We’re delighted to share this month’s Teacher Spotlight with you!
Kizzy Coll-Cats is a senior AAC teacher who works for CandLE (Communication and Learning Enterprise), a not-for-profit organisation that specialises in the education news of students who rely on AAC (Augmentative and Alternative Communication).
She teaches from preschool to age 25 and has been a teacher for 16 years.
What’s your favourite part about being a teacher?
Many of the students I teach are used to being underestimated intellectually – seeing students reach their true potential through the right support is my favourite part of being a teacher.
What’s the most interesting thing about using AI in your teaching?
“The resources I can make! I can make a larger range of more personalised resources than I could without TeachMateAI. All our lessons are bespoke anyway, but TeachMateAI allows me to make it even more personalised.”
Were you apprehensive about using AI in your teaching?
“Yes – I think there’s a lot of negative press about AI and how it’s used. My first AI experience was using Chat GPT – I didn’t like it as I was wasting a lot of time editing and tweaking to get what I was looking for. As TeachMateAI is designed FOR teachers, the tone is right and the little videos for each tool are so helpful. It’s quick, it acknowledges our time limitations and it’s quite instinctive. Becoming part of the Facebook group alleviated my hesitancy because I saw it as a professional development tool and it put my mind at ease.”
What advice would you give to someone using AI and TeachMateAi in their teaching?
“Pick one thing and start there. Think of the one lesson that takes you the most time, go to the resource that will help you the most and play around with it and build your confidence. Don’t try to use everything at once!”
What challenges have you faced so far with using AI in your teaching?
“Every lesson that I teach is bespoke to the student and we have bespoke courses as well – the national curriculum levels aren’t relevant so I have to make sure the info I put into TeachMateAI is done in a way that the AI can identify what my aims are.”
How long have you been using TeachMate AI?
“I have used it since October 2023 – I started it to help with the annual review reports I had due which is extremely labour-intensive.”
What’s your favourite tool (or tools!) and why?
“I have four annual review reports to write and they take on average 5-7 hours to write a 10-16 page document. I used the Help Me Write tool to give me a starting point to write my report and I would adjust the paragraphs to make it more personable. This helped me to eat, walk the dog and not stay up all night!
The Comprehension Generator tool is my absolute favourite tool – many of our students are older but the books that they can access are much younger. I’ve been able to find the right level of the text and personalise it to get them excited and engaged with the reading to work on comprehension.
I also use the social story experience tool – it’s great for things like explaining upcoming hospital appointments and we create symbolised images to go alongside. “
Thank you so much Kizzy. If you’d like to be featured in our Teacher Spotlight email us at team@teachmateai.com