6 Recommendations to Design AI-driven Tools for Educators

Imagine a future where lesson planning takes minutes, not hours—this is the promise of AI-driven educational tools. To understand how these tools work for teachers, we conducted an in-house project. During this project, we aimed to explore their attitudes toward AI and AI-driven tools. In the following blog post, we take a look together at the results of this study. Moreover, based on our results, we collected what you need to know to build a good AI experience for educators.

Introduction

The debate about AI in education

The debate over using AI in education is a big topic among educators. Some teachers see AI as a helpful tool that can personalize learning, making it easier to meet each student's needs. It can also save time on tasks like lesson planning, grading, and tailoring content. Moreover, it can help identify where students might need extra support.

However, others worry that relying too much on AI might limit students' critical thinking skills and creativity. There are also concerns about data privacy and whether all students have equal access to these digital tools.

Looking ahead, educators should aim to find the right balance in using AI-driven solutions. The goal would be to use AI to enhance learning without losing the human touch that’s so important in education.

The future will likely involve some kind of AI solution combined with traditional teaching methods. Hopefully, technology will support, rather than replace, the valuable role of teachers in the classroom.

Our internal project on AI for educators

In one of our previous blog posts, we provided an overview of the latest trends, challenges, and most popular AI tools in education. We believe that constant learning is the key to keeping up with technological changes. So, we aim to create easy-to-use solutions for everyone.

As a next step, we wanted to better understand the landscape of AI-driven tools, used in education, especially in planning classes. Accordingly, we planned to have an in-house project, where we aimed to learn more about the teachers’ attitudes toward AI, and AI-driven tools. Our goal was to get user feedback on three popular AI-driven tools used in education.

After looking into the growing trends of using AI in education, we conducted usability tests combined with short interviews. During these sessions, we aimed to explore, test, and evaluate AI tools used in the education sector. We tested three AI-powered lesson planning tools, Magic School AI, Eduaide.ai, and Curipod with five participants.

We recruited 15 participants from Hungary and the US. Our participants were actively teaching in public schools or institutes at the time of the interviews. For recruitment, we used Respondent.io and different Facebook groups.

The aim was to recruit a great variety of professionals. We had participants teaching in elementary schools and educators from universities as well. All of our participants have tried AI tools before, but some of them used them only “rarely” or “occasionally,” while others used these “regularly.”

Each of the testing sessions was conducted remotely via Google Meet. Sessions contained a 25-minute interview part and 35 minutes of usability testing of one of the tools.

In this blog post, first, we will share what we’ve learned about teachers’ attitudes towards AI tools. Afterward, the three tested tools will be introduced along with what teachers liked about them and what they missed from them. Finally, we collected six recommendations that designers can use as guidelines to create AI-driven tools for teachers.

Concerns outweigh benefits when it comes to AI in education

During our interviews, we found that teachers use various online platforms to plan lessons and find resources. Moreover, they often modify pre-made materials to meet their needs efficiently, stay relevant, and save time.

Many of them are aware of AI and its capabilities, engaging with tools like ChatGPT, Brisk, and Magic School AI. They have varying experiences with these tools. Some appreciate their potential to lighten workloads and provide useful starting points.

Others find AI tools generic and challenging to use effectively. Teachers also expressed concerns about falling behind with AI. They fear it might hold back students from learning and using their creativity. They are worried about data ownership as well, and mentioned the fear of the possibility of being replaced by AI.

In summary, despite recognizing the benefits of AI tools in helping with workloads and providing good starting points, teachers remain concerned about the potential negative impact on student’s learning, data ownership, and job security.

Magic School, Eduaide.ai, and Curipod

At the start of our research process, we gathered a broad collection of popular tools in education. We categorized them into 12 groups based on the specific function they serve.

In this particular research, we focused on AI-powered tools that help educators plan their lessons and optimize their instructional materials. After a general review of the functions of these tools, we chose three of them for lesson planning, namely Magic School AI, Eduaide.ai, and Curipod. All three tools share features in outlining lesson plans, suggesting ideas for in-class activities, and evaluations.

At the start of the tests, teachers were given a task. This task was to create a lesson plan for a topic they will be teaching for an upcoming class (e.g., a literature class on introduction to poetry for 3rd graders in high school).

Magic School

Magic School is an AI-powered educational platform designed to help teachers save time by automating tasks (with over 40 tools). These tasks can be lesson planning, grading, and generating educational content. This platform is currently using multiple models to provide AI responses for educators and students.

The lesson planning part of this tool allows teachers to request a lesson example with all the content. Teachers can specify the grade, topic, standard, or objective of the lesson, along with any additional criteria. The tool offers the option to modify certain parts by sending a message to the tool, with pre-written prompts available for this purpose. It then generates an output, completed with homework ideas and exercises for the class. This output can be exported, listened to, or copied as well.

What teachers appreciated in Magic School

Teachers with less experience using AI expected a template-like structure for their lesson plans. However, they were pleased to have the whole content generated for them as well. They found the generated lesson plans particularly useful for new concepts they hadn't thought of before.

Most teachers appreciated the practical options such as export or save. They also liked the ready-made prompts (both from “actions” and suggestive prompt cards) to modify their outputs without writing the prompts themselves.

Pain points

While teachers could see the advantages of the tool, they also experienced some difficulties related to Magic School.

One of the difficulties we found was that the software defaulted to English. Accordingly, it was not able to consistently generate content in other languages. For example, some of the teachers tried to create a Chinese lesson, and the software set back to English after every prompt.

Another thing that came up was that the chat function didn’t integrate earlier prompts. Because of this, the teacher felt that every interaction was separate rather than part of a continuous conversation. Accordingly, interactions were not efficient in certain cases. Also, the same function sometimes struggles to produce the desired output, especially when it was about creating multiple-choice questions. In these cases, the AI couldn't effectively obscure the correct answer.

Summary

So, all in all, teachers found Magic School AI's responses better than for example Chat GPT. However, they still encountered challenges with directing the AI, particularly in creating multiple-choice questions.

Eduaide.ai

Eduaide.ai is an AI-driven platform designed to help educators create lesson plans, teaching resources, and assessments. It offers features like Teacher's Assistant, Feedback Bot, Eduaide Chat, and Assessment Builder.

The platform is designed to be "model-agnostic," meaning it is not limited to any single AI model. It can adapt to use the best available models as they improve over time.

Things teachers liked in Eduaide

Teachers really loved the categorized breakdown of features. This organized structure made the navigation and retrieval of desired resources easier. The ability to "transform" their generated outputs, particularly through features like lexile levels adjustments and chunking options, was well-received. Additionally, teachers found it beneficial to have access to various types of lesson plans. According to them, it enabled them to select formats more intuitively without additional prompts or guidance.

Pain points

In the meantime, teachers found the workspace tab confusing. Initially, they were unsure if their outputs would appear there. They also had difficulties understanding which option would help them generate an output, "add to workspace" or "enhance."

Also, while using this tool, it’s worth remembering that new output will appear in a new window every time it is generated.

Summary

In conclusion, teachers appreciated the capability of this tool and the option to edit their generated plan. However, the structure of the tool and a couple of functions were not clear during the testing sessions.

Curipod

The third tested tool, Curipod, is an AI-driven interactive presentation tool. This tool helps teachers create engaging and effective presentations for lessons. It has both manual and AI-assisted lesson creation options available

Why is this different from the other two tools?

This tool is different from the first two. It creates lesson slides and not the lesson plan itself. In this case, the task of the teachers was to create slides or a slide show for a topic they will be teaching for an upcoming class (e.g., present perfect tense).

Things teachers appreciated in Curipod

Creating slides on Curipod was easy, requiring just the topic name and grade to generate content. Teachers appreciated the instructions they got from the tool on 'how to use' the slides themselves. They also valued the warning that the slides were "only a good starting point," encouraging critical evaluation of the content.

According to the teachers, a huge advantage of this tool was that the slides included not only written content but also images and interactive elements. Interactive elements could be games or polls. Moreover, teachers found the content to be unique and of good enough quality to be used in class as is.

Pain points

For teachers, it was not clear where to set the language for their slides, which was especially important for language teachers. Also, teachers found it unclear why “preview” was automatically added to their slide deck for every slide they clicked on.They also highlighted that they would like to be able to see their previously generated slides for comparison, even after clicking on "refine your instructions" or the "re-generate" button.

Additionally, teachers recognized that the AI behind the slide generation was sophisticated enough to produce images besides written content. This was highly appreciated by them.

Summary

Creating slides on Curipod was easy and provided high-quality content with images and interactive elements. However, teachers wished to see clearer instructions for setting the language and handling previews of slides.

6 things to pay attention to in AI education tools

Based on the user tests, teacher expectations, and common feedback they provided while trying the above-mentioned tools, we collected six recommendations that designers can pay attention to while designing AI-driven tools to help in lesson planning and/or slideshow generation.

1. Let teachers have promptless interactions too

Teachers found it easier to provide general inputs to the AI tool, such as the grade level and subject they teach, from a drop-down menu instead of writing a prompt. All tools we tested here could do some form of promptless interactions.

A good example of this is the “enhance” feature on Eduaide.ai. Here, it enhances the text entered at the “topics and keyword(s)” text box and formats it into a prompt.

2. Onboard your users

Teachers indicated they would need to learn about the tools and be trained on how to effectively use the AI system. For example, suggesting tutorials and quick pop-up tips would be helpful.

A good example of this is the “exemplar” button on Magic School AI. Here, once this button is clicked on, it gives an example of how much information each section would ideally need to create a lesson plan.

3. Let teachers refine the output

Teachers wanted to find ways to fix mistakes and improve the quality of AI-generated content. They were interested in options like editing and transforming the content. They also wanted to see if they could control the regeneration process by giving specific instructions, rather than just pressing a "re-generate" button and hoping to see what they’d expect.

4. Improve AI's memory

Teachers wanted to teach the AI more about themselves, including the subject they teach and the language they use in class.

User profiles can be a good solution for this: this is a good way to teach the AI system about the user. Capture the user’s expectations, behaviors, and preferences to improve the AI system’s interactions with them. In this way, users can teach the AI about themselves in order to receive more personalized responses.

5. Provide transparency

Teachers expected AI tools to show why or how a particular output was generated. They wished to see the reference of source materials (such as website links) that were used to generate it.

6. Let teachers compare different versions of the output

Teachers were looking for ways to compare their previous output to their re-generated output. With this, they wanted to see which performed better. Accordingly, it was important they would not lose their previous output once they received a new re-generated output.

By paying attention to these aspects, designers can make sure that we will be able to provide tools teachers can use in their day-to-day work.

Takeaways

This in-house project about AI-driven educational tools with teachers revealed significant insights. Teachers recognize the potential of AI tools like Magic School AI, Eduaide.ai, and Curipod. They can see their value in reducing workloads and offering valuable content.

However, they also express concerns about data and job security. Moreover, they highlighted the need for more intuitive interfaces and functionalities. Despite these challenges, AI tools show promise in enhancing educational practices. Especially if they are designed with teachers' needs in mind.

And what do teachers want? An easy-to-use tool, which gives them guidance and the ability to edit the output they get. Also, they prefer transparency and would see all the sources of the materials. They would like to have the ability to keep all the generated material and compare them with each other, too.

By focusing on intuitive design, transparency, and customization, AI-driven educational tools could be integrated into teachers' daily routines and revolutionize education.

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