Hype, Help, or Harm? Evaluating AI-Generated Lesson Plans for Civics, Government, and History Learning

• In Event: Generative AI in Education: From Hype to Evidence-Based Practice

Abstract

Seemingly overnight, generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) technologies have introduced new dimensions to how teachers plan lessons for students. With a simple prompt, like “create a lesson plan about the Declaration of Independence,” GenAI chatbots can instantly produce a full-class lesson plan. With increasingly more K-12 teachers turning to GenAI tools for lesson planning, we sought to examine what kind of lesson plans GenAI tools create for civic and government learning. Analysis of 311 AI-generated lesson plans – featuring 2,230 activities – for the Massachusetts Grade 8 Civics standards revealed that if teachers uncritically utilize these AI-generated lesson plans, they will find themselves reproducing homogenized, generalized, regularized, monocultural learning experiences for students that do not promote higher-order critical and creative thinking.

Authors

• Torrey Trust, University of Massachusetts - Amherst

• Chenyang Xu, University of Massachusetts - Amherst

• Robert Maloy, University of Massachusetts - Amherst

• Kael Pelletier, University of Massachusetts - Amherst