Despite AI’s promise in lesson planning, a national award-winning study from JMU exposes how preservice teachers often over-rely on tools like ChatGPT, overlooking the critical analysis needed for quality math education.
Amanda Gantt Sawyer and Marcus Wolfe, professors in JMU's College of Education, were recently honored with the 2025 National Technology Leadership Initiative (NTLI) Fellowship, awarded by the Association of Mathematics Teacher Educators. Their award-winning paper, "Exploring Preservice Teachers' Adaptations of ChatGPT Created Mathematics Curricula: Discovering Overconfidence", explored how future teachers, also known as preservice teachers, use AI tools such as ChatGPT to create and adapt math lessons.
University Communications spoke with Sawyer and Wolfe to learn more about their findings and what it means for students and educators alike.
What prompted you to study AI in education?
With the rise of online tools like Teachers Pay Teachers and now ChatGPT, we noticed students were relying more and more on AI-generated resources that did not challenge them to think deeply to plan curriculum. When ChatGPT came along in 2022, we saw this problem increase further. Individuals were now able to create their mathematics resources by just prompting the tool. However, we weren't sure how reliable those lessons created by AI were, and because critical thinking is essential in teaching, we started this research.
Can you describe your research?
We created a unit to help students learn how to critically evaluate AI-generated teaching materials. For the study, we looked at how future teachers adapted the curricula created by ChatGPT. We found that 64% of the adapted lessons were only changed for visual appeal without any deeper analyzation of the content. This result validated our concern and highlighted the need to teach future teachers how to think more critically about using AI tools in the classroom.
What was the most surprising finding from your study?
Even though students had been taught strategies to evaluate resources, we saw that many of them only made surface-level changes without questioning the content and whether it was appropriate for elementary learners. It was eye-opening to see how confident students were in ChatGPT's responses, even when the material was not fully appropriate.
It seems like AI is going to be a part of our lives moving forward, for better or for worse. How can teachers efficiently integrate AI?
Teachers can integrate AI efficiently by first helping students understand its limitations. It's important to show future educators that AI-generated content can often be biased or inaccurate, even if it sounds correct.
Teachers should also encourage students to be critical and carefully analyze AI-created information instead of blindly trusting it. AI can be a useful tool if preservice teachers are taught to correctly utilize it and continue to develop strong teaching skills alongside it.
How do awards like this impact you as a teacher?
Receiving this award has been meaningful for both of us. For Dr. Wolfe, early in his career, the recognition is encouraging and helps him see new ways to grow and contribute to the field. For Dr. Sawyer, who began her journey at JMU in 2014, this award is an honor that recognizes her commitment to the mathematics education field.
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