Five Practical AI Strategies To Boost Your Teaching

Imagine you are wrapping up a lively discussion, and you want to know if students truly grasped the key ideas you taught. Instead of waiting for the next assignment to find out, you display a QR code on the screen: “In one sentence, what’s the most important idea you’re taking away from today?” Students quickly submit their responses before leaving. While they are out grabbing a coffee, you put the answers into AI, which instantly detects patterns in their responses. You notice that a third of the class misunderstood a critical concept - great catch! When class resumes, you start with clarifying the misunderstandings before moving forward.

It’s the middle of your session and your students are deep into a complex topic, however, you sense some hesitation in their actions and responses. To pinpoint the issue, you launch a ‘Muddiest Point’ poll: “What’s still unclear?” Responses start rolling in, and rather than sifting through dozens of answers, you ask AI to summarize them. Turns out, there’s a tricky formula that is confusing a lot of your students. Instead of simply moving on, you pivot, breaking down the formula again with a fresh example. The sighs of relief from your precious students tell you that it was the right call!

It is halfway through the semester and you want your students to think beyond just memorizing information, you want them to apply the concepts they’ve learnt. To do this, you try a ‘Real-World Exit Ticket’: “If you had to explain today’s lesson to a friend who knows nothing about this subject, how would you do it?” The GenAI helps to sort the students’ responses into themes and you notice that some students use personal anecdotes, others connect it to recent events, and a few still need more clarity. You highlight the best answers in the next class, inspiring students to think more creatively while reinforcing key takeaways.

On the first day of class, you want to set a relaxed and engaging tone. You use AI to generate a list of ‘Two Truths and a Lie’ about your course and display them on the first slide of your presentation. As students enter into the classroom, they vote on which statements they think are false. This leads to a lively discussion where students debate their choices which gives them an interactive introduction into some key concepts to be taught in your course.

You want to have an enticing conversation starter at the beginning of each teaching session to break the ice and get students in an engaged mode. You ask AI to give you at least 6 interesting or fun facts about your key topic and use one question for each lesson, such as: "Immanuel Kant was such a creature of habit that he was known for his precise daily walks, but did you know that he also drank up to 50 cups of coffee a day? How might his philosophy have been influenced if he had drunk decaf instead?"

You want to spark engagement in an online class discussion. You ask AI to generate prompts in relation to your class discussion (e.g. time management). Students are then tasked to upload images/gifs to symbolize the given prompt. You can encourage them to use the AI to generate a brief description for each image, and then have students refine it before explaining their choices. 

Your students need to improve their ability to handle difficult conversations professionally. You request that the students ask the AI to play the role of an unhappy client who is dissatisfied with a service. The AI presents both emotional and logistical challenges which requires them to navigate the conversation with empathy and problem-solving skills. Afterwards, the AI evaluates their responses and suggests how they could improve their tone, clarity, and resolution strategies. They practice again and adjust themselves based on the feedback, and gain confidence in de-escalating tense situations.

You notice that your students do not show refinement in their speech and know that you need to prepare them to communicate in a manner in which they make a strong first impression. For example, your students need to attend a network event. To help them, you assign them an activity that involves the AI playing the role of a busy executive, and that they must deliver a one minute pitch about their background and goals. The AI responds with follow-up questions, testing their ability to adapt and keep the conversation engaging. After a few attempts and refinements, students could feel more prepared for real-world networking.

Your class is about to hold a structured debate, and your students need to strengthen their argumentation skills. You instruct them to present a debate topic to AI, which immediately takes the opposing stance. As they defend their positions, AI counters with logical challenges, which makes them think critically about their reasoning. They analyze their responses, pinpoint weaknesses, and refine their arguments for the live debate.

You are teaching a course on leadership and decision-making, and you want your students to experience different perspectives. You ask the AI to generate a workplace conflict scenario, such as a disagreement between colleagues about workload distribution. Students take on roles and act out possible solutions, using AI-generated dialogue as a starting point. After the roleplay, the class discusses how different responses affected the outcome and compares AI-generated suggestions to their own problem-solving strategies.

You as the teacher present the students with a problem or case and instruct them to imagine the worst-case scenario, including devising actions that could make this scenario likely. Once the students complete their scenario, they upload it to an AI system and request feedback based on their learning objectives. They might ask questions such as: "Could the scenario be more dire?" "Could the actions be more detrimental?" "What would the future look like if these actions were carried out?"

Your students are analyzing media bias and they gather news reports on the same current event from multiple sources. Students (as an individual or group) summarize their chosen article(s) and then proceeds to generate an AI-written summary. Students then compare the different versions, and attempt to spot similarities and differences such as variations in tone, omitted details, and ideological slants. This helps to spark discussion in the lesson on how framing, word choice, and implicit bias can shape public perception, allowing students to become more critical consumers of the information in front of them.

Your class is working on persuasive communication and you encourage your students to write a short speech to convince an audience of a particular viewpoint. Then, you have them generate an AI version and compare the rhetorical strategies. Students may find similarities and differences in the responses. For instance, some students find that the AI’s speech uses more emotionally charged language, while others notice that their own version feels more authentic. Through class discussion, you prompt students to refine their approach and assist them in learning how to balance persuasion with credibility.

You want your students to strengthen their ability to defend an argument. Before a debate, you have them write their own stance on a controversial topic. Then, they use AI to generate a counterargument. Instantly, they’re exposed to new perspectives, blind spots, and alternative reasoning. This then helps them to  revise their arguments, and assists them in being better prepared to anticipate objections in the debate and respond effectively.

You want a quick and effective way to check if students really understand the key concepts in a lesson you taught. Instead of spending hours creating a quiz, you upload your presentation to AI, asking it to generate sets of four words that seem related but contain one outlier. In class, you let the students work in small groups and debate about which word doesn’t belong, justifying their choices. You can even take it a step further by asking them to submit their reasoning to AI, “Is my justification of the outlier sound, how can I improve my reasoning?”. 

You want your students to think critically whilst engaged in creative exercises. Let the AI help you with some heavy lifting! Provide the AI with your key concept, for instance, “Increased urbanization leads to higher energy consumption” and ask it to generate possible answers. Select the one you find best and in class, challenge students to figure out the best question to match. Your students can deepen their learning through brainstorming, debating, and refining their responses. For further reinforcement, students can ask the AI “Which of these questions is the strongest and why?” and wait as the AI provides real-time feedback. 

You notice that your students have a misconception on taught material. You can ask the AI to generate a comic-style discussion featuring different viewpoints on a key issue. The AI gives multiple perspective (i.e., two common misconceptions and one correct explanation). You display the cartoon in class and students vote on the correct reasoning, this way, you instantly gauge their understanding. You can then clear up their misconceptions or even have them submit their justifications to AI (e.g. “Can you provide real-world examples that support or challenge my reasoning?”) to encourage them to think critically about their choice.

You want to keep your students engaged from the moment they enter the classroom, but crafting an attention-grabbing opener for every lesson takes time. You can upload your course material and ask AI to generate images or questions related to your lesson topics. For example in a class on teaching about innovation, the AI suggests an image of an old typewriter next to a smartphone, paired with the question, “Which invention has had a bigger impact on communication?”. Now, that is a fun opener for class discussions!