Generative Thinking – AI in the Classroom

Abstract:

A Generative Thinking Curriculum flips the script on AI and makes the student the generative agent. Too often students see AI as the end of inquiry; a place they go to get answers or write an essay. Generative Thinking teachers that AI’s first response is just the starting point for investigating new ideas. This article shows how to scaffold Generative Thinking lessons to produce a curriculum that teaches the skills our students will need as parents and mid-career adults.  It provides sample lesson plans in both history and science to inspire educators to transform their classrooms. 

The promise of AI is instantaneous access to virtually unlimited knowledge and analysis.  The danger of AI – certainly in an academic setting - is that students passively and uncritically accept the "wisdom" given to them.  They view AI as an answer and essay writing machine - the end of inquiry. 

By the time our current K-12 students are parents and mid-career adults, AI will have a profound impact on their lives.  The skills needed for them to thrive will be significantly different than the ones needed today. Educators must ask, “How do we build schools that teach the skills and abilities needed to succeed in the 2050’s, 2060’s, and beyond?”.  

Paradigm shifts are nothing new to the educational system. Once educators relied on repetition, drill, and memorization, but now focus on critical thinking and experiential learning. AI necessitates another shift.  Schools must embrace Generative Thinking.

Just as calculators didn’t erase the need to teach basic arithmetic and spell/grammar check didn’t eliminate the need to learn those topics, AI will not replace basic skills and critical thinking.  However, success in the middle of the 21^st century will require something more.  A skill set best described as Generative Thinking.  

Generative Thinking flips the script on AI and the student becomes the generative agent.  Not just analyzing and consuming information, but producing new ideas, frameworks, or questions that haven’t been asked before. The algorithm becomes a brainstorming buddy. AI's first answer isn't the final word. It is the starting point of a student-led collaboration with AI.  Generative Thinking converts AI into a virtual experiential learning tool.

We need to teach students to take back the driver’s seat from AI; to have conversations and brainstorm with AI.  Educators must begin teaching how to creatively and actively use AI. 

When AI is initial introduction to grade schoolers, it should be presented with interactive discussions as a chat buddy.  Teachers should focus on helping students ask good queries and then meaningful follow-up questions.  The emphasis will be on students chatting with AI not asking one-time questions.  Middle school students should be asked to have AI produce a result (i.e. develop a name for the cultural phenomena or historical era), then ask AI to improve and refine the answers over several iterations. Students are graded not just on the result, but on how actively they steer the AI discussion.  By the time students reach high school, they will be asked to use AI as their brainstorming buddy.

Creating a Generative Thinking Curriculum is more than swapping out lesson plans.  It requires scaffolding. Before attempting advanced lessons in Generative Thinking, they need to successfully complete beginner and intermediate lessons. Scaffolding in History might include the basic, intermediate, and advanced assignments below.

Upper School History Scaffolding

1. Basic Assignment - After studying colonial America, students ask AI to create 5 choices for a descriptive name for the American Colonial Era from 1700-1750. The student than picks her two favorites and ask AI to combine aspects of those two. AI is then asked to produce better names.  The student must then go through 2 more iterations of improving the name highlighting other things they have learned about that era.  Once the students have completed 4 iterations of refinement, they choose the best name and write an essay explaining why they choose that one.  

2. Intermediate Assignment - After learning about the Revolutionary War, students would be asked to write an in-class outline for an essay on the war.  In the next class, they have AI write an outline for the same topic. Finally, students must integrate their outline with the AI’s.  Multiple unique queries and detailed questions would be required for a good grade.

3. Advance Assignment - When studying the Civil War, students have AI write an outline for an essay about that war. They will be expected to not just get one outline but to keep refining it.

After 10 minutes they will be asked to narrow their outline to the role of politics in the Civil War era.  

After 10 more minutes they will be asked to narrow their outline further to how changes in public opinion affected the war effort.

After 10 more minutes they will be asked to focus on the politics and opinions of the abolitionist movement during the war.

Each stage requires students to continually refine their outline.  Their grade is based on the quality of their final outline as well as their ability to actively improve their outline with AI.

Upper School Science Scaffolding

Labs and experiential learning are integral to science education.  AI can be used to expand the experiential sense of discovery beyond the lab.  Here are examples of basic, intermediate, and advanced assignments in science. 

1. Basic Assignment – without have learned the supporting theory, students are given a lab procedure to measure the rate of chemical reactions under various conditions.  They then use AI to analyze their data and produce a theory that explains their results.  

2. Intermediate Assignment – students are given an experimental object: demonstrate one of the relationships of the Ideal Gas Law.  They begin by having AI determine a set of procedures for all the relationships. Then they must choose the one they deem best. Finally, they must work with AI to tailor their procedure to the time and equipment constraints of a high school lab.  Once the procedure is complete, they perform the lab and analyze the results using AI.

3. Advanced Assignment -   students must propose their own novel experiment.  Their discussion with AI regarding not only potential experiments, but how to run them, isolate variables, analyze data, etc. 

Each assignment will be graded on both the quality of the output and how well the student used AI.  Were they creative and in control or merely a passenger?  

Conclusion

Most educators first encountered AI with the introduction of Chat GPT in the fall of 2022. It burst on the scene as schools were still struggling to overcome COVID.  Understandably, the initial reaction was defensive; how do we prevent cheating and fraud. While those solutions are still evolving, we have moved onto to the question, “How do we use AI to teach more efficiently”.  How can teachers employ AI in lesson planning, course development, etc.

As we continue working on those questions, we must also shift the paradigm of the role of AI in education. Teachers need to create a thoughtfully scaffolded Generative Thinking Curriculum that opens new doors to creativity and knowledge accumulation.  AI is tool to expand the horizons of our students not to limit their abilities and initiative.  Generative Thinking will give them a significant leg up in become the leading thinkers of their generation.