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Session 3. AI-Made Differentiated Materials, Checked by You
Objective. Produce a three-route pack from a textbook passage with an AI tool (or by hand), check it with a five-point routine within 15 minutes, log the faults found and prepare the no-AI fallback.
A tool that writes three versions of a worksheet in one minute is tempting when you teach 35 pupils and have an evening of marking. The danger is that a confident-looking sheet may contain a wrong key, a shifted goal or a label that hurts a child. This session shows how to get real help from such a tool while the teacher keeps control: what to put in, what to check in what order, how to record what you find, and what to do on the day when nothing works.
Key ideas
From one source to a three-route pack
- Start with your goal, your final question and a short textbook passage, not with the tool's ideas. Describe the three groups by what they need (a picture and a worked step; the core task; a harder 'what if'), never by names or marks.
- Prompt writing basics are in course 8.7. For scale, add what matters when 35 pupils use the sheet: time per route (about 25 minutes), print on one sheet, big font, plain words, answer key on a separate page.
The checking budget: 15 minutes
- Check in this order. 1 Goal: do all routes end in the same final question? 2 Facts and key: solve every item yourself. 3 Level: is Route 1 supported, not just shorter, and Route 3 truly harder? 4 Language: do terms match the textbook, are sentences short? 5 Fairness: no labels, no stereotypes, no need for a device or money at home.
- Fifteen minutes for a pack is a budget, not a promise. If two rounds of fixing still leave faults, drop the draft and build from textbook exercises by hand.
Faults that appear again and again
- The easier route quietly changes the goal; the harder route only has bigger numbers; the answer key has an arithmetic or local-fact error; the question asks for the wrong level (for example a Grade 5 sheet asking for a chemical equation).
- Translated wording can drift from the textbook's terms in Uzbek or Russian. Sheets may carry labels such as 'for weak pupils'. Some tasks assume home internet. Use route numbers or colours, and change every fault you find.
Log it, label it, keep the fallback
- Keep a checking log: date, source passage, faults found by type (goal, fact, level, wording, fairness), minutes spent. After ten packs the log tells you where the tool is weak and how much time you really save.
- Offline fallback, ready in 10 minutes: pick three sets of textbook exercises (support, core, challenge) and write them as three boxes on the board or on hand-written route cards. Nobody should depend on a connection or a printer.
The five-point check, in order
Why the teacher's check is not optional
Generative AI tools produce text that sounds fluent whether it is right or wrong. They do not know your standard, your textbook edition or your class, and they can make arithmetic mistakes, invent details or use terms that differ from the ones in your pupils' books. UNESCO's guidance on generative AI in education stresses a human-centred approach in which teachers remain responsible for what reaches learners.
The practical consequence is a routine, not a feeling. A five-point order (goal, facts and key, level, language, fairness) keeps the check short because it puts the most damaging faults first. Solving every item yourself catches key errors that reading never will. Reading the Uzbek or Russian text aloud catches awkward or off-textbook wording. Asking 'would I be comfortable if this label were on my own child's sheet?' catches unfair labels.
Making the check affordable at scale
A busy teacher will not keep up a check that takes an hour. Give yourself a budget, such as 15 minutes for one three-route pack, and keep a log with three columns: type of fault, how many, minutes spent. After a few weeks you will know the weak points of the tool and of your own prompts, and you can change the prompt so that the usual faults do not appear: state the final question, ask for no labels, set the time per route.
Pair with a colleague: each checks one route of the other's pack. A second reader often sees faults that the author cannot. Finally, keep the fallback ready. If after two rounds of fixing the pack is still unreliable, drop it and write three boxes from the textbook exercises.
Examples from the classroom
Cotton and the wrong month
Scene. Aziz in Fergana asks an AI tool for a Grade 6 reading passage on the cotton harvest at three reading levels. While reading, he sees that one version says the harvest begins in spring. He knows picking happens in autumn in his region. He corrects the sentence in all three versions, adds the fault to his log as 'fact' and rereads the rest slowly.
Insight. Local knowledge is the teacher's strongest checking tool, and one fault is a sign to read everything again.
No tool, same lesson
Scene. Dilnoza in a rural school has no internet in the evenings. For tomorrow's fractions lesson she picks from the textbook three easy exercises with pictures, the three core exercises and one open exercise, and writes them in three boxes on the board. It takes her twelve minutes. Pupils copy only their route's box and all answer the same exit question.
Insight. A good pack is built on the goal and the final question, which any teacher can supply without a tool.
A second pair of eyes
Scene. Malika and Jasur in Tashkent swap Route 2 of their worksheets. Jasur finds that Malika's key gives 3.5 where the correct answer is 3.25. Malika finds that Jasur's Russian text uses a word for 'numerator' that the textbook does not. Both fix the faults in five minutes and note them in their logs.
Insight. A second reader finds faults the author misses, and the pair routine costs only a few minutes.
Common pitfalls
- Reading the pack for style but not solving the items, so key errors reach the printed sheet.
- Pasting pupils' names or real work into the tool to get 'personal' versions.
- Accepting level labels such as 'weak' or 'strong' in titles instead of route numbers or colours.
- Building a pack that needs a printer or a connection on the lesson day, with no fallback.
Find the Faults in a Three-Route Pack
- Open the Activity Kit: the prompt that was used and the AI-made pack (Grade 5 science, 'Plants and light'). In pairs, read the prompt and note two things it left out (10 min).
- Pairs (25 min): apply the five-point check to the pack. Mark each fault with a code (G goal, F fact or key, L level, W wording, E fairness) and write the fix. Time yourselves.
- Whole group (10 min): compare the faults found. Decide for this pack: fix, replace or drop? Which fault would a busy teacher most easily miss?
- Second short activity (15 min): write your own prompt for next week's topic using the prompt planner (goal, final question, three routes, time, format, what to leave out). Swap with a partner, who adds one constraint. Then list the three textbook exercise sets for your offline fallback.
- Alone (10 min): write your school-based task from the Kit and name the lesson for which you will make your pack.
Your facilitator will guide you through this activity in the session.
Questions to discuss
- How many faults did you find in the time budget? Which type was most common?
- Which fault would have reached pupils if you had only skimmed the pack?
- When would you drop the AI draft and use the textbook fallback?
Reflect
- What do you now check in AI output that you would have skipped before?
- What is the fault you are most likely to miss when tired, and how will you catch it?
- Who in your school could be a second pair of eyes for a pack?
Try it tomorrow
- Write a prompt for next week's topic that states the goal, a shared final question, time per route and 'no labels'.
- Check the result in the five-point order, time yourself and write down the faults by type.
- Prepare the textbook-based fallback for the same lesson in under ten minutes and keep it in your folder.
Further reading and links
The tool drafts, you decide: protect the goal, solve every item, check level, wording and fairness, log what you find, and always hold a textbook fallback.