Reversing Pedagogical Biases in AI Lesson Plans with AI

We all have different styles and preferences when we create our lesson plans. AI's styles and preferences of course come from it's training data. It is therefore not totally surprising that it would be biased toward more traditional, teacher-led lessons. 

This paper found that MagicSchool and School AI lesson plan generators lesson plans from MagicSchool often included directives such as "Assign the worksheet or a set of problems and ask students to work quietly," and School AI's lesson plans typically limited discussions to brief, teacher-initiated exchanges at the beginning of lessons without opportunities for sustained peer-to-peer dialogue or deeper, student-led inquiry. Similarly, GPT-4’s vanilla model frequently recommended highly structured group activities, like "Students will be divided into small groups" or "Students will be assessed based on their participation," without providing guidance or scaffolding for meaningful student-led discussions or reflective activities. 

But this paper also reported that small tweaks to the AI's prompt could mitigtate these effects. QuestionWell claims that AI could even reverse these effects.

In this tool, the teacher provides the lesson plan they are working with, and the AI transforms it into one that is more student-driven, with a focus on student agency and classroom dialogue toward meaning-making. 

I put in a lesson plan generated by GPT 4-o about the stock market crash. Here's what it gave me:

Revised Lesson Plan: The Stock Market Crash of 1929

Grade Level: 8th Grade
Subject: Social Studies / U.S. History
Topic: The Stock Market Crash of 1929
Time Required: 50 minutes

Standards Alignment:

• Understand the causes and effects of the Great Depression
• Identify key events in U.S. economic history
• Analyze how economic decisions affect individuals and societies

Student-Driven Learning Objectives:

By the end of this lesson, students will have set personal learning goals and will be able to:

• Describe key events leading up to the Stock Market Crash of 1929.
• Explain immediate and long-term effects of the crash on Americans.
• Evaluate how economic decisions and speculation impact financial stability.
• Analyze primary sources to empathize with the human impact of the crash.
• Reflect critically on the importance of financial responsibility and decision-making.

Materials Needed:

• Projector/slides with visual timeline
• Whiteboard and markers
• Handout: "What Happened on Black Tuesday?" (summary + primary source excerpt)
• Reflection journals or notebooks
• Optional: Chromebooks for interactive activities

Lesson Procedures:

1. Warm-Up & Goal Setting (7 minutes)

Prompt on board:
"Imagine everyone around you is talking about a ‘can’t-miss’ investment. You put your savings into it… and suddenly it’s worth nothing. How would you feel? What questions would you have?"

• Students respond individually in reflection journals.
• Students then set one personal learning goal for today's lesson (e.g., "I want to understand why the crash happened," "I want to learn how people felt," or "I want to connect this event to today’s economy").
• Briefly share goals with a partner.

2. Introduction & Contextual Dialogue (8 minutes)

Use a short slide presentation to introduce key concepts:

• Economic boom of the 1920s
• Rise of the stock market
• Buying on margin (borrowing money to invest)
• Speculation

Structured Dialogue (student-led, teacher-facilitated):

• Pose open-ended questions:
  • "Why might people have been attracted to investing in the stock market during the 1920s?"
  • "What risks might they have overlooked?"
• Students discuss in small groups, then share insights with the class.
• Teacher records key vocabulary generated by students: stock, investment, margin, speculation, crash, economy.

3. Main Activity: Student Choice & Source Analysis (20 minutes)

Distribute the "What Happened on Black Tuesday?" handout (summary + primary source excerpt).

Student Choice:
Students select one of the following roles/tasks based on their interests:

• Historian: Annotate and summarize key facts from the primary source.
• Journalist: Write a brief news headline and summary capturing the emotional impact of the crash.
• Personal Perspective: Write a short diary entry or letter from the viewpoint of someone affected by the crash.

Collaborative Meaning-Making:

• Students form small groups (mixed roles) to share their work and discuss guiding questions:
  • "What facts do we learn about the crash from this source?"
  • "How did people feel at the time?"
  • "What surprised you or challenged your thinking?"
• Each group prepares one key insight or question to share with the class.

4. Class Dialogue & Collective Reflection (10 minutes)

Facilitate a student-led class discussion around these prompts:

• "What were the main causes of the crash, according to your analysis?"
• "Who was most affected, and in what ways?"
• "How can understanding this event help us make better financial decisions today?"

Encourage students to respond directly to each other's points, ask clarifying questions, and build collective understanding.

5. Reflective Exit Ticket (5 minutes)

Students revisit their personal learning goal from the beginning of class and respond in their journals:

• "Did I achieve my learning goal today? Why or why not?"
• "What is one new insight I gained from our discussions or activities?"
• "How does today's lesson influence my thinking about money and financial decisions?"

Assessment:

• Formative: Participation in discussions, collaborative meaning-making, and reflective journaling.
• Summative: Self-assessment through reflective exit ticket and peer feedback during group activities.

Extension/Enrichment (Optional - Student Choice):

• Interactive Simulation: Students explore an online stock market simulation to experience market fluctuations firsthand.
• Creative Writing: Students write a fictional diary entry or short story as someone living through the crash.
• Comparative Analysis: Students research and compare the 1929 crash to recent financial downturns (e.g., 2008 recession).

Differentiation:

• For Support: Provide graphic organizers or sentence starters for source analysis and reflective journaling.
• For Challenge: Encourage deeper comparative analysis or independent research into economic concepts and historical parallels.

Summary Table of Changes:

Do you think it was successful?

Try it with your own lesson.

Did it work? What would you change?

References

Chen, B., Cheng, J., Wang, C., & Leung, V. (2025). Pedagogical biases in AI-powered educational tools: The case of lesson plan generators. The Social Innovation Journal. Vol.30 Retrieved from https://osf.io/djmqn/