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Engaging in History Class: Using AI Chatbots as a Teaching Tool

Learn how teachers are using AI chatbots as historical personas to create engaging, teacher-led history lessons. Discover strategies for ethical integration, student engagement, and fostering critical thinking in a safe, moderated classroom environment.

SchoolAI

Jan 17, 2025

This post is part of our Novel Uses of AI in Education series, exploring how educators are thoughtfully integrating AI to enhance classroom instruction.

In recent years, the rise of large language models (LLMs) has opened a world of possibilities for education. One exciting application is the simulation of historical figures such as Amelia Earhart, George Washington, or other influential individuals from the past. By engaging with AI-driven “historical personas,” students and educators alike can explore an immersive form of learning that humanizes history and makes it more accessible. Below, we'll examine the educational value of LLM historical figure simulations, share strategies for lesson integration, and detail our established safeguards for responsible classroom use.

Enhancing Student Engagement

Making Historical connections

History teachers face a constant challenge: making past events relevant and engaging to today's students. While traditional methods like textbooks and primary sources are essential, they don't always create the personal connection students need to engage with historical content deeply. AI-driven historical simulations offer teachers a new tool to bridge this gap. When students can have guided conversations with historical figures, abstract concepts, and distant events become more concrete and relatable. Teachers report that this interactive approach not only captures students attention but also motivates them to ask more questions and dive deeper into historical research and primary sources.

"Rather than reading through a dry description of the periodic table, my students were able to have a discussion with Dmitri Mendeleev. They had great interactions and could ask follow-up questions to deepen their understanding of his contributions to science. The students then summarized their discussion in a Google Doc." – Aaron H.  |  Middle School Teacher

Motivating Curiosity

One of the biggest challenges for teachers is capturing the imagination of a variety of learners. Chatting with a simulated historical figure offers a novel experience that appeals to students from various backgrounds. This hands-on approach helps kindle curiosity, leading students to ask more questions and explore the broader social, cultural, and political landscapes of the time. 

“One student, who usually hesitates with new things, asked George Washington how many wigs he owned, while another asked if he really had wooden teeth. We all learned that George Washington, unlike many men of his time, actually had his own hair, which he powdered." – Jonpaul S.  |  Elementary School Teacher

Supporting Differentiated Instruction

Personalized Learning Paths

Every student learns differently, and teachers often need multiple strategies to reach all learners. LLMs can adapt the complexity and depth of responses based on a student's reading level, interests, and existing knowledge. This flexibility allows for differentiated instruction—whether a student is new to a historical topic or already has a strong background. To ensure accessibility for all learners, these interactions are available in over 140 languages with speech-to-text and text-to-speech options, supporting students of varying abilities, language backgrounds, and learning preferences.

Instant Clarification and Support

In a traditional classroom, it can be challenging for a single teacher to address every question or knowledge gap on the spot. With an AI-powered historical figure on hand, students can inquire whenever they need clarification, reinforcing their understanding as they learn.

Encouraging Critical Thinking

Cross-Examining the AI

An AI simulation of a historical figure won’t be infallible, but this presents a valuable opportunity to teach critical thinking. Students can be encouraged to compare the AI’s answers with primary sources, textbooks, and peer-reviewed research. By questioning the AI, checking facts, and examining perspectives, students learn about history and gain essential research and critical analysis skills.

Exploring Multiple Viewpoints

History encompasses complex events and varied perspectives that shape our understanding of the past. Teachers play a crucial role in helping students navigate accurate historical sources and understand how a variety of viewpoints of experiences impact different groups throughout time. A chat with a simulated figure can introduce unique viewpoints but should be contextualized. Teachers can supplement these conversations with additional perspectives from historians or other historical figures from the same era. Students thus learn that history is multifaceted and best understood through a variety of sources.

“My 10th-grade students recently watched a PBS Frontline documentary about the Shakespeare Authorship Question, and then as a follow-up to the documentary, I created a lesson with SchoolAI in which I developed a Space with an AI chatbot that took upon the person of Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare. Students were able to review the information they learned from the documentary in debate format and then wrote imagined narratives of what a debate between Marlowe and Shakespeare might be like." – Aspen M.  |  High School Teacher

Implementing Chatbots Effectively

Aligning with Learning Standards and Objectives

When implementing AI chatbots and historical simulations in your classroom, alignment with specific learning standards and objectives is crucial. Begin by identifying the key skills and knowledge targets from your curriculum standards that the AI interaction will support. Create clear learning objectives that connect directly to these standards, and design prompts and scenarios that guide students toward these specific goals.

For example, if your standard focuses on analyzing multiple perspectives in historical events, design prompts that encourage students to explore different viewpoints through the AI simulation. Document these connections explicitly in your lesson plans, and share the learning targets with students so they understand how the AI interaction supports their learning journey.

Ensuring Age-Appropriate and Tailored Experiences

While SchoolAI spaces are designed with built-in safeguards for age-appropriate K-12 content, educators must take an active role in customizing the experience for their students. Before implementing any AI interaction:

  • Use the preview function to test all planned prompts and scenarios

  • Consider the emotional maturity and background knowledge of your student group

  • Modify prompts to match your student's reading and comprehension levels

  • Create scaffolded prompts for different ability levels within your classroom

Make time to regularly review and adjust the AI interactions based on student responses and engagement levels. Remember that what works for one class may need modification for another, even within the same grade level.

Integrating AI Literacy Education

As AI becomes increasingly present in students' lives, incorporating AI literacy into digital literacy instruction is essential. When introducing AI chatbots and historical simulations educators should help students understand:

  • The basics of how AI chatbots work

  • The difference between AI responses and human interactions

  • The importance of verifying information from multiple sources

  • How to critically evaluate AI-generated responses

  • The role of AI as a learning tool rather than an authority

Create opportunities for students to reflect on their interactions with AI and discuss both its capabilities and limitations. Guide them in developing healthy skepticism while maintaining productive engagement with the technology.

Incorporating AI effectively into learning environments

AI chatbots and historical simulations should be one component of a rich, multi-modal learning environment. Create lessons that combine:

  • Traditional class discussions to process AI interactions

  • Primary source document analysis to verify and deepen understanding

  • Hands-on projects that apply insights gained from AI interactions

  • Peer collaboration activities that build on AI-facilitated learning

  • Written reflection assignments to consolidate learning

This balanced approach ensures that AI enhances rather than replaces proven educational strategies. Structure lessons so that AI interactions serve as launching points for deeper investigation and discussion rather than standalone activities.

Classroom Management with Mission Control

As students begin to interact with AI technology, it's crucial that these interactions occur in a monitored, educational environment with appropriate oversight and support. SchoolAI's Mission Control is designed specifically to provide this supervised learning environment, giving educators the tools they need to guide students in responsible and effective AI interaction.

When you launch a session, you'll have access to a comprehensive data dashboard that enables real-time monitoring of all student conversations while providing critical insights into student understanding and engagement. Through Mission Control's dashboard, teachers can:

  • Monitor all student-AI interactions and intervene when needed

  • Track student comprehension and participation patterns

  • Instantly pause or end chat sessions to maintain appropriate use

  • Access analytics to inform instruction and identify areas for support

Practical Classroom Applications

Teacher-Led Presentations

A teacher might prepare a class activity where an AI “guest speaker” arrives to talk about a specific event, such as the Revolutionary War or the Lewis and Clark Expedition. The teacher can guide the session, pausing to highlight historical details, encouraging follow-up questions from the class, and providing real-world context.

Assigned Research Projects

Students could be assigned a project where they converse with a simulated historical figure and then compare what they learn to traditional historical sources. The assignment might ask them to identify any discrepancies, biases, or omissions in the AI’s responses. The culmination could be a presentation or essay discussing their findings.

Debate Clubs and Role-Playing

LLMs can simulate not just a single figure but multiple individuals from different historical periods. Students can hold debate sessions, where each student or group “represents” a historical persona, discussing issues from a particular time. This active role-playing fosters empathy and a nuanced understanding of diverse historical perspectives.

Safeguards and Acknowledgments

Ensuring Accuracy and Sensitivity

An AI-powered historical figure might inadvertently present inaccurate or oversimplified information. Educators must remind students that the chatbot’s answers are not flawless or definitive. Providing context—about how AI models learn from large datasets and how they can sometimes produce inaccuracies—keeps expectations realistic.

Additionally, care should be taken when simulating more sensitive historical figures or time periods. For example, simulating Anne Frank touches on profound themes of human rights and the Holocaust. Teachers should create a respectful and empathetic environment, ensuring students grasp the gravity of the events and the individual’s experiences.

Balancing Engagement with Ethical Responsibility

Simulating historical figures comes with ethical considerations. It is important to maintain respect for the real people whose lives and stories are being explored. Teachers should emphasize that these simulations are educational tools—not a trivial or purely entertaining activity. Students should be taught to appreciate the moral complexities, cultural contexts, and personal hardships these historical individuals faced.

Transparency About the Technology

Students should understand they are conversing with an AI rather than the real person. Being clear about the limitations and design of LLMs fosters digital literacy, ensuring students can distinguish between AI simulations and historical evidence. Schools can consider short lessons on AI ethics and data training so that students become informed digital citizens who understand how this technology is developed and where it might fall short.

Monitoring and Moderation

SchoolAI's Mission Control gives teachers complete visibility into student learning. Through our real-time dashboard, teachers monitor all AI conversations, receive automatic alerts for any concerning content, and can control individual sessions instantly. This comprehensive oversight system ensures safe, focused learning while providing valuable insights into student engagement and understanding.

Conclusion

Using LLMs to simulate historical figures is a cutting-edge approach to deepening students’ engagement, curiosity, and critical thinking. By enabling interactive, personalized conversations with figures from the past, educators can make history personally relevant in ways textbooks alone cannot match. However, responsible use demands thoughtful implementation of safeguards—clear acknowledgments of AI’s limitations, ethical framing of the activity, and a commitment to accuracy and respect for historical legacies.

When harnessed thoughtfully and intentionally by educators in a classroom, these AI-driven experiences can become powerful supports to traditional teaching methods. They invite students to see history not just as a collection of dates, but as a tapestry of real human stories that still resonate today. As educators continue exploring this new frontier, the key will be to balance innovative instruction and the reverence that historical narratives deserve.

Approachable AI designed for teachers, students, and school leaders.

Approachable AI designed for teachers, students, and school leaders.

Approachable AI designed for teachers, students, and school leaders.