4 AI Prompts for Teaching Festivals in Primary School
For those of you working in Educate Together schools, teaching belief systems has changed in the updated Learn Together curriculum, with a Conceptual Enquiry approach. Sometimes with a particular approach, it can be helpful to have a formula to teach a topic, especially when the format for teaching belief systems is fairly similar. It can be helpful to have a formula for planning because it makes it easy to plan. Moreover, by using AI tools you can come up with reasonably good lessons.
While December festivals will generally be easier to plan as the concept is likely to be something to do with light, sometimes it isn’t so obvious. A useful prompt might spark some good concepts:
I am covering the festival of FESTIVAL with a group of AGE year olds using the conceptual enquiry approach. Can you offer a list of concepts that would work well with the festival?
Once you pick a concept, this second prompt might be helpful:
I am teaching a group of AGE year olds using the concept of CONCEPT through the conceptual enquiry approach. I need to reference the festival of FESTIVAL which incorporates the concept. I need NUMBER lessons (which should incorporate a PICK A SUBJECT OR MORE TO INTEGRATE activity.) Each lesson is about NUMBER minutes long. It’s important that the lesson does not celebrate the festival of FESTIVAL or provide any faith formation. Also, for context I am based in Ireland and need to avoid Christonormativity. However, it is important that the children learn about the story of the festival as part of the lessons.
It is likely you will get a reasonably good lesson plan that incorporates all of the elements of a decent set of lessons that you can adapt. I often find that I might not have a story about the festival and often stories one finds online aren’t objective or they come from a Christonormative viewpoint. For example, looking at Eid through a Christian lens. I find a simple AI prompt can get you a pretty good narrative. This prompt may help though I’ll admit it might need a bit of working on as it’s a little awkwardly put.
Can you write a story suitable for AGE year olds about the story of FESTIVAL? It should be NUMBER words long. The story should not be told from a factual point of view. It should be: A FIRST PERSON ACCOUNT FROM A AGE YEAR OLD’S MARKING OF THE FESTIVAL TO INCLUDE A NUMBER OF SYMBOLS/PRINCIPLES OF THE FESTIVAL / A THIRD PERSON ACCOUNT OF THE STORY OF THE FESTIVAL.
You can, of course, ask AI to integrate the lesson into other subjects as another prompt if you wish. Also remember that what ChatGPT outputs can be biased or incorrect so make sure not to take its output at face value. You can always prompt it further by making comments like: “This story isn’t objective” or “My class need this lesson to be simpler/more complex”
If you aren’t confident yourself, tell ChatGPT! For example:
I am not familiar with this festival and I don’t want to risk being told I am celebrating the festival. Can you look over the lesson again and give me feedback?
This may tweak the lesson slightly or it might affirm that all is good to go.
These steps should ensure you provide a decent conceptual enquiry approach to any belief system’s festival.
I have created a number of units of work using this formula as well as some automation on my AI-sandbox site Mash.plus. They are free to use.
