CAS AI Community

Join me on Monday where I’ll be joined by 2 teachers discussing AI for assessment AI to enhance assessment and integrity

Here’s a forum post you might have missed: Hi I have been working on building a framework for teacher professional development on AI. This started as I intend to be running some CPD opportunities for staff in the coming months and as a starting point for designing how this would work I need to identify the objectives. This framework is more extensive than I plan to be able to cover as a first step but it gives me a framework to work within. I’ve put together a first draft and I’m sharing it both in the hopes others may find it helpful and also because I’d like some critical feedback on anything I might have missed out or got wrong. I’m going to continue the drafting process as I’m still not really satisfied with it and some the wording feels a bit clumsy. Any feedback that helps me refine this is very much appreciated.

https://astbury.com/files/AI-teachers-framework.pdf

If you missed the interview with PXP’s Head of AI, here it is: Interview with Andrew Lea, Head of AI at PXP

Here’s a blog post to summarise the session yesterday on using AI as a teacher: Using AI as a teacher

Tomorrow 12th March 5pm a great free seminar on teaching programming with AI. Listen, ask questions and discuss.

The digital divide could easily get wider when we introduce AI in our classes!

Probably my favorite academic presenter on AI is sharing about his research on student responses to using AI when learning to program.

Gosh!!

Huge difference is how students respond - learned helplessness risks for some - to very sensible and mature use.

How are you using AI? Compare your progress to other Schools and Colleges across the UK by taking this short survey from AI In Education (ai-in-education.co.uk).
Professor Rose Luckin invites you to participate in a national benchmarking exercise to evaluate AI use in education. By completing a 10-minute self-evaluation, you’ll contribute to a report on AI literacy in UK education and receive a personalised report card and the final anonymised benchmarking publication.
Despite understanding AI’s general concepts and potential threats, many educators are unsure about safeguarding against these threats and using the technology in the classroom. There’s currently no audit of AI application in education, leading to inconsistent use.
Your feedback will help shape the public conversation around AI, ethics, regulation, and its safe use in teaching and learning. To read her letter in full, please visit the AI in Education website: How are you using AI? Compare your progress to other Schools and Colleges across the UK. | AI In Education (ai-in-education.co.uk).
Professor Luckin intends to publish this report in June of this year so please complete your self-evaluation by clicking on the link below now. EDUCATE Ventures Research partners with a number of high-profile organisations within education and government and believes piloting this initiative will help shape the public conversation around AI and safeguarding into practical action concerned with ethics, regulation, and the responsible, safe use of emerging technology for teaching and learning.

If you need to create an AI policy for your school/college (everyone should have one), here is a template to get you started. Use of AI Policy Template for schools & colleges

Thanks Isabella, threading within Discussions is something we’re exploring but not available yet I’m afraid. Will keep you posted!

Looks great Ben, I have been making one but it’s just an extremely long list at the moment and needs organising! I’ll have a proper look next week when i’m in school.
Sophie, is adding replies directly to comments on the list please as that would be useful, rather than just a stream of comments? Thanks!

I’m trying to create a crowd sourced LLM prompt guide for teachers. I’d love for any members to read over this an make suggestions for new prompts that you have found helpful and would share with others. The doc gives everyone comment access, so if you have any suggestions for new prompts or how to make the current prompts better, please comment away…I’d be forever grateful.

Also, this is a community resource, which means it’s also yours. Please feel free to make a copy or share the link with anyone in your community you think would find it useful

Here is a guide from Microsoft about creating a good prompt https://meedownloads.blob.core.windows.net/learning-experience/Prompt%20Lab/Prompt%20Lab%20Module%201%20v1.3%20260124.pdf
It’s based around using copilot and Minecraft but some of the information can be used generally for prompting AI

Hi Brian, at the moment I’m afraid notifications are only set to be on or off, the ability to change the frequency of these (and add screenshots!) is something we have on our list for the future. Please let us knoe if you have any further improvements we could make.
Thanks,
Sophie

I only see options to turn comments off not manage the frequency. I would post a screenshot but it doesn’t look like I can do that.

Hi Brian,

On the email there is a link to update preferences. You can turn it off on there.

I get an email every time someone comments in the community. Is there a way to set that to be only once a day or once a week?

Hi all, there is an online seminar tomorrow on the use of LLMs in the teaching of K-12 programming. 13/2/2024 5pm!

It’s., of course, free and I am very interested to hear what teachers think of the research that is being presented.

Can you imagine using an LLM in your classroom when teaching programming???

What issues might you expect???

Are your students using LLMs to help them with programming homework?

Matthew Rice, use the link meet.google.com/noe-uead-nbt

I tried to enter the meeting but couldn’t. Sorry.

Hi everyone. If you’re looking to join the AI Thematic Community. Please join via this Google Meet: meet.google.com/noe-uead-nbt

This looks like a great way of getting students engaged with AI careers:

This course looks really interesting. It’s from raspberry pi and it’s free

For those who missed last night’s meeting, you can access the resources discussed here Experience AI and see the slides used here CAS AI thematic community - Google Slides and the recording here https://youtu.be/ud_6HoUTz7ghttps://youtu.be/ud_6HoUTz7g

This looks like a useful website:https://teachingwithchatgpt.org.uk

Government funding on conversation courses for postgraduate study in AI and Data Science.

Government funding programme to study a master’s in AI and Data Science.

Scholarships worth up to £10,000 depending on whether candidates meet a selected criteria.

For more information - please see the following links below:

I hope this helps any educator considering studying for a masters between April 2023 and March 2025.

Regards,

Joe

That’s really interesting Adam and sounds like a really good use of Chat-GPT. If the outcome is accuracy and reducing your workload around marking then that’s a big win! I’m curious whether or not you have tried putting in the same answer two or three times and see if the model returns consistent marking and feedback? I think the way you have used it to support you as a the expert is really cool. I’ve got slightly unfounded worries about students doing the same for their own work and the potential damage it could do if they got inaccurate feedback. My other unfounded worry which I’d love someone to research, is whether or not there could be any bias in the feedback. For example, let’s say there is hidden bias in that certain writing styles associated with a gender broadly result in lower marks, could that bias be replicated by an LLM?

That was going off on a tangent somewhat, sorry! But thanks Adam for sharing…super interesting.

I’m sure that many are doing this but I recently uploaded a 6 mark business studies question (GCSE), the mark scheme (both as images) to ChatGPT and then 24 responses from my class. I am new to teaching the subject (CS is my specialism) so was interested to see how I compared with what it output. I prompted ChatGPT to provide feedback and also award a mark out of 6 (levelled response) for all students. I let it do its thing… the feedback looked super, spot on in fact. I checked all responses and made 1 change from 3 to 4 marks. I then asked the subject leader for BS, who is also a TL for the paper the question was on, to check all the responses, my marks and feedback as it was my first time through and wanted his opinion, it took him a while. I did not tell him what I’d done. His response was that I was setting a bit of a precedent with the feedback given it was a quick question at the end of a 15 mark MCQ test. He said he agreed with my marks in all but one case. Happened to be the one I changed. He said it was definitely 3 not 4.

Whilst there are lots of tools around, this does seem like a really effective way to start to use AI for the benefit of students and also teachers as time saving. I saved an hour here easily and the quality of output was A1.

A useful looking webinar: Authentic Assessment with AI: Webinar Recording + Resources — AI for Education

Interesting collection of resources and panels around AI in Education https://www.ai-in-education.co.uk/

Keep an eye on Epsom College, 2nd conference in a year happening today (20/11 - £25 for stream attendance) AI in Education: Cut Through The Noise | Epsom College

Sorry here is the link Neural Networks in Education: Revolution, Pandora's Box or Roadblock?

This online conference looks interesting. I’ve signed up to attend Neural Networks in Education: Revolution, Pandora's Box or Roadblock?

Hi Everyone, I am new to this group and currently work at a College Teacher in Cambridge. I have been looking into ways how to use AI in Education and attended one or two previous CAS events in Cambridge that focused on AI. I have read Dean Fitzpatrick’s Book “AI in the Classroom” and found it very helpful. I am hoping to do more CPD training for my colleagues and gave a previous talk back at the start of the academic year. I would be very interested to hear about how other members have used AI in the classroom or if you have given any AI training yourselves. I think that is a very exciting time to learn about this technology and its implications. I look forward to hearing your thoughts. Thank you for reading!

Hi everyone!

ISTIP, the appropriate body under which I’m doing my ECF had a webinar with Dean Fitzpatrick, who seems to have been early out of the gate with his “AI classroom” book (The AI Classroom: The Ultimate Guide to Artificial Intelligence in Education - Google Search)

He didn’t get enough time to do his full slide deck, essentially demoing the book, but what he’s shown is impressive and immediately applicable.

Zoom replay here:

Take care,
Will

I do agree Alan and it was something I wondered about.

You effectively have to learn how to correctly ‘talk’ to your AI for it to produce something that will be helpful to you. It feels like a parallel to when we first started using search engines to find websites. Carefully considered search terms yielded better results than someone who tried an Ask Jeeves approach to finding what they wanted. As search engines have matured, they are able to better guess what we need but there is still a skill in honing what you want to search for and to use tricks to steer it to what you want.

For me I think it is important to not lose sight of what is important to learn before we try and get AI to help. I can find and filter searches more effectively because I know what to look for based on a knowledge of the subject I am investigating. I am wary of arguments that say we don’t need to learn how to program because AI can do it for us. Yes it can (to some degree), but we firstly need the base knowledge and experiences that learning to program taught us. Then we need these experiences to help us tailor what we ask the AI to produce.

Therefore I suggest there are two parts to this divide. Understanding how to talk to AI, but also having sufficient knowledge about the subject to make it more of an enlightened conversation.

Just watched this short video from Craig Barton’s podcast, where he interviews Peps McCrea (two heroes in one video, wow!) What's happening in AI right now, and what does it mean for education? - Tips for teachers
Peps suggests that LLMs like ChatGPT are as powerful as the prompts make them. This suggests that there will be a new digital divide, between those that can instruct AIs effectively, and those that cannot.

This makes me think back to programming pedagogy, but instead of programmers we now have the rise of “prompt engineers”. Are we seeing the emergence of a paradigm requiring a new notional machine here?

Just like the “program is a sequence of steps” works for the imperative programming paradigm, and a if the programmer has in mind a matching “notional machine” they become better programmers (see Du Boulay e.g. here Ben du Boulay – Notional Machines Research – Felienne's blog) - but the same notional machine would not help a programmer write functional programs, e.g. in Haskell, or OOP programs in any object-oriented language. For each of these they would need a new notional machine.

Is proficiency in prompt engineering contingent on developing a notional machine that predicts what the AI is going to do with our prompt?

This started as a shower thought, and I felt this community would be the best in which to develop it! Ideas welcome

Excellent presentation Miles. Looking forward to hearing you in person in December!
I’ve written a couple of blog posts recently on GAI, just trying to shift the thinking from GAI “cheating” being a problem for educators, onto thinking about the purpose of assessment and the positives of GAI.
(ChatGPT will change everything. No, not like that)[ChatGPT will change everything. No, not like that. – How to Teach Computer Science]
and
(Stop calling it cheating)[Stop calling it cheating. – How to Teach Computer Science]

The Government have posted an update about AI:
To harness the potential of generative AI, students will benefit from a knowledge-rich curriculum which allows them to become well-informed users of technology and understand its impact on society. Strong foundational knowledge ensures students are developing the right skills to make best use of generative AI.

The education sector needs to:

prepare students for changing workplaces
teach students how to use emerging technologies, such as generative AI, safely and appropriately
At different stages of education, this teaching may include:

the limitations, reliability, and potential bias of generative AI
how information on the internet is organised and ranked
online safety to protect against harmful or misleading content
understanding and protecting IP rights
creating and using digital content safely and responsibly
the impact of technology, including disruptive and enabling technologies
foundational knowledge about how computers work, connect with each other, follow rules and process data
The Office for AI is currently conducting research into the skills that will be needed for future workforce training.

The education system should:

support students, particularly young pupils, to identify and use appropriate resources to support their ongoing education
encourage effective use of age-appropriate resources (which, in some instances, may include generative AI)
prevent over-reliance on a limited number of tools or resources
DfE will continue to work with experts to:

consider and respond to the implications of generative AI and other emerging technologies
support primary and secondary schools to teach a knowledge-rich computing curriculum to children up to the age of 16
See more here: Generative artificial intelligence (AI) in education - GOV.UK

This event looks really useful: Webinar: Preparing children for artificial intelligence and BCS e-Learning AGM | BCS

Some useful resources from OCR here: Artificial Intelligence (AI) support - OCR

There are so many great educators I follow who share so many brilliant resources, especially around AI.

I wanted to share a list I made of some of my favourite AI tools and Chat GPT prompts for Education.

Hope you find it useful: ESIR AI tools and Prompts.pdf - Google Drive

I’ve also created a Video Course on Embracing AI in Education which I produced for Carousel Education.
It can be purchased here: https://carouseleducation.org/computing

Thanks,
James

I spent Monday in Ipswich at a Festival of Learning, supported by the NCCE Suffolk hub. It was an outstandingly good day, and a great privilege to give the opening keynote, on AI in secondary schools. My slides are online at The truth about AI - Google Slides if any here are interested.