You’ve heard the saying, “If you can’t beat them, join them.” That’s pretty much where I’ve landed with AI. Students are already using it, sometimes clumsily, sometimes brilliantly, so rather than pretending we can outsmart the bots, I’ve started figuring out how to make them work for learning instead of against it. Two tools I’m using this semester are NotebookLM and Grammarly Authorship.
NotebookLM has become a surprisingly effective tool for essay revision. Students upload their drafts and my feedback, then use the AI to ask targeted questions about how to improve their writing. Because NotebookLM only works with the sources they upload, it doesn’t pull anything from the internet, it stays focused on their words, their structure, and their feedback.
I give students simple prompts to get started:
- What changes could strengthen my thesis or organization?
- How can I make my evidence clearer or more convincing?
- What patterns do I notice in my instructor’s feedback?
What happens next is the part I love most: instead of relying on vague advice like “add more detail” or “work on transitions,” students begin to engage in their own revision process. NotebookLM gives them an accessible way to talk through the “why” behind my comments and to see their writing from a more analytical perspective.
Grammarly Authorship, on the other hand, helps me confirm that students’ writing actually sounds like them. It builds an authorship profile that tracks writing style and habits across drafts, which can be useful when a submission suddenly feels suspiciously polished. I use it less as a gotcha tool and more as a way to encourage students to develop and maintain their unique voice.
If you want to experiment with NotebookLM, you’ll need to use a personal Gmail account for now. It’s not yet available through Maricopa’s system. Go to notebooklm.google.com, create a notebook, upload a few documents, and start asking questions. You’ll get a good sense of how students can use it to think more critically about revision once it becomes available in our district. And I created a video for my students explaining how it works and how to get started with their revision assignment.
AI isn’t going away anytime soon, but tools like these can help us use it with students rather than against them. In other words, if you can’t beat the AI wave, you might as well ride it. Get it? Ride the wave. ?
