NEWS: Trial to reduce teacher workload

As reported by EEF, secondary schools are invited to participate in a trial using ChatGPT, an AI tool, to explore its potential in lessening the workload for teachers, addressing a crucial aspect of staff retention in schools

The trial will find out whether an accessible online guide, designed by Bain & Company’s Social Impact practice and The Hg Foundation, can help teachers make best use of ChatGPT for efficient lesson planning. The toolkit provides technical support to use generative AI to:

• generate activity ideas;
• tailor existing lesson materials to specific groups of children;
• produce clear explanations, step-by-step examples or model examples; and
• create assessment materials, such as practice questions and mock exams.

As part of the evaluation, led by the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER), 58 schools will be randomly assigned to either the ChatGPT group or control group. Those assigned to the delivery group will use ChatGPT in their Key Stage 3 science lesson and resource preparation, supported by the online ChatGPT guide. The control group will not use ChatGPT or any other GenAI tool in any lesson and resource preparation.

In addition to online diary entries and surveys, all participants will also be asked to submit lesson plans to an independent panel of teachers, who will use them to compare and assess the quality of AI-generated lesson resources.

In the past year, there has been a huge increase in the demand for and use of generative AI in schools. But there is currently very little research into its impact in the classroom, and how teachers can use it to support improvements to their practice.

This will be one of the EEF’s first Teacher Choices trials, a new type of evaluation, which aim to help us learn more about the impact of non-programmatical approaches that teachers use in their classrooms.

Secondary schools can sign up to take part in this trial through the EEF website. Those that participate will receive a thank you payment for contributing to the research.

Professor Becky Francis CBE, Chief Executive of the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF), said:

Finding ways to make life easier for hardworking, time-poor teachers has never been more important.

This is an extraordinarily exciting project – one of the first of its kind to look at how generative AI could be used to lighten their significant workload.

There’s already huge anticipation around how this technology could transform teachers’ roles, but the research into its actual impact on practice is – currently – limited.

The findings from this trial will be an important contribution to the evidence base, bringing us closer to understanding how teachers can use AI to their advantage in their classrooms.