From Leftovers to Lessons: How Custom AI Gems can Foster Critical Thinking in Maths

Have you used custom AI helpers in your classroom? Have you had conversations with students about the ethical implications of creating their own digital assistants? These are some of the questions I've been wrestling with as I've been exploring how to use AI in my own lessons. This week I'm looking creating Custom Gems in Gemini, inspired by my own visit to Google in Hong Kong earlier this month.

From Leftovers to Lessons: Creating Our Own AI Chef

My students are a brilliant bunch, particularly the XP students I work with who are always keen to get their hands dirty with a new project. Like many young people, their experience with AI had largely been limited to the big names like ChatGPT. They see it as a powerful but somewhat monolithic tool, a single entity for a single purpose: getting answers.

So, I wanted to show them that AI could be something more personal, a bespoke tool they could create themselves. I started with a simple, relatable scenario. "What if you have a fridge full of leftovers," I asked them, "and you want to turn it into a gourmet meal?"

Their eyes lit up. We used a simple two-line prompt to create a "recipes Gem" that would generate culinary ideas from a list of ingredients. The output was a list of interesting meal ideas, but the magic happened when we added a new rule to the prompt: we wanted it to tell us why a particular recipe was the best choice. This forced the students to think critically about the AI's output and gave them a reason to question its reasoning. This simple exercise, a playful foray into AI, got them thinking about the wider possibilities of creating a custom Gem and what they could use it for in their own lives. They started discussing creating a supportive chatbot study partner or even one that just tells them jokes.

The Maths Study Buddy: A Socratic Partner, Not a Cheatsheet

Taking this a step further, I decided to rebuild a custom Gem for my maths course. My goal was to create a "study buddy" that would be a genuine partner in learning, not a shortcut to the answer. The challenge was in the prompt—I had to be incredibly specific to ensure it would act as a Socratic partner, guiding students through the process rather than just spitting out solutions.

This was particularly useful for complex topics like Hypothesis Testing, where the process is as important as the final answer. The Gem was prompted to ask probing questions and even guide students on how to use their calculator (like the TINspire) for specific operations. The hardest part of this project wasn't the technology, but the pedagogy. Getting the prompt right meant constantly testing and editing its output to ensure it aligned with our learning goals. This iterative process became a form of visible thinking in itself. The students had to reflect on the output and actively refine the prompt to get the desired result, a powerful lesson in metacognition.

The Ethical Equation: From Personal Gems to Planet-Sized Problems

As a teacher, I am genuinely excited by the possibilities. Gemini Gems can now be shared and added directly to Google Classroom, which is a win for personalised learning. This easy sharing capability is sparking a lot of excitement on LinkedIn, and it's easy to see why. The potential for educators to create and share tailored learning assistants is immense.

However, a critical perspective is essential. While the excitement is palpable, it raises an ethical question that we need to address with our students: what are the wider implications of creating and using an endless number of these AI helpers? We need to consider how each new Gem contributes to data storage and processing demands, and whether we risk contributing to sustainability issues if we create and forget about these digital assistants. As teachers, we must foster a mindset where our students are not just consumers of AI, but also ethical and critical creators. We need to teach them to think about not just what a tool can do, but what it should do, and what the consequences of its use might be.

This is the new educational equation: harnessing the power of AI while ensuring we always balance it with critical thinking and ethical reflection.

Creating a new Gem