I saw this on Dara Walsh's YouTube channel and thought this was important. This does not apply to lesson planning since lesson planning is more subjective than factual. Please keep in mind that ChatGPT has not been updated since January 2022.

So you cannot ask about current events. AI is also known to hallucinate every once in a while, so be sure to check your lesson plan carefully. I hope this will get you started writing amazing and engaging lesson plans.

I want to thank you for joining this OTAN Tech Talk. I have included a QR code and a link to my slide deck. Thanks again.

Marjorie Olavides: Thank you Susan for all of that. That was wonderful. OTAN would also like to thank all of you for coming to this Tech Talk. If you have an Edtech Tool or some tips that you'd like to share with the adult education field, email your idea to support@otan.us. We also encourage you to subscribe to the OTAN YouTube channel where you can view archive tech talks as well as view other videos.

You can contact OTAN for additional services, including professional development at your site. Just visit the site at www.otan.us or contact us by phone or email. And thank you again for watching today's OTAN Tech Talk.