Sign up for Chalkbeat’s free weekly newsletter to keep up with how education is changing across the U.S.The poster depicting famous inventions by Black figures throughout history should show the invention George Crum is widely credited with: the potato chip. Instead, the picture labeled with Crum’s name shows a firefighter in an ominous gas mask next to a stop light. There are no potato chips to be found.But there is a typo-ridden description of Crum that reads: “Created the popular crispy snack when a customer is polated thinner fried potatees.”For $4, teachers can have the privilege of downloading that poster, a slideshow about Black inventors, and a seven-minute video from Teachers Pay Teachers, a marketplace for teachers to find lesson plans, classroom decor, activities, and more. The site, which rebranded as TPT in 2022, is education’s answer to Etsy.For $1.99, they could also download an alphabet coloring worksheet missing the letter F. And for just $1.50, they could get a poster of U.S. presidents that uses an asteroid hurtling toward anti-slavery demonstrators to illustrate the idea that Martin Van Buren was resilient.Teachers Pay Teachers is a platform used by 85% of pre-K-12 educators in the U.S., its parent company said in a 2023 press release. It has long been controversial, with some educators and curriculum developers casting doubt on the quality of resources up for sale. But it inspired trust in other teachers due to the premise baked into its name. Now that trust is eroding, and it’s because of something educators have noticed while shopping. Increasingly, some of Teachers Pay Teachers’ resources appear to be AI-generated. Moreover, some of the AI-generated content that hasn’t been vetted very well includes obvious errors, slipshod graphics, and questionable information, according to a Chalkbeat review of material on Teachers Pay Teachers.It’s the type of low-quality content commonly known as “AI slop.” And teachers say it’s turning up on TPT, which means some of it could end up in the classroom. In an emailed statement, Paul Mishkin, CEO of IXL Learning, TPT’s parent company, wrote that the company uses “algorithmic tools to identify and demote stores associated with low-quality, AI-generated content.”“These measures are already highly effective, such that AI-generated products account for a minuscule fraction of a percent of TPT’s sales,” Mishkin wrote.TPT’s two decades in existence, some argue, is a sign that many school districts still aren’t arming educators with high-quality instructional material. The flood of what appears to be low-quality AI content may just further poison the well.Teachers are expected to create a lot of material, sometimes on a time crunch or during the summer when they’re not paid, said Jeff Carpenter, an education professor at Elon University. That pressure to create instructional material leads them to turn to Teachers Pay Teachers or similar sites.“They don’t have the time and energy to assess the quality,” Carpenter said. “They’re sort of drowning under the load of expectations on them, and so they think, ‘Well, this is a highly rated resource, and so I’m going to print it off and give it to my students without really looking at it.’”AI fuels cottage industry of curriculum creatorsSome of the tells of AI-generated content are relatively subtle.When Elisa Greb, an eighth grade English teacher outside of Pittsburgh, is on the lookout for material made by AI, she watches for bulleted lists with bolded headings, for example.Greb said she started noticing the proliferation of AI content about a year ago. Greb rarely turns to TPT for class content, but occasionally turns to it for grammar content, which can be one of the hardest topics to hook students’ interest.“One of the greatest joys for me as a teacher is the creativity,” she said. “What really bothers me on something like TPT, where people are monetizing, is that they’re asking for your money for something that they didn’t actually create.”Chalkbeat also spotted what look to be AI suggestions for titles that might help the resource appear prominently in search results, price suggestions, and even disclosures that content had been generated by AI.But if AI-generated content on TPT sets off algorithmic red flags, it seems no one has told the cottage industry of content creators who advertise themselves as coaches for folks wanting to start a TPT shop.In one YouTube video, a creator said that leveraging AI isn’t about replacing creativity, but “multiplying our efforts” to supply teacher resources online. Many of the coaches encouraging AI use also caution TPT creators to edit and watch for quality issues in AI-generated content.Catharyn Shelton, a professor with Northern Arizona University, said teachers sharing content with other teachers is in principle a good idea — when the content is of good quality. But scaling up the model into a marketplace is often where the problems come in, incentivizing creators to build shops with thousands of pages of material and sacrifice quality in the process.It’s easy to turn “to slop because AI is so good at making things sound really good,” she said. “Even if the actual content or ideas aren’t really there.”‘I do use AI-assisted tools’Chalkbeat reached out to a few TPT vendors selling what appeared to be AI-generated materials. Jade Désautels, the creator behind The Garden of Art, the store that sold the Black inventors posters featuring George Crum, wrote that she became an educational resource creator after 15 years as a full-time teacher. She declined an interview and did not directly acknowledge using AI, but wrote that she uses a “variety of digital tools as part of my creative process.” Désautels also wrote she reviews resources before publishing them.In another instance, a set of posters about musical instruments in Black history included an image of a traditional African drum and the words “add a performer playing it in a lively village setting.” There is no performer or village in the image. A user wrote in a review that the $4.28 posters were “poorly made” and “it was very obvious that AI was used.” The creator of that resource, Achraf Zenmrouni, said over email that they had adjusted and improved the graphics after Chalkbeat inquired about the work. Zenmrouni wrote that “I use AI-assisted tools as part of my design and creative process,” but added they personally reviewed the material before it goes live.A Chalkbeat reporter asked ChatGPT to respond to inquiries about supposed low-quality, AI-generated teacher resources as if it were a creator of those resources. In part, the AI wrote, “I do use AI-assisted tools as one part of my creative process.”ChatGPT then added: It reviews the content before it’s published.Lily Altavena is a national reporter at Chalkbeat. Contact Lily at laltavena@chalkbeat.org. Lily is on Instagram, Tik Tok, and Facebook.
