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Something that held me back from doing more tasks with my kids wasn't necessarily the will,

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it was how am I going to come up with tasks. So today I'm going to share with you

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three tips for using AI to help you create math tasks for your students.

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Hello and welcome to Making Number Sense Make Sense, a podcast for elementary teachers,

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specifically early elementary teachers, looking to really make an impact in the number sense of

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their students. If you have listened to my previous episodes, you know I've been on a

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kick about creating tasks for kindergarten, first grade, and second grade. Combined it's probably

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over a hundred tasks that I've created and I look back on that and I'm like, wow, that is mind-blowing.

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But I'm not going to say as much as I would love to that those all just came from my brain. I

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definitely had a little bit of help in coming up with the ideas, but I'll say it now and I'm

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going to say it at the end to remind you, the person who brings a task to life is you. It is

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not AI, it is not a computer. It might give you a little nudge, spark some creativity, but the person

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who brings it to life, the people actually doing the math, are you and your students in your classroom.

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Now, onto the tips. The first tip I have for you is to be specific. If I go and order a pizza and

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I just ask for a pizza, you might get any pizza that the person who's making them feels like making.

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You would never do that. You would say I want a pepperoni pizza with xyz to get exactly what you

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want. AI is kind of the same. So if you're in chat GPT and you ask for a math task for second grade,

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you will get the gambit of things and none of them might actually be helpful. So what to do instead

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is give the prompt that you're giving some shape. So maybe say I'd like to create a task for second

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grade students dealing with this standard and literally copy and paste the standard that you're

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working on. And if you have an idea of the context that you want, include the context in it. Ask it

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to thin slice for you. Ask it for six different levels of difficulty, all dealing with the same

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skill and see what you get back. You will definitely get more information back closer to what you want

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and it might give you some ideas. That kind of specificity works best if you kind of have a

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context in mind. So if I already know that I want my task to focus on word problems measuring in

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length to 100, then I might say give me this. But you might get something generic that's kind of

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boring and maybe not something that your kids will even be into. So that's where again maybe you need

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a question before your give me this task question. So it might be give me five contexts in which

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someone would be measuring distance or when they might have to add more than two numbers together.

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Something like that to kind of guide or shape the task that you are starting to create. And that kind

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of leads into my next tip which is ask for lots of examples. So maybe you have no idea what you want

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to do and you start off with asking for things that a kindergartner might be into, might enjoy.

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And then you can move into more specifics. So that's kind of big picture going with being specific

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and actually coming up with the task. Once you have it maybe you want to add a little bit more fun.

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If you listen to any of my previous episodes on creating tasks you know I love a good pun. I love

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some alliteration but I'm not necessarily the quickest with that. So what you could do is say

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okay this task is about a movie theater. It takes place in a movie theater. Come up with 10 different

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names that I could name my movie theater. And if you want alliteration say like 10 names with

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alliteration for this movie theater. Maybe you just want it to be a pun. So five punny names for

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a movie theater. Things like that. So it can give you little kind of hints here and there or ideas

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here and there that help bring your task to life. So again my first tip be specific. Think about

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what you want and kind of shape it in kind of cut off the edges so that you can have a task that'll

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actually be what you're looking for and not too general. The second is to ask for various examples.

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So maybe you asked for just the task but you actually need it thin sliced. So then you can

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ask for what increasing levels of difficulty might be helpful for this task. But that leads to my

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third and most important is to check the work. Don't just copy paste it and be like okay great

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we're done. I have my task done because AI is not magic. It makes mistakes and granted for simple

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addition it's attraction it'll probably be fine. But if you start to get into more difficult

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mathematical concepts that doesn't necessarily mean that they're going to get the math right.

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After you have your ideas kind of check the work. Make sure everything makes sense. Make sure

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everything is correct before you actually give your students the task. And coming back to what

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I said at the beginning this is just a jumping off point. So maybe you're like I need to work on this

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skill I'm just not really sure how to go about it. I don't know what context I can use to help with

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this skill. That's something that you might enter in or I need a punny name for this fictional movie

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theater I created. That's something that you're going to add in. But AI is not going to create

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your slides for you. It's not going to create the recording sheets for you. I mean some of them can

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but I have yet to see one that is as good as something that a teacher can create who knows

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their students knows what they'll like and really can buy into it. Because if you buy into it your

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students are going to buy into it. So that is my most important thing. This is a jumping off point.

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It is not a replacement. It's something that can help you get started but you're the one who's

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going to put the love and care into creating a math experience that your students will really

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benefit from. Let me know if you try this out for your next math task. See how it goes and don't

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forget to check the work before you do anything else. If you want tasks that are already done for

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you. So I tried to put the love and care into these tasks that I would use for my own students.

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I created the slides. I have the thin slicing. I have the check your understanding. I have the

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recording sheets for kindergarten, first grade, and second grade. Done. You can check those out

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at the link below as well as a blog post that'll kind of give you a summary of these skills that

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you can save and look at later. Until then you'll hear from me next time.