One of the challenges of teaching is ensuring that your lessons are designed in a way that supports the learning of the all the students in your class. In the average classroom you might differentiate for high potential students, lower ability students, and EAL/D students. (Adjustments for students with specific diagnoses or disabilities will be addressed in another post). 

What role can AI play in supporting differentiation?
Let's assume you already have a lesson planned for students of general ability on a topic. Either post it online somewhere publicly so that you can just direct the AI tool to the website, or summarise your lesson plan so that it can be easily copy and pasted (ensure the formatting is super simple).

Some prompts you could use in a tool like ChatGPT are:

• Examine this lesson on XYZ <insert website or copy and paste the lesson>. Create a differentiated version of this lesson suitable for a student aged 12 (or whatever age) who has a low literacy and numeracy proficiency. Refer to this website for guidance https://education.nsw.gov.au/teaching-and-learning/professional-learning/teacher-quality-and-accreditation/strong-start-great-teachers/refining-practice/differentiating-learning/what-to-differentiate
• Examine this lesson on XYZ <insert website or copy and paste the lesson>. Create a differentiated version of this lesson suitable for high potential/gifted students aged 12 (or whatever age).
• Examine this lesson on XYZ <insert website or copy and paste the lesson>. Create a differentiated version of this lesson suitable for a student aged 12 (or whatever age) who has an EAL/D background (you may choose to specify the language background).

A variation on this is:

• Use the lesson found on this website <insert link> . Create a choice board in a table with different learning activities for students with a range of abilities (alternative you could select a specific characteristic or level of ability).

As a trial, of this process I ran the following prompt:

• Examine the lesson found at this website: http://www.hsieteachers.com/blog/writing-task-factors-affecting-consumer-decisions . Create a differentiated version of this lesson suitable for a high potential or gifted student aged 13. Refer to this website for guidance: https://education.nsw.gov.au/teaching-and-learning/professional-learning/teacher-quality-and-accreditation/strong-start-great-teachers/refining-practice/differentiating-learning/what-to-differentiate

ChatGPT produced a 7-point guide on differentiating the lesson (it was about a page and a half long) including suggestions related to content, process and product differentiation. Examples included providing advanced reading and opportunities for individual exploration (each with several sentences explaining how to do this). It provided a few options for allowing students to use different learning pathways, and also a few options of different products the students could create to demonstrate learning. Some of the advice provided was a bit generic, about differentiation strategies generally, but there were several good suggestions that were practical and could be easily used in the classroom.

Following this I tried the following prompt:

• Use the lesson found on this website http://www.hsieteachers.com/blog/writing-task-factors-affecting-consumer-decisions . Create a choice board in a table with different learning activities for students with a range of abilities.

This prompt provided seven different lesson activities which were reasonably original and fairly different to each other. This was even more successful when I choose a specific learning ability (e.g. for example a student with low literacy levels).

I'm still exploring what this can do for supporting teachers to differentiate, but in these first few tentative steps I think AI definitely has something significant to offer. Moving forward, it will be fairly simple to create multiple differentiated versions of the same lesson very quickly to best cater for our students. The key is going to be knowing how to ask for what you want. My hint: keep asking more questions...

It's that joyful time of the semester again where everyone is setting and marking a lot of assessments and writing junior reports. Tensions are high, patience is low and sleep is something we catch up on during the weekends. Many classroom teachers are writing reports for close to 200 students. While teachers are more than capable to writing their own comments, it is a repetitive task - often commenting many times on the same tasks or skills, and it can be hard to come up with original comments particularly towards the end of the reporting cycle.

I came across a page on SchoolReportWriter discussing using ChatGPT to generate report comments, and while I'm not sure I would want to rely on ChatGPT to write comments about specific students, I was interested to see what it could do to generate comment banks for staff to use across the school. I concentrated on specific elements within a report comment, so that different sentences could be pieced together from different categories to make up a complete (or near complete) comment. Obviously they would still need to be personalised and checked to ensure that they meet the requirements of the school's report style guide.

I used Chat GPT to generate a series of generic report comments for specific topics such as :
- academic achievement based on basic performance descriptors (Outstanding, High, Sound, Basic, Limited)
- attendance
- technology use
- attention and application to school work
- completion of classwork
- research skills
- literacy
- numeracy
- critical and creative thinking

I used ChatGPT and the following prompts to generate the comments:

• Generate ten example comments suitable for a teacher's reports to parents, for high school students aged 12-15 years, for students commenting on their outstanding academic achievement in <subject>. Use @name as a placeholder for the student name and use male pronouns. 
• Generate ten example comments suitable for a teacher's reports to parents, for high school students aged 12-15 years, for students commenting on their high academic achievement in <subject>. Use @name as a placeholder for the student name and use male pronouns. 
• Generate ten example comments suitable for a teacher's reports to parents, for high school students aged 12-15 years, for students commenting on their sound or adequate academic achievement in <subject>. Use @name as a placeholder for the student name and use male pronouns. 
• Generate ten example comments suitable for a teacher's reports to parents, for high school students aged 12-15 years, for students commenting on their sound academic achievement in <subject>. Use @name as a placeholder for the student name and use male pronouns. Include suggestions for improvement such as spending more time on home study, completing all class work and homework, ensuring that he is always concentrating and paying attention in class.
• Generate ten examples comment suitable for a teacher's reports to parents, for high school students aged 12-15 years, for students commenting on their basic academic achievement in <subject>. Use @name as a placeholder for the student name and use male pronouns. Include suggestions for improvement such as developing a rigorous study program, spending more time on home work and class work, completing all class work and homework, completing and submitting all assessment tasks., ensuring that he is always concentrating and paying attention in class.
• Generate ten example comments suitable for a teacher's reports to parents, for high school students aged 12-15 years, for students commenting on their limited academic achievement in <subject>. Use @name as a placeholder for the student name and use male pronouns. Include suggestions for improvement such as asking for help when needed, undertaking study at home, completing all home work and class work, completing and submitting all assessment tasks, ensuring that he is always concentrating and paying attention in class, improving his behaviour and attendance.
• Generate ten example comments suitable for a teacher's reports to parents, for high school students aged 12-15 years, for students who are not attending school regularly which is impacting on their school work and grades. Use @name as a placeholder for the student name and use male pronouns. 
• Generate ten example comments suitable for a teacher's reports to parents, for high school students aged 12-15 years, about their responsible and productive use of technology in learning. Use @name as a placeholder for the student name and use male pronouns.
• Generate ten example comments suitable for a teacher's reports to parents, for high school students aged 12-15 years, who are not demonstrating responsible and productive use of technology in learning. Use @name as a placeholder for the student name and use male pronouns.
• Generate ten example comments suitable for a teacher's reports to parents, for high school students aged 12-15 years, about their level of concentration, attention and/or application to their school work. Use @name as a placeholder for the student name and use male pronouns.
• Generate ten example comments suitable for a teacher's reports to parents, for high school students aged 12-15 years, who are demonstrating a lack of concentration, attention and/or application to their school work. Use @name as a placeholder for the student name and use male pronouns.
• Generate ten example comments suitable for a teacher's reports to parents, for high school students aged 12-15 years, related to strong performance in literacy. Use @name as a placeholder for the student name and use male pronouns.
• Generate ten example comments suitable for a teacher's reports to parents, for high school students aged 12-15 years, related to low proficiency in literacy. Use @name as a placeholder for the student name and use male pronouns.
• Generate ten example comments suitable for a teacher's reports to parents, for high school students aged 12-15 years, related to strong performance in numeracy. Use @name as a placeholder for the student name and use male pronouns.
• Generate ten example comments suitable for a teacher's reports to parents, for high school students aged 12-15 years, related to low proficiency in numeracy. Use @name as a placeholder for the student name and use male pronouns.

I was actually really impressed with most of the comments that were generated, and I ended up with 17 pages of report comments that could be used by most staff. I did go through and make edits. One of the main issues was that some of the comments were generated in first person. I experimented with asking ChatGPT to produce comments in a passive voice, but I didn't like the way the sentences were structured - they were much too clunky. It was easier to rephrase them myself. I also deleted some of the comments because I felt they were too negative, not phrased in a way that parents would appreciate or didn't convey a message that was consistent with the key messages of the school.

Report comment banks are nothing new, but ChatGPT allowed me to generate a comprehensive report comment bank very quickly and I was able to tailor it for specific items. If I was to develop a HSIE specific set I would enter specific tasks, fieldwork, skills, Business Reports, etc. I was impressed with the ability of ChatGPT to complete a job that will hopefully reduce teacher workload. Click the icon below to download the Reports Comment bank generated by ChatGPT.

Any active learning, where students are out in the field and enjoying nature is good for the students, good for us as teachers and helps to promote the real world application of our subject. Introducing students to snorkelling will expose them to a whole new world that they may not have engaged with before. It will encourage them to be more passionate about what they are learning, be more active in trying to protect environments and hopefully engage in more active citizenship to address environmental issues. 

Snorkelling is a great activities for Year 9 Elective Geography students studying Oceanography. There has been growing recognition of the Great Southern Reef as an excellent case study for Year 10 Environmental Change and Management and Year 12 Ecosystems at Risk. It could also be used in the new Stage 6 syllabus for the new Year 12 Ecosystems and Global Biodiversity topic. Unlike a case study of the Great Barrier Reef, students could actively engage in fieldwork multiple times within a topic if your school is relatively close to the coast. Even if you aren't close to the coast, it is a lot easier to organise an excursion that doesn't involve air travel, so it is still a great option. Fieldwork for this case study is also a lot more economically accessible if you teach in a school with a low or complex socio-economic background, or have a group of significantly disadvantaged students.

In Elective Geography, in the Oceanography topic, reef surveying could link with the investigative study investigating an issue relating to the use of oceans. This could include an issue such as: crayweed or seagrass loss in the Sydney region/North Coast/South Coast, biodiversity  in the Sydney region/North Coast/South Coast, or a similar issue that you identify as a class that the students are interested in.

In the Environmental Change and Management topic, reef surveying could link with work completed on the Investigative study, addressing aspects of:
- biophysical interactions
- causes, extent and consequences of change
- examples of some management strategies

In the Ecosystems at Risk topic (current Stage 6 syllabus), reef surveying could link with the case study of an ecosystem,  addressing aspects of:
- geomorphic and hydrological processes
- biogeographical processes
- human impacts
- management strategies

In the Ecosystems and Global Biodiversity topic (new syllabus - to be implemented in Year 12 in 2025), reef surveying could link with the investigation of an ecosystem (this would need to be the example within Australia). It could address aspects of:
- characteristics of the ecosystem
- human-induced modifications
- responses and strategies

Underwater photography and videography
Students can easily take photographs and videos of the fieldwork site. These can be shared and compared with their classmates. In-built GPS will help to geotag the photos, or a GPS logger can be used. Photos and video can be used to identify different species, examine data on abundance of species, or explore human impacts. Photos can be added to locations on digital maps using Scribblemaps.

There are a couple of relatively cheap underwater cameras you can buy. Be prepared - if they are used regularly, they will get broken, and most likely they get water in them (also meaning they will be broken). I have bashed more underwater cameras into rocks than I care to admit. There used to be a wide variety available, but there aren't too many on the market these days. If you are going to get a student to take photos, make sure you get a wrist guard with a floatation device attached in case they drop it. Another good option to to use a hair elastic attached to the camera strap to that it doesn't get lost. For around $600-700 you can get basic model underwater camera from Olympus: Olympus TG-6 Tough Underwater Camera (Black). There are lots of other options for underwater cameras available, but they tend to be very expensive.

Probably the easiest option is to use a GoPro, with a waterproof case attached with either a velcro wrist band or a strap around your chest or head. Even though the GoPro11 is advertised as waterproof, I was advised to also get a waterproof case. There are also some masks that you can buy so that you can attach the Go Pro directly to the mask.
GoPro HERO11 Black Action Waterproof Camera
GoPro Protective Housing​
GoPro Hand + Wrist Strap
​Body Glove Adult's Arid 2 Piece Set Blue & Black
​
​Mapping
Students can use a basic outline map of the field site to demonstrate features which relate to human impacts on the reef. Students might mark on a map stormwater drains, stairs or entry points, boat ramps, pools, jetties, etc. Students may use the map to identify where they observed particular species in the field site. Students might map areas of natural vegetation surrounding the field site.