As a special education teacher in an elementary school in one of the most linguistically diverse cities in the world, I want my content to not only be engaging and fun but also accessible for every student in my class. Fortunately, artificial intelligence software can help. And what used to take me hours, AI software can do in seconds!

Diffit for Teachers

Diffit for Teachers is an AI-powered software that is making my classroom fundamentally more inclusive. Teachers can make a free account.

Text in the curriculum has usually been written to reach the “typical learner,” and modifying it to make it accessible for my students can be a complex challenge. Diffit makes it possible to take a single text from the curriculum and alter it to meet the needs of all learners, including students with disabilities and English language learners.

It’s important to note that this tool is not a substitute for teaching children how to read. Students who are not reading at grade level must be receiving reading instruction and interventions at the appropriate level of intensity.

First, I select a text from an upcoming lesson and upload it to Diffit’s platform. From there, Diffit can alter the reading level of a text, with a range from 2nd grade to 11th grade, which allows all readers to access the same content regardless of reading level.

Diffit can also translate a text into 70 different languages. I have found that using translation strategically can support the teaching of content to English language learners at the entering and emerging levels. These students can have a copy of a text in English side by side with a copy in their native language.

Diffit has another helpful feature: It can suggest questions and resources that can be used alongside a given text, supplementing activities from the curriculum that may be stale or ineffective.

ChatGPT

In addition to using texts from the curriculum, I love writing my own stories designed to appeal to my particular students. Unfortunately, as my life has gotten busier, I have written fewer and fewer stories. Enter ChatGPT, a popular free AI software that’s easy to use.

By writing a simple prompt into ChatGPT’s chat function, I can generate a good story to use with my students. For example, I recently used the following prompt to create a story around the week’s vocabulary words: “Write a story at a 3rd-grade reading level. It should be about 10 sentences long. It must include the words ambition, auction, current, intelligent and volunteer.”

The story that ChatGPT produced wasn’t perfect, but it was funny, and it gave me a great jumping-off point to help my students learn their vocabulary words in a natural and engaging way.

While there are no silver bullets in teaching, AI-powered software takes away some of the burden of planning engaging lessons that accommodate the needs of all learners. I encourage all educators to try it!

Benjamin Jones, a Big Apple Award winner, is a special education teacher at PS 449 in the Bronx.