Today KQED released a new KQED Teach course that helps teachers build on their existing expertise to integrate Generative AI (GenAI) into student learning. Students are already using GenAI tools like chatGPT and Gemini, but they are often doing so in a way that undermines rather than enhances their learning. The new course Partner with GenAI to Elevate Authentic Student Voice, published on KQED Teach, a free platform for professional development, teaches best practices and practical tips for how to coach students to use GenAI responsibly, as a tool to support — rather than replace — critical thinking, and creativity.
“As a public media station committed to elevating diverse youth voices, we feel we have a unique perspective to offer teachers in this moment,” says Michelle Parker, KQED Executive Director of Education. “Our education team’s backgrounds include not just experience in classroom teaching, but also in journalism and media making. We look at GenAI as a real world challenge that students need to learn to navigate. The best way to assist them is to help their teachers feel more confident in providing meaningful guidelines and asking the right questions.”
The GenAI course was previewed this winter in a series of virtual workshops. One workshop participant shared, “I love being able to learn ways to coach students in constructive ways to use a tool that will undoubtedly be important in their future.”
Course participants learn by doing, through customizing and testing a ChatGPT prompt so that it gives the right level of support and feedback to their students. Another teacher who previewed the course said, “I am so glad to learn that you can ‘talk’ to the AI [bot] and give it specifics to look for and guidelines. I have been aware that you could ask it nearly anything, but knowing that you could ‘teach’ it is really helpful.”
Another core component of the course is diving into KQED’s GenAI Guidelines for student media creators. Designed for use with the KQED Youth Media Challenge, a program that invites middle and high school students to share how they see their world, themselves and their future via multimedia making assignments. These guidelines provide best practices for the use of GenAI in the classroom, and practical tips for how to apply them in the classroom.