With so many schools implementing versions of cellphone bans, that may seem to many teachers like yesterday’s challenge.
Artificial intelligence, on the other hand, is decidedly at hand.
Today’s post begins a series in which educators provide ideas of the kind of direction they are providing to students for AI usage—and what guidance they are using for themselves.
You might also be interested in A Beginning List of Different Types of Guidance Educators Are Giving Students About AI Use in Their Classes.
Listen to Students!
Sarah Cooper teaches 8th grade U.S. history and civics and is the associate head of school at Flintridge Preparatory School in La Canada, Calif. She is the author of two books, Creating Citizens: Teaching Civics and Current Events in the History Classroom (Routledge) and Making History Mine (Stenhouse):
After almost three years of encouraging students to use large language models, my best suggestion is still to follow their advice! For a year-end reflective portfolio in May, about a quarter of my 8th grade U.S. history and civics students chose to write on this question: “If you used AI in this class at all, describe what you did and how it was helpful or not helpful. Include how you might want to use AI ethically in your classes in the future.”
Their responses fell into several categories:
1) The Basics: Individual Tutoring
To me, personalized tutoring is one of the most intuitive, helpful uses of AI. Although I usually create vocabulary Quizlets for students, a number still ask a chatbot to unpack concepts: “One way I like to use AI is to help me understand topics I don’t fully understand in class. If I wasn’t at class or if I’m not quite understanding the current lesson, I spend my time at home asking ChatGPT to explain the general topic and quiz me on key points so the lesson sticks,” wrote one student.
I’ve used AI myself when preparing to be a witness for our Advanced Placement U.S. Government mock trial, copying in the witness statement and asking the bot to cross-examine me.
2) Proceed With Care: Targeted Editing and Feedback
For a letter to a politician and a research paper on a reformer in U.S. history, many students ran their papers through AI to ask for copyediting suggestions. If so, I asked them to use this prompt: “Please list needed copyedits for the 8th grade research paper below, for grammar and punctuation ONLY. Do not rewrite it, as I want it to stay in my own voice. Please just give a list of the parts I need to change and why.”
One student “thought there wouldn’t be many mistakes because I use Grammarly. But to my surprise there were actually quite a few. … I think AI can be a great tool if you’re only using it when you’re allowed to and for editing purposes only.”
Other students went beyond grammar to ask for suggestions on the paper’s structure or content, yielding meaningful results such as: “Provide Context for Quotes: When using quotes, like the one about Illinois law changes, it would be helpful to explain the significance or impact of the quoted material. For example, why was this specific quote compelling to Schlafly’s audience, or how did it contribute to her argument against the ERA?”
However, a couple of students observed that “sometimes AI would contradict itself, saying that you should delete something it had just said to keep.”
3) Have Fun With It: Jump-Start for Ideas and Sources
Throughout the year, I told students they could use AI for titles, catch phrases, or inspiration for a visual approach to a project, as long as they cited it. For a public service announcement video on voting, one group “used AI to come up with a slogan, and it gave us several catchy options to choose from, and we ended up choosing one that said Informed voices, stronger choices.”
Although I’m still torn about how much to encourage kids to use AI to find relevant sources for research papers, one said it has been a game changer for him already: “I’ve seen so many people spending countless minutes searching for a source when AI could find the best source with your preference within seconds.” I hear this ease echoed from students in academic extracurriculars such as speech and debate—that they can find reputable sources immediately with AI and then have more time to dig into them.
4) And Finally: 8th Graders’ Caveats
Our students are as aware of the ethical pitfalls of AI as we are, and I can’t wait to see what they teach me this school year about its use:
- “I think that AI, though being valuable, is not a reliable source of information since it is still code and can be changed by its creator.”
- “I personally think students’ writing should come straight from themselves, without the dangers of AI rewriting the whole thing for them.”
- “I learned how to use ethical prompts that didn’t count as cheating because I was still using my writing.”
‘Set Clear, Ethical Guidelines’
Michaela Hahn is a language arts teacher at Mason Middle School in Mason, Ohio:
Like many kids his age, my son is a spunky 4-year-old with a strong will, endless energy, and the audacity to request snacks immediately after claiming he’s too full to eat dinner. He’s also a devoted train enthusiast. Because of this, we spend many nights building elaborate wooden train sets.
Typically, he’s the conductor, driving a line of magnetic trains while shouting, “Mommy, I need more tracks!” as I scramble to lay them down fast enough. Ironically, that’s exactly how I felt this year as I tried to teach my students to use AI in a way that’s both efficient and ethical. I was laying the tracks while the train was already barreling ahead at full speed.
As a teacher with 13 years under my belt, I’m no stranger to online plagiarism. But within the first few weeks of this school year, I caught more students than ever using AI in their writing. And honestly, it’s easy to see why. AI can generate a polished piece of writing in seconds—something that might take a student hours. Unlike plagiarism of the past, students don’t even need to find an online source to copy.
Until this fall, I had barely explored AI myself, but it didn’t take long to recognize the magnitude of this tool and its permanence in the future of education. As I’ve navigated the world of AI these past months, I’ve developed three principles to guide myself and my students:
- Set clear, ethical guidelines: Secondary students are just beginning to understand the concept of ethics, so early in the year, I teach a lesson about what the ethical use of academic tools looks like. I share a simple list of “Do’s” and “Don’ts,” which includes: DO use AI as a writing coach, collaborator, or brainstorming tool. DON’T use it to find quiz answers or write entire essays. More importantly, we talk about why guidelines matter. Students need to understand how short-term misuse of AI can lead to long-term consequences.
- When in doubt, ask: “Is AI promoting critical thinking or replacing it?” This question, which was shared with me during a recent professional learning session, has become a common phrase in my classroom. It ties into our ethics lesson and has sparked several conversations about how real learning often looks “messy,” how failure can be a valuable teacher, and what it means to learn through effort instead of shortcuts. While I usually set clear expectations about when and how students can use AI, I encourage them to ask this question before using AI as a resource.
Use strategic prompting: I teach 7th grade language arts, and during writing projects, limited time makes it difficult to conference with every student individually. Like many teachers, I often prioritize struggling writers over those already writing above grade level. This is where AI can help.
Since most middle schoolers haven’t mastered the art of composing effective prompts, I created a list of pre-written prompts that they could copy and paste into an AI platform to turn it into a personalized editor. The results were magical. Every student used the prompts and got instant, targeted feedback. Many continued revising on their own, prompting again and again. It may be worth teaching older students to generate their own prompts, but for middle schoolers, a clear starting point has been more effective.
In closing, I recently read Joseph Fasano’s poem “For a Student Who Used AI to Write a Paper,” in which he asks, “But what are you trying to be free of? / The living? The miraculous / task of it?” It’s a powerful reminder of what’s truly at stake: the messy, miraculous process of thinking, writing, struggling, and growing.
As educators, we’re not just laying down tracks for efficiency. We’re designing opportunities that help students discover who they are as learners. Teaching students to use AI with honesty and responsibility isn’t just about preventing shortcuts or catching cheaters. It’s about teaching students to harness AI in ways that strengthen learning while still preserving the integrity of their work.
If you haven’t yet read the poem or seen it floating around social media, take a moment and Google it, or better yet, ask AI to find it for you.
The ‘HUMAN Framework’
Braxton Thornley is a senior technology trainer for the Utah Education Network (UEN) who previously worked as an instructional coach and award-winning high school language arts teacher in South Jordan, Utah:
As part of my work for the Utah Education Network, I help teachers, schools, and districts throughout Utah use artificial intelligence effectively. But to work in education while working with AI is to work with contradictions. How can we utilize AI to deepen learning while simultaneously confronting its implications for academic integrity? How can we help students develop AI fluency while the technology continues to develop and shift so rapidly?
In an effort to help teachers navigate these contradictions, I worked with two colleagues, Nicole Johnson and Val O’Bryan, to develop a framework teachers could use as a guide based on a wealth of research addressing student learning and the ways AI is shaping classrooms around the world. We call it the HUMAN framework, and it has five key ideas, each with guiding questions meant to help teachers evaluate their use of AI in the classroom:
H: Hone the Goal
The first step in using AI effectively with students is to “hone the goal.” As with most learning activities, the degree to which an AI-infused activity aligns with a clear learning goal directly correlates with the degree to which it will positively impact student learning. At this step, we ask teachers to consider these questions: 1) Will the interaction with AI directly align with a core standard? and 2) What is the intended impact on learning?
U: Understand Limitations
Once the use of AI has been aligned with a learning goal, we recommend that teachers consider AI’s limitations. AI has the capacity to hallucinate, or present false information as fact. It also responds differently from student to student, even when given the same prompt, and it struggles with complex math (although this is an area of ongoing and rapid improvement). To navigate these limitations, teachers might ask themselves the following: 1) Will the activity depend on AI’s ability to provide factual information or in-depth expertise? and 2) Can the AI consistently mediate interactions with students in a meaningful way?
M: Mitigate Risks
When using any technology, teachers have an ethical and professional responsibility to protect students’ data and privacy. When using AI in particular, it’s also important to design guardrails that prevent overreliance and diminished creativity.
To mitigate potential risks, teachers can ask these questions: 1) Has the AI tool been vetted and approved by my school or district? and 2) How will I prevent overreliance on AI while promoting students’ creativity and critical-thinking skills? To prevent AI from becoming a crutch, we recommend asking students to tutor AI (rather than the other way around), utilizing custom chatbots to prevent AI from generating ideas for students or even positioning AI as a “debate partner” who interrogates students’ ideas and questions their reasoning.
A: Assess the Interaction
One of the most important habits we can develop in ourselves and our students is to approach AI’s outputs critically. To help students develop these habits and begin building their AI fluency, we suggest considering these questions: 1) How will students reflect on their interactions with AI? and 2) Will students have the opportunity to critique the AI’s responses or compare them to human-generated ideas?
N: Nurture Human Connection
At their core, people need connection, and today’s students are hungry for connections with classmates, teachers, and their broader school communities. While AI can be used to facilitate personalized learning and differentiation, it shouldn’t disrupt opportunities for students to connect. To this end, we offer teachers the following questions when using AI in the classroom: 1) Will the interaction with AI replace, shorten, extend, or deepen a human interaction? and 2) Will the interaction with AI support students’ individuality while promoting a sense of classroom community?
By designing AI-infused learning experiences through the lens of the HUMAN framework, teachers can ensure they’re leveraging AI to improve student learning while protecting the most vital aspects of a true education: creativity, critical thinking, and connection.
Thanks to Sarah, Michaela, and Braxton for contributing their thoughts!
Today’s post answered this question:
What guidelines do you offer students and/or teachers to guide how they think about artificial intelligence and how they use it?
Consider contributing a question to be answered in a future post. You can send one to me at lferlazzo@educationweek.org. When you send it in, let me know if I can use your real name if it’s selected or if you’d prefer remaining anonymous and have a pseudonym in mind.
You can also contact me on X at @Larryferlazzo or on Bluesky at @larryferlazzo.bsky.social .
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