This podcast is no longer called The Workshop Teacher Podcast. I'm changing the name of the podcast to The Empower Students Now Podcast! Listen to this episode to find out why.

It's about time for teachers to start their opinion, persuasive, or argumentative writing units (depending on the grade you teach). Most teachers realize that sample sentences and essays are an important component of any writing unit. But, one of the hardest parts about teaching this type of writing is finding writing samples that are age appropriate.

It's easy to look on websites of popular newspaper outlets and find an opinion piece, opinion polls, and someone's personal opinion shared via an editorial. The problem is these newspapers have paywalls set up, limiting access. Also, the writing is written at the high school level and much too complex for say, fifth graders. Plus tools like Newsela and CommonLit require payment.

But, I'm here to shout from the rooftops that finding a variety of writing samples is easier than ever with a new tool called Chat GPT and right now it's completely free, but it might not be for long!

I recently published a three-part series about how Chat GPT, and future iterations of this tool, are going to have a significant impact on the way we teach.

This tool is striking fear in the hearts of teachers worried about plagiarism. But, getting stuck in fear is a mistake!

English teachers need to take advantage of its ability to generate sentence examples, opinion questions, persuasive writing prompts, and more. Teachers can use this tool to enhance their teaching and save time, and I'm going to prove it to you right here, right now.

The best way to handle new technology being introduced to the education world is to investigate the tools for ourselves, with an open mind, rather than getting caught up in fear and overwhelm. I know this is hard to do, believe me, I'm a fairly neurotic, anxious person. But, as an English teacher, it is our job to teach students how to utilize critical thinking, be open minded, and organize all the information coming at us in a cohesive manner.

It's our job to model this kind of behavior.

Yes, our initial feelings may be that of fear and overwhelm and even defeat. Many teachers are feeling like their jobs are going to be replaced by machine learning and a chat interface. In my opinion though this new chatbot won't ever replace the importance of a human being in the classroom or the beauty and creativity that comes from human language.

Check out this three part series below:

Part 1: What are some of the possible impacts of AI tools like Chat GPT on teachers and students (please tell me something positive!)?

Part 2: How do I prevent cheating and plagiarism when tools like this exist?

Part 3: How do I talk to my students about Chat GPT?

I hope these episodes help you begin to think about how these tools can change the landscape of education for the better.

Now that students have easy access to artificial intelligence chatbots like Chat GPT, teachers are pondering how to prevent students from using these tools to do their work for them. Cheating seems to be easier than ever these days. English language arts teachers are especially panicked. When I started playing with Chat GPT I felt a mixture of excitement and fear.

I was excited about the potential to improve my writing with feedback from artificial intelligence, to have a tool for getting ideas for blog posts, and to be able to produce writing samples for students. I also toyed with having it write blog posts for me, knowing full well I would absolutely never copy and paste what it produced and call it mine. It lacks my voice and personality.

The prospect made my head spin. I wracked my brain and the internet searching for ways to prevent plagiarism and cheating but also harness the tool to support students without hindering their thinking and learning.

I decided I needed to write a series of blog posts on this topic to try and grapple with the complexities of this new technology. Each part attempts to answer essential questions teachers are asking about artificial intelligence tools like Chat GPT.

Here are the questions I’m attempting to answer with this series:

Part 1: 7 Ways Chat GPT Will Impact Education…Positively.

Part 2: How do I prevent cheating/plagiarism when tools like this exist?

Part 3: How do I talk to my students about Chat GPT?

I hope these episodes help you begin to think about how these tools can change the landscape of education for the better.

I believe the topic of AI tools and how they impact education is incredibly important. So important in fact that I’ve decided to dedicate the next series of episodes to helping teachers grapple with these new and fast moving technological developments.

In this series I’ll discuss three essential questions teachers are asking about AI tools like Chat GPT. I’ll also attempt to answer these questions to the best of my abilities using the extensive research I’ve done about AI tools over the last couple of months. Here’s a break down of the blog posts that are to come:

Part 1: What are some of the possible impacts of AI tools like Chat GPT on teachers and students (please tell me something positive!)?

Part 2: How do I prevent cheating and plagiarism when tools like this exist?

Part 3: How do I talk to my students about Chat GPT?

I hope these episodes help you begin to think about how these tools can change the landscape of education for the better.

Sign Up for the Free Webinar 3 Steps to Finally Getting Students Consistently Reading and Writing Independently: https://www.workshopteacherschool.com/reading-and-writing-independence-webinar

Every classroom has struggling writers. There are many reasons young writers struggle during our writing units.

They may feel overwhelmed, be uninterested, have writing skill deficits because of past experiences with writing, or have learning differences.

Often these struggling writers tend to be writing far below grade level and their writing abilities cause many unforeseen problems throughout their school careers. For struggling writers, any writing assignment no matter how small or big can cause anxiety, acting out, off-task behavior, or all of the above.

In middle and especially high school, the struggle with writing becomes even more problematic as expectations increase. In order to avoid the struggle, these students may get other students off task. Or they may ask for help incessantly or suffer in embarrassed silence.

For all of these reasons and more, it's incredibly important for writing teachers focus on building confidence in these writers. To do that we must have a toolbox of strategies they can pull from to support these struggling writers.

The good news is that this episode post has twenty-eight essential tools you can utilize no matter what type of struggling writers you have and no matter how their struggles show up in your classroom.

https://amandawritenow.com/rethinking-reading-assessment-with-equity-in-mind/

I wrote this six part equity series to better understand the inequities surrounding the ways in which we teach and assess reading and writing skills in the United States. I wanted to know more. Not only that, I wanted to find practical solutions for the problems all teachers (not just English teachers) face, such as:

A lack of understanding about how to teach reading and writing effectively and with equity in mind

The immense challenge of helping 30+ students with many differing needs

Students receiving low grades and over again on assessments, throughout the entire school year

Systemic racism and how it all plays out within our educational institutions

After writing the six parts in this series (they are all linked below), I’ve discovered that these topics are fraught with a lot of controversy and many historically significant events that have had massive ripple effects.

My hope is that by synthesizing all the information, I can help busy teachers make informed decisions in their classrooms when it comes to choosing the most impactful and equitable ways to teach.

In this episode I challenge some of the inequitable grading practices that pervade our school systems. I also lay out a step-by-step solution to some of the issues we face when it comes to grading writing.

In this episode, Amanda discusses three problematic issues when it comes to unit planning. She proposes solutions to these problems too! Take a listen to discover the problems and solutions. This part four of a six-part series all about rethinking workshop practices with equity in mind.

https://amandawritenow.com/rethinking-conferencing-with-equity-in-mind/

We know conferring is a vital component of promoting equity in our classroom because doing so provides students with opportunities to advocate for themselves, voice their needs, and get support from the teacher. We know conferencing is important.

But, how do we overcome all the problematic issues we as teachers face when trying to conference with our students? What about the challenges of conferencing that everyday teachers face? What is a teacher to do when it just doesn’t seem to work the way all the workshop gurus say it will? And most important of all…how can we use conferencing practices successfully, to promote equity in our classrooms? This episode outlines a five-step process for rethinking conferencing with equity in mind!