The Brighter Side of Education: Research, Innovation & Resources
Hosted by Dr. Lisa Hassler, an educator and parent, The Brighter Side of Education: Research, Innovation, & Resources is a research-informed podcast offering action-based solutions for teachers and parents. Committed to spotlight innovative individuals who bring about positive change in education, its primary mission is to connect educators and parents to resources that pave the way to a brighter future for our children. The podcast's music was created by Brandon Picciolini, her son, from The Lonesome Family Band. You can explore more of his work on Instagram.
The Brighter Side of Education: Research, Innovation & Resources
ChatGPT: A Guide for Teachers with AI Consultant Jessica Lyons
Discover how AI can transform your classroom with insights from EdTech AI consultant Jessica Lyons. Learn how ChatGPT can simplify lesson planning and administrative tasks, drastically cutting down the time educators spend on preparation. Jessica shares her compelling journey from teacher to AI advocate, revealing how ChatGPT’s conversational prowess and advanced features can boost teacher efficiency and student engagement. We also touch on the tool's limitations, including its training cut-off in 2022, and discuss the exciting advancements in its latest version ChatGPT 4o.
Explore practical applications of ChatGPT in curriculum design, from creating personalized learning plans to crafting engaging activities like digital escape rooms. Jessica explains how these technologies can streamline tasks such as data aggregation and inventory management, creating a more organized and efficient classroom environment. Don't miss your chance to learn how ChatGPT can enhance teaching practices and inspire student success.
For more resources and information on Jessica Lyons's courses and certifications, visit www.careerlearning.com/collections/jessica-lyons or contact Jessica directly at jjlyons2011@live.com.
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The music in this podcast was written and performed by Brandon Picciolini of the Lonesome Family Band. Visit and follow him on Instagram.
My publications:
America's Embarrassing Reading Crisis: What we learned from COVID, A guide to help educational leaders, teachers, and parents change the game, is available on Amazon, Kindle, and Audible, and iTunes.
My Weekly Writing Journal: 15 Weeks of Writing for Primary Grades on Amazon.
World of Words: A Middle School Writing Notebook Using...
Welcome to the Brighter Side of Education. I'm your host, Dr. Lisa Hassler, here to enlighten and brighten the classrooms in America through focused conversation on important topics in education. In each episode, I discuss problems we as teachers and parents are facing and what people are doing in their communities to fix it. What are the variables and how can we duplicate it to maximize student outcomes? In this episode, I discuss using ChatGPT for lesson planning and administrative tasks to streamline processes for educators and elevate student engagement.
Dr. Lisa Hassler:Multiple studies confirm what educators already know there's not enough lesson prep time with the other obligations on a teacher's plate. A 2022 Merrimack College teacher survey found that the average teacher spends five hours a week devoted to planning lessons and instruction out of their 54-hour week. Now this was supported by the Grattan Institute, which surveyed over 2,000 teachers and leaders, finding most teachers spend six hours per week simply sourcing and creating materials for lessons, with 25% of teachers spending 10 hours or more. So what can teachers do? Implementing AI tools built specifically for this challenge could offer a lifeline by rapidly generating high-quality lesson materials and plans.
Dr. Lisa Hassler:Joining me today to discuss how educators can use ChatGPT for lesson plan development and administrative tasks is EdTech AI consultant, essica Lyons. Jessica teaches high school English and has her master's degrees in English and curriculum design, as well as her administrator's license. Her mission is to bridge the gap between traditional teaching and AI technologies by empowering teachers of all levels and backgrounds with the knowledge and tools they need to make AI accessible and practical. Welcome to the show, jessica Hi, so tell us a little about yourself and your experience with AI in education.
Jessica Lyons:Sure, I'm just finishing up my 20th year of teaching and a couple years ago I started freelance writing. And then, in 2022, when OpenAI released ChatGPT, I was like, wow, this is kind of interesting. And so I wrote an article about it. I mean a very basic, like here's what it is. And then I was like, oh, there's some things I could do with this, because it was so new and I hadn't really seen anything about it. So I started playing around with it and I got contacted by a couple of places like Career Learning and they wanted to do some webinars. And I thought, ok, and then I just started playing and playing and playing with it and just started a torrid love affair with chat. And there's just no been going back from then. So it's been, you know, only a couple of years, but man learned a lot.
Dr. Lisa Hassler:Yeah, I, when I first went on and I thought it was the coolest thing ever. I was like writing up my first business plans and I'm like I don't really know where to begin and I just threw some things in and it's like write me a business plan.
Jessica Lyons:And you're like, oh, that's cool.
Dr. Lisa Hassler:So then you could kind of tweak it after that, but that was when I fell in love with ChatGPT myself. So it's pretty amazing stuff it is. It really really is. So can you explain what ChatGPT is and then how people interact with it?
Jessica Lyons:Sure. So ChatGPT is a powerful language model. That's what the people at OpenAI want to call it. Model, that's what the people at OpenAI want to call it. That stands for chat generative, pre-trained transformer and it is a if you use the free version, which I do, because yeah, I'm a teacher and I like the free.
Jessica Lyons:So it's been programmed to chat with you. So it's like having a conversation and you can chat back and forth with the transformer. It's trained up to 2022. Although with the new version that's slowly rolling out, 2022, although with the new version that's slowly rolling out, it's a little bit more advanced. But the free version doesn't search the internet, but there's not much on there that you could ask about. That it would know. And with the newer version it's starting to incorporate a little bit more visuals into it. But it's a chatbot and you can just have conversations with it and let it help you kind of think through things.
Dr. Lisa Hassler:Yeah, I was going to ask if you have that free version that ChatGPT 4o, they call it, which I think is a little confusing because there's 4.0 and then there was 4o and that one just came out. But I was playing with a little bit and it's awesome. Have you played with it?
Jessica Lyons:As soon as I get like excited about what I'm doing, it's like I'm sorry you've reached your limit with it. But yeah, it is very exciting, Like I was able to upload a video I think it was a basketball video and I just said explain the rules to me. And then chat was able to go through it like that, but no, it looks great. I'm really excited for it to completely roll out.
Dr. Lisa Hassler:Yes, because there's natural language you get to pick out the voice and then it talks to you, just like we're talking right now, and then you can interrupt her, which is nice, and it can read your emotions, it can see your face and then register the emotions and then have a response based i what emotions. It All right. So what kind of limitations does cha GPT have and what kind of risks?
Jessica Lyons:Well, limitations and again I'm just going to talk about 3.5, just because I can't speak to everything with 4.0 or 4o, I guess, but the limitations with, like I said with 3.5 is it is only trained up to 2022.
Dr. Lisa Hassler:Yeah.
Jessica Lyons:So if you wanted to ask about the Barbie movie or something, you're not going to get anything on that.
Dr. Lisa Hassler:Right.
Jessica Lyons:Which to me, that's really the only limitation now, because it's a pre-trained model. It makes mistakes, so you want to check for accuracy, especially if you're like relying on that information, like if you're doing research, you should always double check your citations and things like that.
Dr. Lisa Hassler:What about personal data? Just be careful about what kind of personal data you're putting in there.
Jessica Lyons:You know I tell teachers, just like anything we use it's going on the cloud and who knows who can see the cloud. So when you know my kids use it, I say let's not put our address or our phone number, or you know
Dr. Lisa Hassler:Blood type, Social security number, mother's maiden name.
Jessica Lyons:Right, I will be home at nine thirty.
Dr. Lisa Hassler:Yeah, exactly so just be aware of personal data. You know what do you want to be seen and shared, and if you don't want it to be shared or to be seen by others, then don't put it on there, exactly. So how can you use ChatGPT to create lesson plans?
Jessica Lyons:I use chat all the time and every day. I think, man, where was this 20 years ago when I was in pre-service training and you had to write those five page lesson plans?
Dr. Lisa Hassler:Yes.
Jessica Lyons:Chat will do that. You know. Thankfully, once you get out of school, you don't normally have to do that. But if you do, and he wants to do what and I say he because it's a transformer, so it's Bumblebee, that's straight out of being an 80's kid, but he wants to do whatever you ask him to do. He's not going to do any more and he's not going to do any less.
Jessica Lyons:So the more specific and detailed you are, the more specific and detailed your output would be. So you could say chat, write me a lesson plan about mitosis, and it will generate something. But if you say, write me a lesson plan about mitosis, here's the state standard, here's the assessment I'm going to use, here's the format, he's going to do that exactly for you. It's such an unbelievable lifesaver If you have to create those long lesson plans. It will be as formal as you want it to be. You want it to make the assessments, it'll make the assessment, and it'll naturally give you times. So like here's your bell ringer, five minutes, and you know it'll pace that out for you too.
Dr. Lisa Hassler:Right. Sometimes I've put things in and I didn't get what I wanted at all, and I think I'm being really clear. So what's the best way to frame questions so that, if that happens, you can get better responses?
Jessica Lyons:Well, my mantra the more specific and detailed you are with your input, the more specific and detailed your output will be. However, you've got to get comfortable with one. You got to be bossy, and that was something that took me a little bit to do, to be like this is what I want, Nothing else. This is what I want.
Dr. Lisa Hassler:Right.
Jessica Lyons:And then you just refine and you keep refining. Don't be broad, like put several questions in that you want.
Jessica Lyons:Like instead of just saying tell me about soccer, you can say tell me about soccer in and go through exactly what you want to know. And the more that you work with chat, the more comfortable you get with how you should phrase to get the responses you want. Yeah, and at the bottom where it says did you like this? It's a thumbs up or a thumbs down, and then you know you can click on it. And, my favorite, if you didn't like the response, you have all these choices for why you didn't like it and obviously, if it's not factually correct, please click that so it can start to train the new model. But I love where it says being lazy, Cause it, just it, just like yes, you are being lazy with that answer, sir.
Dr. Lisa Hassler:So you're being lazy, I'm calling you out.
Jessica Lyons:Exactly, you can. You can call him out on that.
Dr. Lisa Hassler:So if I have a conversation and it's not going the way that I want to go, do you ever just like open a new conversation? Is it different bot that I'm talking to at that point? Do you know anything about that?
Jessica Lyons:I don't know. I know that I have done that where I've just been like I'm not getting the response I want, so I open a new chat. But I don't know, that is so interesting yeah.
Dr. Lisa Hassler:And then sometimes I'll go do something and I'll come back to the conversation. Should I remind it what information to use again if I want to continue to move forward?
Jessica Lyons:Sometimes, not necessarily. I always tell people to open a new chat if you're changing topics, because he does get confused sometimes. So if you've been talking about science and then you start talking about food, he's going to think that it's science food.
Dr. Lisa Hassler:Right yeah.
Jessica Lyons:So I always tell people to open a new chat and then there'll be some times where I'll be in the chat and I will type in something like building off of the chat above or using the thoughts from above. Respond to this just to kind of sometimes. Just for me to keep it straight and clarified.
Dr. Lisa Hassler:Yes, because, like, if I'll go back to like an old chat and then I pull it up and maybe I'm like hey, you know what, I want to do something else with that base of information, I want you to make a rubric with it, let's just say and so at that point I kind of feel like do I need to remind it, because I haven't visited this in two weeks. You know, maybe I want to open that back up, or should I just start a whole new one?
Jessica Lyons:Well, for me it depends on how long I've gone in the conversation. I did not realize from the beginning that you could name the chats on the side.
Dr. Lisa Hassler:Oh, I didn't know that.
Jessica Lyons:Oh yeah, you can rename them oh that's wonderful, you the side.
Dr. Lisa Hassler:Oh, I didn't know that.
Jessica Lyons:Oh, yeah, you can rename them. And oh, that's wonderful, you can organize it. Yeah, I feel like I have hundreds of chats that just are the first words I've typed in.
Dr. Lisa Hassler:Yes, that's exactly it.
Jessica Lyons:And had I known I could like organize, it would have been so much easier. So when I go back to old chats, the first thing I say is summarize what our chat has been about. Oh chat, will you know, do me a summary of what we were talking about there, Because sometimes I can't even find what I was looking for.
Dr. Lisa Hassler:Wonderful, oh, that's a good idea. So then, how can it be used to enhance student engagement and then learning outcomes?
Jessica Lyons:It's just an unbelievable game changer. It really is. I cannot speak to the amount of time it saves me and the level of engagement in my classroom, and it's night and day. So one thing that I love to do with it is I like to take whatever we're working with, whether it's a reading passage, whether it's a multiple choice test, whatever and I'll put it into chat and I will ask it to rewrite it same context, same skills. Just write it for a grade level lower, for the Lexile level, and write it for a grade level lower for the Lexile level and write it for a grade level above, and so then I have a low, medium and high, and then, through whatever learning management system we're using, certain kids get certain versions of it, and that just in itself, when these kids were able to read the same thing that everybody else is reading, but it's more on an approachable level to them, I mean, classroom conversations became more because they knew what was going on, and so that was just amazing.
Jessica Lyons:I love making curriculum Like. I love designing activities and chat let's me do that because it takes a lot of the other stuff off your plate.
Dr. Lisa Hassler:Right.
Jessica Lyons:Just yesterday I wanted to make a digital escape room for the end of the school year, something easy, and I just went to chat and I said here's my idea, what are some different ways I can do this? And so it was just fabulous brainstorming session and I was able to really look at different ways to do something, just things I wouldn't even have thought of.
Dr. Lisa Hassler:Yeah.
Jessica Lyons:And the best is like, if you don't know even how to do it, I'll copy and paste, like there was something about an Excel sheet which just made my stomach turn because I just can't with those. But I made chat, I said, okay, now explain to me exactly how, step by step, to do this and I'll give you the other, step by step, with it. And so there's not much I can't make for my kids now that five, 10 years ago we just couldn't do. We just didn't have the time, the energy, the knowledge, we just couldn't do it. And now, for 130 kids, I would never say everybody has a personalized learning plan, but I will say I know I'm meeting kids on their level now more than I ever have. It's just turned the culture around in the classroom. It really has.
Dr. Lisa Hassler:Yeah, and I think also because you're thinking about someone that has low- to- no vision, include an accommodation for low- to- no vision at a first grade level to go with this plan. Or someone has dyslexia what kind of accommodation can I do in this lesson plan for that child? So those are wonderful things to brainstorm and help you choose different ideas for, and then you know your student to say this will work or this is definitely not going to work.
Jessica Lyons:The idea that now you can ask you know very specifically this lesson what can I do to help this child? It's just mind blowing.
Dr. Lisa Hassler:And then ChatGPT 4o has the Be My Eyes add on that you can put on there, which I saw a commercial for. And it was wild because this gentleman had the phone in front of his face and he was pointing in the direction that he wanted something described and he would just ask the chat in this natural language. You know, "can you describe what's happening? And it was like oh yeah, so there's ducks and they're in a pond and there's like three of them and they're going back and forth and at one point it was like I need to get a taxi. Ok, well, oh, I see a taxi coming to you Now, put up your hand and then, great, you got with you. I love it. So you're thinking like something like that for the classroom would be amazing, because they could describe things that were happening in the classroom like a personal assistant for the student, and so I see it as really being wonderful for the students as well, not only the teachers. But you have something about Ed Puzzles. Yeah, what are Ed Puzzles?
Jessica Lyons:So Ed Puzzle is an app that educators can upload videos, whether you made them, whether you get them from the internet, wherever it happens to be, and then you put questions in between. Okay, I use that with that three different ways. One I use it with the leveling. So if I pull a video from YouTube, I'll grab the transcript as well and I'll put the transcript into chat, although now, with 4o, I might not even have to worry about the transcript, I might be able just to. I'll have to play with that. I can't wait.
Dr. Lisa Hassler:I'm so excited. I know I haven't done a video with it yet. I want to try that.
Jessica Lyons:Yeah, and then chat will level questions for me. It will help me decide appropriate questions, It'll timestamp everything for me and then I can put them in different folders. When I use it with chat it's just so much more thorough and it'll give me, like I said, the timestamps and do a multiple choice question here or have kids respond a voice recording here. And yeah, it just kind of helps you plan it out a little bit more.
Dr. Lisa Hassler:How would you use that? Would you do that like whole class or assignments?
Jessica Lyons:Yeah, there's a couple times where I've done a whole class, but normally it's perfect for, like those e-learning days, or there's a sub, so you assign the video. It has all the questions in there. The kids respond that way and yeah.
Dr. Lisa Hassler:So what kind of administrative tasks that teachers do, can Chat GPT help streamline?
Jessica Lyons:So I like it for inventories and once I realized I could change the names on the side, I could find the inventory. So it wasn't like I just did a book inventory and then never found it again. But chat will make inventories for you. Just put all that information in there. The the most helpful thing for me has been that chat will aggregate my data.
Dr. Lisa Hassler:I love that.
Jessica Lyons:You know when I have all my test scores come in and I'm just given a pile of numbers and I'm told talk. Yeah, you know when I have all my test scores come in and I'm just given a pile of numbers and I'm told talk.
Dr. Lisa Hassler:Yeah.
Jessica Lyons:You know, I don't know what to say and so I can put it into chat and he will sort it. I will ask what are three guiding questions. If I was going to have a discussion with a group about this, that will do that for me. You know where are the strengths, when are the weaknesses? What's the mean there? What's the.?
Jessica Lyons:I realized, oh, I can have my assistant do that. Yeah, it'll spit it out for me. Oh, it was amazing. It was amazing. So the data is great. Anybody will tell you that chat's great when you've had an email from a parent was not the nicest thing you've ever gotten.
Dr. Lisa Hassler:Yeah.
Jessica Lyons:And you know we never really know. You know it's hard to read tone in an email anyways, and so you want to respond professionally. I personally will put the email into chat and then I will say this is what I want to say. Please rewrite this so it is a professional and appropriate response to this parent, and then chat will reword it for you.
Dr. Lisa Hassler:yes, I also like i as like a second pair of eyes, so that I can grab stuff that I'm working on and throw it in there and just say review for accuracy and grammar, just to make sure that you know, because when you're looking at something and you're writing it you kind of glaze over some little errors there. So I just like it to be able to double check work. So those are nice. To be able to do Rubrics I love making a rubric in there where I'll give it the data and then I'll say create a rubric and then you know you do the guiding.
Dr. Lisa Hassler:I want it to be five points, eac child language. You want it to be at this level. These are the categories go and then you can have it, format it and you do your cut and paste. You can tweak things. I just like that. It gives you this really nice solid base and then you could say I love it, or I'm just going to tweak this little thing, or we're off base and let's go again. yeah, it's like it's your launch . .
Jessica Lyons:Here's all my ideas in my brain. Now sort this out for me and then let me look at it and I can go from there.
Dr. Lisa Hassler:Yeah.
Jessica Lyons:Another thing that I saw with the 4., it added 50 more languages that it can understand, and that's another great thing. I do like my back to school home languages for my students. I will translate with chat. Google Translate's fine, but chat just does a better job of writing it for me in the format that I want. And you know those parents. It's just so nice that they can see something in their home language as well.
Dr. Lisa Hassler:Yeah, that's a really good point that you could take all of your material and then just say I want to make sure that it's been translated into Italian or whatever it is.
Dr. Lisa Hassler:Yesterday I did a translation in Japanese. I don't have those keys on my board so I couldn't have done that, but chat did it and I was just able to say take this bio, translate it into Japanese, and then I could just cut and paste it. So that was really wonderful. Well, as we wrap up our conversation, what advice do you have for teachers this summer?
Jessica Lyons:Well, my first advice is take some time, clock out and enjoy it as much as you can. Yeah, other than that, especially when it comes to is s, you know, like Ferris Bueller said, the world moves pretty fast. It's going to move whether you want it to move or not, and whether you move with it or not. So embrace it, be creative, have an open mind, open heart and just know that it makes your life easier. But the engagement and the look in those kids eyes when they know that you have tailored something for them, it's amazing. So clock out and then be creative and open your heart.
Dr. Lisa Hassler:play, play, play, yes . It's undefined to just get in there and play. You know it doesn't have to be for anything, but just to see its limitations, or like, how do you ask it? Things and stuff.
Jessica Lyons:So make a new friend with a transformer. It's fine, you know.
Dr. Lisa Hassler:Yeah, definitely I'm going to see if it'll plan my summer garden. That's my next thing. There you go. Well, thank you, Jessica, for joining me today to discuss practical ways educators can use ChatGPT to save valuable time.
Jessica Lyons:Thank you.
Dr. Lisa Hassler:To learn more about Jessica Lyon's ChatGPT courses and certifications, you can go careerlearning areerlearning ccom. com forward slash collections, forward slash Jessica dash Lyons, l-y-o-n-s. And to reach out to Jessica directly, you can email her at JJLyonsLyons2011 at livecom, and both links will be in the show notes. The call to action is to learn how to harness chat GPT's advanced AI capabilities to reclaim that valuable time spent on lesson planning and administrative tasks. If you have a story about what's working in your schools that you'd like to share, you can email me at Lisa at Dr Lisa orasslercom, or visit my website at wwwdrlisarahasslercom and send me a message. If you like this podcast, subscribe and tell a friend. The more people that know, the bigger impact it will have. And if you find value to the content in this podcast, consider becoming a supporter by clicking on the supporter link in the show notes. It is the mission of this podcast to shine light on the good in education so that it spreads, affecting positive change. So let's keep working together to find solutions that focus on our children's success.
