What’s the first thing that teachers dipping their toes into generative artificial intelligence should do?
Should they learn how to leverage AI to create the perfect lesson plan? Use the tool to generate questions for a quiz? Or should they first learn about the potential biases and misinformation that often creep into AI-generated content before they use in their daily work?
They should start with the basics, according to OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT and one of the world’s most prominent artificial intelligence research companies. Last month, the company launched an hour-long, self-paced online course for K-12 teachers about the definition, use, and harms of generative AI in the classroom. It was launched in collaboration with Common Sense Media, a national nonprofit that rates and reviews a wide range of digital content for its age appropriateness.
Since its launch on Nov. 20, about 10,000 educators have taken the course, and 98 percent of teachers “shared that the course offered new ideas or strategies that they could apply to their work,” said Robbie Torney, the senior director for AI programs at Common Sense Media, in an email.
For Eric Curts, an AI coach for school districts in northeast Ohio, the course is a “good introduction” for educators who haven’t yet experimented with ChatGPT or any other generative AI chatbot.
“It’s not just talking about how AI is beneficial. It also addresses things such as the need for data privacy,” he said. “It mentions multiple times to not put in personally identifiable information about students.”
The course also covers “prompting” AI to do the tasks you want it to, said Drew Olssen, the technology coordinator of the Agua Fria school district in Avondale, Ariz. The course comes with a “prompt library” with sample prompts that teachers can use—from drafting emails to creating a class quiz.
“It’s a nice, basic template for what you would do if you went onto ChatGPT for the first time,” he said.
Training teachers to use AI requires resources and time that a lot of school districts don’t have, Olssen said, so a course like this, along with other free introductory courses, can be a good starting point.
A nationally representative survey of more than 700 teachers, conducted by the EdWeek Research Center this fall, indicated that 58 percent had not received any professional development on generative AI. This was a 13 percent decrease from when the EdWeek Research Center had last surveyed teachers in the spring. There was only a 1 percent increase—from 5 to 6 percent—in teachers who said they receive continuous PD on generative AI.
“We’re in the early stages of AI adoption in K-12. Our first priority is to equip educators with foundational resources to use AI tools thoughtfully and model effective and responsible use in the classroom. This course—intentionally simple, short, and accessible—was designed to start building that foundation. We’re excited that educators want more in depth resources on these topics,” said a spokesperson for OpenAI.
A crash course in generative AI needs more details, experts say
Not everyone is onboard with the number of new topics introduced in the OpenAI hour-long course (which took this reporter about 30 minutes to complete), and the pace at which they’re covered.
“To cram that much in, [a teacher] is guaranteed to rush through it,” said Eryk Salvaggio, a researcher with the meta(LAB) at Harvard University, who’s worked on AI-based pedagogy.
Salvaggio said that while the course gives teachers tips on using AI to save time and be more productive, it still emphasizes that teachers need to keep “iterating” on the results from a prompted query.
“Does the AI then really save teachers more time, than if they did the task themselves?” said Salvaggio.
The OpenAI course is divided into three sections—an explanation of AI, practical advice on how teachers can use AI to prepare lessons or teach, and a lesson on the risks involved with using ChatGPT in the classroom. Each module has associated video and quiz sections for teachers to test their knowledge as they go through the course.
The main training mechanism is to create strong prompts for ChatGPT so that teachers get the results they’re looking for. Through different examples, the course details what constitutes the “best” prompt compared to an “OK” or less detailed prompt.
The examples, however, don’t cover several common classroom tasks, said Curts, such as leveling a text, making accommodations for students with disabilities, or coming up with class activities.
In Curts’ own training sessions, which are three hours long, he dedicates one hour to tackling the risks of using generative AI, which include plagiarism, “deepfakes,” and data privacy concerns. OpenAI’s section on harms is much shorter, without discussion of plagiarism and deepfakes.
“To [cover risks] properly, it warrants way more time than you can possibly do in an introductory course like this, but at least it gets these topics on the radar for the teachers, which I think is important,” said Curts.
The course doesn’t explain in-depth how AI works, which other AI experts identified as a missed opportunity.
“They spend one sentence on it [at the beginning]. They don’t tie in [how AI works] to its limitations,” said Pat Yongpradit, the chief academic officer of Code.org and a leader of TeachAI, an initiative that supports schools in using and teaching about technology.
For instance, he said, the reason that a tool like ChatGPT is biased is because it reflects the biases of the world around us.
There’s an underlying assumption that it’s too technical for an average consumer—like a teacher—to understand how generative AI works. But teachers should have at least a “medium” level of knowledge to understand why AI works the way it does, he said.
Also, “it’s important to get people to make good decisions about using AI,” Yongpradit added. The course could have added examples of specific bias, or even examples where it’s not appropriate to use AI because of its biases, he said.
Torney, from Common Sense, said the course is a way for “busy teachers to gain essential skills in a short time.”
Complex and technical details about how ChatGPT works were broken down into manageable pieces for teachers to tackle at their own pace, he said. “We anticipate more training will be needed,” Torney added.
Districts can leverage this course, but they have to chart a path ahead
Yongpradit hopes OpenAI’s introductory course will whet teachers’ appetites to learn more about AI.
“The worst thing would be if teachers thought this course was all the PD they needed,” he said. “I don’t think the creators think this is enough, either. This is a small slice of a bigger opportunity.”
Yongpradit suggests continuous PD through professional learning communities, where teachers can share their experiences of using AI in their classrooms and learn from each other.
The Agua Fria school district has put a version of this training into effect since 2022, a little after ChatGPT was first launched, said Olssen, the district’s technology coordinator. Olssen put together a group of teachers, librarians, literacy coaches, and administrators who meet every month to discuss how to use AI in classrooms.
“It’s a train-the-trainers type of model,” Olssen said, “where these ambassadors then lead training sessions with other educators every quarter.”
Last month, the group discussed how to move beyond using AI to do simple tasks like generating worksheets, and instead focused on how AI could be used to create “deeper” learning experiences for students, through projects or research papers.
When it comes to tackling generative AI’s inherent biases and the potential of misinformation, Olssen said the district trains teachers and students, at the beginning of the school year, on how to evaluate AI’s output. The district’s training is “very explicit about checking the clarity, accuracy, relevance, and ethics of what an AI platform spits out,” he said.
The OpenAI course presents a surface-level understanding of these risks, Olssen said, but beyond any introductory course, it is incumbent on school districts to make teachers fully aware about the harms of “over-trusting” any technology.
“Educators are also hungry for more content—a substantial theme in feedback has been wanting a longer course,” Torney said.
Want to read more about how teachers can use—and learn about—AI? Stay tuned for a new Education Week special report, publishing Monday.
