Citizenship, professions, and getting to know yourself better with AI

Kirsten Snoek is a teacher of history, social studies, and social science at Portus Juliana. In her lessons for havo 1 and mavo 2 and 3, she explores together with students how society, work, and citizenship are interconnected. Recently, she has also started doing this with the help of AI.

“I noticed that students were increasingly using ChatGPT to answer questions from the textbook. Sometimes you get good answers, but they hardly think about it themselves anymore. So I turned it around. How can I use AI to actually stimulate thinking?”

What do you want to be when you grow up?

For a lesson about work and professions, Kirsten designed an assignment in which students engaged in a conversation with ChatGPT themselves. They chose a profession that seemed interesting to them and then asked GPT a series of targeted questions that matched the concepts that would also appear on their test. The questions were listed on a clear PPT slide.

“The great thing was that the students were super motivated. They were allowed to research something they found interesting, and at the same time, they learned about the labor market, working hours, education, and workers’ rights. All concepts they would otherwise have to memorize from the book.”

Each student handed in their answers handwritten. “That way, you also learn a bit more about the students. For example, a student who usually keeps to the background wants to work in elderly care. The student had talked to GPT about it and came back with a personal story. That’s touching.”

Want to get started with AI yourself? Start small (and curious)

Kirsten encourages colleagues to integrate AI into their lessons, but in a way that fits their own style. “Start by practicing yourself. Try putting a test question or learning objective into GPT and see what comes out. For example, I also use it to create answer models or to come up with three teaching methods around one concept.”

The whole school has now been given access to Microsoft CoPilot, but there hasn’t been any training yet. Kirsten: “I think many teachers would benefit from a short training on how to ask a good question, how to check the output, and how to link it back to your learning objectives.”

What could be improved?

In this lesson, the focus was on motivation, content, and ownership, but media literacy was still somewhat underexposed.

“We didn’t discuss the reliability of ChatGPT or how the model works. That could be a great next step for a future lesson.”