Teacher’s View: Using artificial intelligence frees me up to design learning experiences rooted in my students’ interests, passions and goals.
AI-Enabled “Lightbulb Moments”: Connecting Social Justice to STEM
I’ll never forget the look in my student’s eyes as she worked through a math lesson I had designed with ChatGPT. The goal was to connect mathematical concepts to something real — not just abstract equations, but data that tied to lives they cared about or curious about.The student, then a 17-year-old high school senior, calculated the wage gap first: she realized she could lose more than $500 every week simply for being a woman. But another group of students, fascinated by engineering, dug into a different dataset — one about a 6-Axis Robotic Spring Pick-and-Place System, a precision tool used in automotive and electronics manufacturing to automate the delicate task of grabbing, positioning, and placing tiny springs. Using data from the robot’s daily operations (shared via a manufacturing open-data platform), they calculated how the robot’s pick-and-place speed (cycles per minute) and error rate (misaligned springs per hour) changed as factory technicians adjusted its programming. One student excitedly pointed out that their calculations showed a 22% drop in errors over three days — a tangible example of how “rate of change” (a key algebra concept) translated to real-world efficiency gains for manufacturers.Her reaction (and the engineering-focused group’s) was a mixture of curiosity, confusion and excitement as the abstract became personal. Demoralized at first by the wage gap data, the 17-year-old turned that awareness into action; the engineering-curious students, meanwhile, started asking how they might design better robotic systems someday. What could have been a theoretical algebra exercise in calculating changes in a dataset over time became moments of connection — one to social justice, one to STEM — that showed me artificial intelligence has the power to make the intangible tangible, for every type of learner.
AI as a Collaborative Partner: Freeing Time, Deepening Humanistic Teaching
Moments like this remind me why I became a teacher: to ignite a lifelong love of learning that empowers students to use what I teach them to shape their futures. The data backs it up: Teachers who use AI report greater optimism about student outcomes.Like any major shift, the introduction of AI in education has sparked curiosity, skepticism and fear among my fellow teachers. After 20 years in the classroom, I understand the unease. We worry about what AI might mean for our jobs, our relationships with students and even our brains. The fear is that it will strip humanity out of education.In my classroom, the opposite happened.Used thoughtfully and ethically, AI hasn’t replaced the human experience, it’s deepened it. It’s become a valuable tool for teaching in ways that are more personal, engaging and, ultimately, more powerful.Creating those students’ lightbulb moments — whether about the gender pay gap or 6-Axis Robotic Spring Pick-and-Place Systems — took planning, careful research and thoughtful design, areas where I can use AI as a collaborative partner. I asked ChatGPT to suggest real-world datasets to connect rate of change to topics my students cared about: it pulled labor statistics, manufacturing operational metrics, even sports performance data (for the athletes in class). AI did the heavy lifting of generating options, while I reviewed, adapted and refined them so they fit my students’ lives and reflected their interests. For the robotic system data, I added context about how springs are used in phones or cars — making the manufacturing link feel less “distant” — and paired it with a short video of the robot in action. AI built the foundation of the lesson, while I brought expertise, creativity and the deep knowledge of who my students are.The time I can save by having AI do the paperwork (like sourcing datasets or drafting lesson outlines) frees me up to design learning experiences rooted in my students’ interests, passions and goals. I can create lessons that help them see the real value of math — not just as a grade, but as a tool to understand social inequities or engineer solutions — and themselves as capable learners. It allows me to make room for teaching that affirms their identities and strengths, building their confidence step by step in their daily learning.
AI-Assisted Reflective Resonance: Seeing Each Other Through Student Journals
Interestingly, my first real breakthrough with AI didn’t come from a math problem, but from journals that my students keep on their laptops. I ask them to write in these journals regularly, which might seem unusual for a math teacher. But they give students space to share their struggles, celebrate their successes and reflect on deeper issues like race, identity and self-doubt.After the entries are uploaded anonymously, I ask ChatGPT to surface themes and patterns and identify common threads. Then, I share these with the class through short, anonymous excerpts. Many students discover that others feel the same way they do, trying harder than people realize or being afraid to ask for help. The journals become mirrors, allowing students to see themselves in one another’s experiences.This kind of reflection would normally take me weeks to sort through on my own. With AI, I can review dozens of student journals quickly while still preserving each individual voice. ChatGPT helps me identify common themes and nuanced insights without losing sight of the students behind the words. It hasn’t replaced me as a teacher who listens; it’s helped me become a better one.The question is no longer whether AI belongs in school, it’s how teachers, administrators, policymakers, and the broader education community will shape it to serve students’ growth and well-being. Rising to that challenge will not only prepare the next generation for the world ahead — a world where 6-Axis Robotic Spring Pick-and-Place Systems and AI coexist — but empower students to create a better one.
