“I miss seeing my colleagues and having a quick chat between my classes”

is what Lina said after she stopped teaching in person.
If you ask teachers who teach predominantly online they will say that the teachers’ room is something that they miss the most. A safe haven where teachers can come together, exchange ideas, solve problems and help inspire each other.

Team Barlingua set up a digital teachers’ room and it turned out to be an amazing idea!

We love chatting along with a cup of coffee and enjoying some great company and good humour. Our digital teachers’ room is super relaxed, teachers can pop in any time and enjoy a conversation with their colleagues. An individual topic is discussed in each session so that teachers can share their experiences. This week, we spoke about ChatGPT for teaching and learning.

We explored some options and discussed the future of AI in teaching. Here is what we came up with:

🗒 AI is great for correcting texts, but students also need to recognise the importance of checking their own work. For that students need motivation and self-regulation. 

📚 ChatGPT can offer the teacher interesting material and help tailor exercises to students’ needs, however, the content is not always not reliable and needs to be checked. That also takes a lot of time. 

🖊 Students need to “find their own voice” and learn the importance of having their own writing style -> ChatGPT’s texts don’t sound like they come from the person who created them.

👨‍🏫 Good presentation skills can portray a student’s passion for a topic -> that’s something ChatGPT cannot do.

🤹‍♂️ We need to foster human skills like empathy, working in teams, creativity, etc.