Exploring uses of GenAI in teaching is a sensible response to a new technology or IT product. Generic chatbots (ChatGPT, Copilot, Claude, Gemini) are, as you might expect, generic and bland with their outputs. If you are already expert in something, you are unlikely to find much new in that area, but they can be useful for helping you think about something less familiar.
- For instance, prompts like "I am teaching a group of second year history students next week. It's the third session of the year and they are already doing less reading than I would like. What activities could I plan to encourage them to read more?" will definitely result in a list of ideas*, one or two of which might be usable in your context (and you can make the question more specific, of course).
- Class planning is an effective use of GenAI, because the Large Language Models (LLMs) have been trained on so many actual plans (In order to keep to the topic of the question, I am not discussing here the ethics of the developers using these without copyright permission, but that is a genuine issue to be aware of).
- Generating talking points from discussions and class notes is definitely a possible use - but you need to work out how to collate what you want the tools to look at. If the dicussions and notes are in Teams and integrated with your employer's systems, it's pretty easy to use Copilot for this, but it is usually forbidden and possibly illegal (GDPR, AI Act) to give any unofficial systems (i.e. systems which are not procured (upphandlade in Swedish) your login details for your work materials. So you'll need to paste a summary into the GenAI product if this is your situation, with due regard for whether there is personal information in there which you must not share with a GenAI product which isn't approved. (sorry to be so definitive about this area, but it is important).
- Some products CAN format things for direct import into Canvas or other VLE/LMS systems, but I haven't tested them directly.
- Copilot for Microsoft 365 (the paid version of Copilot) can probably block out times in your calendar if you give it permission, which seems useful, and it's also good for finding free times and rooms if you regularly book meetings with colleagues who use Outlook (they don't need to use the paid version themselves).
Sorry for the self-publicity, but I cowrote a book about exploring GenAI in higher education, which might be useful. It's free to download. As Jan-Fredrik says in another reply, some of the things you think of may turn out to be gimmicky and not very useful (I would also never allow GenAI to write my emails!) - but how do you know until you try?
*This is making this post long, but here is the output I got from a commonly used chatbot to the question above. From a pedagogic perspective, I think it's pretty good advice. It's inclusive and encouraging, which I appreciate, and the ideas are actionable. I can't comment on it from a subject perspective as I'm not a historian!
"Since it’s only the third session, I’d focus less on “checking whether they read” and more on making the reading visibly necessary for participating well in class. Students quickly notice whether preparation actually changes what they can do in the room.
A few activities work especially well for second-year history students:
- Opening evidence challenge. Put 2–3 quotations, claims, or pieces of evidence from the assigned reading on the board. In pairs, students identify the author’s argument, context, assumptions, or significance. Those who read have an immediate advantage, but students who did not are still able to join in and see what they missed.
- Reading roles. Before class, assign small groups different responsibilities: one tracks the central argument, one identifies important evidence, one finds a weakness or unanswered question, and one connects the reading to an earlier topic. In class, reshuffle them so each group needs all four contributions.
- “Most important paragraph” discussion. Ask everyone to choose the paragraph or short passage they think is most important and be ready to defend the choice. This encourages purposeful reading rather than passive completion.
- Mini source trial. Give them a historical claim related to the reading and have teams argue whether the assigned text supports, complicates, or undermines it. Require each contribution to point to a specific page or passage. That makes close reading socially useful.
- Student-generated questions. Require each student to bring one genuine question produced by the reading—not a comprehension question with an obvious answer. Groups choose their strongest question and use it to structure discussion. You can occasionally use one of these questions later in an essay prompt or seminar, which signals that their preparation matters.
- Jigsaw with partial information. Give different groups different sections, sources, or historians, then have them teach one another. This works particularly well if the assigned reading contains competing interpretations. Nobody can understand the whole problem without contributions from others.
- Five-minute reading write. At the start, give a prompt such as: “What is the author trying to persuade us of, and what is their strongest evidence?” Let them use their annotated reading but not search online. Keep it low-stakes. You can skim these periodically rather than grading every one.
- Prediction before lecture. Ask students, based on the reading, to predict how historians might explain a particular event or development. Then teach the material and revisit their predictions. This makes reading feel like preparation for intellectual problem-solving rather than homework preceding a lecture.
For your next session specifically, I’d combine three of these rather than introducing an elaborate new system. Start with a 5-minute passage/evidence task, spend perhaps 20 minutes on a small-group activity that requires page references, and finish by asking students to write one question that the reading leaves unresolved. That creates a simple message very early in the year: the reading is the raw material of the class.
I would also avoid making every reading task punitive. If non-readers simply lose marks repeatedly, some will disengage further. A stronger pattern is to make reading produce immediate benefits: they speak more confidently, understand the activity faster, and have more influence over the discussion. Once that classroom norm is established, a modest preparation grade or occasional reading quiz can reinforce it."
