USF researcher helping K-12 educators incorporate AI in the classroom

By Matthew Cimitile, University Communications and Marketing

A new online platform featuring more than 640 tools seeks to help educators incorporate artificial intelligence (AI) in the classroom to enhance learning.

Created by USF St. Petersburg Education Professor Zafer Unal, TeacherServer provides free AI tools to assist planning, assessment, preparation, research and more. There are currently more than 61,000 users of the site, who are primarily K-12 teachers and college faculty members.

The development of the platform came from a simple question Unal and fellow researchers were interested to know: how are educators currently using generative AI in the classroom? They assumed many were resistant to use the emerging technology, fearing it would eventually lead to job losses.

A survey they conducted of 140 K-12 teachers from Florida and Georgia showed something very different: teachers were already using AI to improve their teaching methods and streamline work.

"Overall, AI is helping teachers in many areas, from language learning and assessments to writing support, presentation skills, grading and lesson planning," Unal said.

Though this group of educators were using AI and optimistic about its potential to improve student learning, they were using it mostly before and after class to help with presentations or grading. They weren't incorporating it directly in the classroom due to concerns around data privacy with students and a lack of official training with the emerging technology.

"Based on that feedback, I thought '"Well, I have a computer science and education background, let's see what I could make to address that issue,'" Unal said.

Using survey feedback, he spent several months coding to create dozens of AI generative tools that teachers said would be useful in the classroom and make them more effective educators. Each tool was installed on a local server and instructed not to collect data, addressing privacy and security concerns by ensuring no data would be sent to the cloud.

While developing tools for K-12 teachers, Unal began receiving requests from colleagues about expanding the platform to include AI resources for college faculty.

So, he developed a dedicated section for faculty and researchers, with a focus on finding research topics, formulating research questions, selecting appropriate data collection and analysis methods, and more. Notably, this section offers a research simulator tool to refine and prepare research designs before actual implementation.

Unal and the team then designed a two-day professional development workshop embedded into the online platform - featuring online modules and instructional videos - to provide training on these generative AI tools.

Over the summer, the College of Education on the St. Petersburg campus also hosted professional learning workshops with educators, program directors and administrators from K-12 school districts in and around Tampa Bay. An aspect of these workshops introduced TeacherServer.

"They were amazed by the platform and pretty quickly saw how applicable it would be for teaching their subject area in the classroom, for things such as generating in-class activities quickly," said Richard Rho, program director of educational technology labs at USF St. Petersburg who led these workshops. "They were exposed to a lot of different technologies in these workshops, but it was this specific platform that was the most relevant for their profession."

Both the virtual and in-person workshops gave a basic introduction to AI and machine learning as well as ethical AI practices. They also covered more advanced training on integrating AI into curriculum and using technology to enhance lesson plans or improve outcomes.

"AI will transform how we learn, and the earlier we adopt in the classroom, the earlier students get that exposure and understand how to use it properly," Rho added. "For educators, it provides an expert system that can access incredible amounts of information, which can be leveraged to help our students deepen learning experiences and truly comprehend subject matters."

With the overwhelming response so far, Unal is applying for grants to fund a bigger server to host and expand the online platform. He is also developing additional tools to be added to the platform for high school and college students interested in pursuing teaching as a career. The goal is to assist even more educators in incorporating AI tools into the classroom.

"I've been really fascinated with how AI technology is being used so far and how it can best be used in a learning environment," said Unal. "I see AI as another tool like the calculator or the computer, and I hope by providing this platform it allows teachers to get more comfortable with this technology and use tools that really advance education."

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