Across classrooms, it is increasingly common to see students skim instead of read, search instead of think, and move quickly through text without following how ideas connect. This is not simply a motivation issue. It’s a cognitive one. Veteran educator Holly Durham has a cure.
What AI has done in its teacher assistant role this year has been transformative for teacher leader Katie Durkin. It’s helped her save time by generating ideas for formative assessments, giving her more time to provide students personal feedback – “a feat for any English teacher.”
Thanks to her “joyful” journey from traditional to competency-based grading, teacher and instructional coach Stephanie Farley has seen not only more growth of skill among her students but also increased competence, “which increases confidence, which increases resilience.”
In a world saturated with misinformation, teaching students how to research isn’t just about completing an assignment. It’s about helping them become independent investigators who “pursue truth even when we aren’t there to guide them,” says Curtis Chandler. AI adds to the urgency.
In our math classrooms, writes Mona Iehl, we’ve often trained students to look for what to do instead of making sense of what the problem is actually saying. When they see fractions, they search for a rule. But what if the goal is not to decode but to understand the situation?
“We are all lacking community, despite our illusion of connectedness,” writes teacher Amber Chandler. In her new book, she explores key issues by writing letters to five stakeholder groups she believes can help reclaim connection. Read what she says about school attendance.
Well-planned schoolwide reads, paired with author visits, have the power to strengthen community, support belonging, and create shared experiences that extend beyond a single event. Kasey Short describes her school’s process and offers some tips for others who want to try it.
During military crises, we look for reliable news sources to stay informed. A high percentage of young people today rely solely on social media for their war news. With the advent of AI-generated images and video, says expert Frank Baker, media literacy skills become paramount.
When Sarah Cooper updated her civics lesson that asks students to write to their political representatives, she found that adding AI to the research process resulted in letters that were not just different but markedly better. Best of all, they were in her students’ own voices.
Consider adopting Collective Teacher Efficacy to meet the learning needs of all of your students. Laura Robb shows how teacher teams can collaborate to develop scaffolds and modifications that offer students the support and hope they need to achieve challenging learning goals.
