Getting students excited about the work you’ll be grading can be one of the most frustrating parts of teaching. But when an assignment hits the right note, it can inspire and influence not just the class, but the whole school and beyond.
Aligning curriculum and assignments with standards and learning objectives that are sometimes outside of the teacher’s control can really sap the creative side of your brain.
Here’s how artificial intelligence can broaden your horizons as you try to create assignments that make a lasting impression and inspire enthusiasm for learning in your class. (For more AI tips for the back-to-school season, check out CNET’s guides on using AI to track important deadlines and using Microsoft Copilot to take notes on virtually any subject.)
Because it takes a lot of polish to create an assignment that students enjoy and teachers enjoy reviewing and grading, I used ChatGPT, an AI chatbot that uses machine learning and large language models to generate conversational-style responses to search queries, so I could switch back and forth while brainstorming.
Preserving the mental health of teachers and students
My field of study is media and communications, so for this example, I’m putting together an assignment around media literacy—the ability to think critically about and engage with everything from TikTok content to front-page news.
The goal is to create an activity that is fun, collaborative, and impactful for students who interact a lot with digital media but may not question what they consume.
The secondary goal was to create an assignment that I won’t hate myself for when grading.
On my first attempt, ChatGPT gave me a fully fleshed-out assignment according to the specific media literacy learning objectives for college students, but it was about as fun as you can imagine writing a 500-word media literacy essay being—namely, no fun at all.
Refine for fun, collaboration and focus
Because part of this assignment is about getting students to actually interact with online media in ways that are more impactful than just loitering in the digital shadows or “liking” it, I refined the prompt to involve the student body in the task in some way and asked for less emphasis on written analysis, which will ultimately only be seen and graded by the teacher.
Here is the result:
I was really impressed – ChatGPT not only had students interact with and analyze media, but also created a multi-faceted assignment that allowed students to see firsthand the impact that media literacy can have on a community as well as an individual.
Plus, this assignment would be a lot more fun to grade than 30 to 50 500-word analytical essays on whether the source of a Brat Summer post on TikTok is trustworthy.
Finally, ChatGPT provided submission requirements (such as links to the social media content used to complete the task and screenshots of online interactions) and evaluation criteria for the task and even some examples of how the task could be completed.
In particular, the example of analyzing the role of political memes came at the right time and gave the impression of a fresh look at the evolving reality of election campaign media.
Personally, I would love to see videos of students engaging with their peers to discuss their perceptions of the content of Kamala Headquarters and former President Donald Trump’s presence on social media.
And who knows, maybe the students will have fun too.
