AI for chemistry teaching

Gain the knowledge, practical skills, and professional judgement you need to use AI confidently, safely and efficiently

This course will help you use AI effectively to make a difference to your workload, by saving time on lesson planning, writing assessments, adapting resources and efficiently evaluating outputs.

Throughout the course you will produce practical outcomes and develop tools you can apply to your own teaching practice. You will build your confidence by developing safe, ethical habits and effective methods to evaluate AI tasks and outcomes.

Whether you are new to AI or an experienced user, this course will help you to develop informed practice that you can articulate and evidence professionally.

Build your skills and confidence at your own pace, with questions, discussion threads and practical activities – all designed to be completed with a free AI tool in under 20 minutes.

Enrol and register  FAQs

This course is available in the UK, EU and other selected countries. If you’re a teacher in the UK or Ireland, make sure you’ve claimed your fully funded Teach Chemistry membership: benefits include discounts to our professional development courses.

At a glance

  • Format: self-led online learning
  • Cost: £150 + VAT
  • Total length: approx 5 hours
  • Available in: UK, EU and other selected countries
Simple illustration of a person looking at a computer screen showing binary code connected to science-related icons, representing AI or data analysis.

Course objectives

The course will help you to:

  • develop safe, ethical and professional AI habits
  • establish sustainable workflows that enhance, rather than overwhelm, teaching practice
  • build a personal teaching ‘house style’ that AI tools can follow for better outcomes
  • reduce your workload by using AI to support you to diagnose misconceptions, create high‑quality adaptive resources, design effective assessments and plan lessons
  • support learners to develop their understanding, skills and AI maturity

Course modules

  • Introduction

    • Describe five AI mindsets
    • Reflect on your current approach
    • Begin building an AI literacy portfolio

  • Foundations of safe and professional AI use

    • Explore AI literacy
    • Apply data protection, safeguarding and ethics
    • Evaluate AI tools and outputs
    • Recognise environmental and equity issues

  • Coaching AI for accurate and effective outputs

    • Set up and use memory features
    • Build a teaching assistant persona
    • Use data on misconceptions
    • Build a reusable prompt template

  • AI and assessment

    • Generate open and closed questions
    • Design effective hinge point questions
    • Create and refine SOLO aligned rubrics
    • Analyse anonymised class data

  • AI as a planning partner

    • Set up an AI tool with a lesson plan template
    • Build a reusable planning system
    • Use the CRAFT framework to write effective prompts
    • Refine for cognitive load and accessibility
    • Evaluate and reflect

  • Embedding AI in your classroom and professional practice

    • Develop learners’ AI maturity and metacognitive skills
    • Implement AI-supported routines that build critical thinking
    • Use the Socratic coaching approach Explain how AI is changing scientific practice

Ready to enrol?

Your journey towards delivering better lessons and improving learner outcomes starts whenever you’re ready.

Enrol and register

FAQs

Who is the course for?

This course is suitable for teachers at any career stage looking to develop their understanding, confidence and capability to use AI to support their practice. Whether you are new to AI or an experienced user, this course will help you to develop informed practice that you can articulate and evidence professionally.

Do I need to have specific AI tools or subscriptions?

No, every activity is designed to be completed with a free generative AI tool of your choice.

Will I receive a certificate?

You will receive a certificate of course completion once you complete all modules and all required tasks.

What if I don’t want to complete all modules?

You can take whichever modules you are interested in, but you will only receive a certificate of course completion once you have completed all of the modules and required tasks. You have access to the course for six months so you can return to it at any time in that period.

Which countries is the course available in?

This course is currently available in the following countries: Australia, Austria, Bahamas, Bangladesh, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Canada, China, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, Fiji, Finland, France, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Guernsey, Hong Kong S.A.R. China, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Isle of Man, Italy, Japan, Jersey, Jordan, Kuwait, Latvia, Lebanon, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macao S.A.R. China, Malaysia, Malta, Mauritius, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Uganda, United Kingdom, United States.

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Our course author

A photo of Wendy Winnard wearing glasses and a green blouse with pink flowers.

Wendy Winnard

Wendy spent 38 years teaching chemistry in a wide range of schools and sixth form colleges, including four years in an international school in Milan. She was always excited about, and had research interests in, the potential use of technology as a tool to improve teaching, learning and assessment.

In 2023, Wendy was honoured to accept the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Excellence in Secondary and Further Education prize. As a self-professed geek, rather than retiring, Wendy has found a new lease of life training subject matter experts – in the fields of AI, data science and quantum computing – with the teaching skills to help industry professionals harness innovation. She is based at the Hartree Centre, part of the Science and Technology Facilities Council.