AI in the classroom: What teachers need to know in 2026
/)
The most popular AI tools have been available to the public for three years now. In that time, the pendulum has swung from concerns about global security and whether or not it is safe to unleash AI on the world, to a near dependence of many users on the technology.
AI does raise real concerns, real possibilities, and real questions. Now that we have all had a few years to dabble and deliberate, let’s discuss how we can approach AI today.
The Ethics of AI
It is safe to say that many students are using AI to help with their assignments, and teachers are getting better and better at handling this. Start by being proactive and incorporating AI use into discussions we are already having about digital citizenship. Digital citizenship relates to safe and responsible use of technology. Before AI, instruction on digital citizenship focused on evaluating online sources and avoiding plagiarism. With AI, begin to ask questions like these:
When does using AI help you learn, and when does it do the learning for you?
How do you evaluate whether what AI produces is accurate, fair, or unbiased?
Who is responsible for the content when AI helps create it?
What does honesty look like in an age when AI can write for you?
Teachers also need to recognize that the temptation for students to use AI to do their work is high. Let’s help students make ethical choices by redesigning our assignments so that they don’t feel they need to rely on technology to get it done.
Prioritize the process by having students submit drafts and reflections.
Design tasks that draw on experiences and observations that can’t be outsourced.
Base assignments on discussions, debates, or activities that happened inside the room that AI doesn’t have access to.
Room for Creativity
AI isn’t here to make us less creative. Rather, it encourages us to expand what we are capable of. It makes adjacent creative identities suddenly reachable. The barrier between I have this idea and I made this thing has never been lower. Here are a couple of ideas on how you can expand your offering.
For those who are still getting started with AI, trying using AI to create a graded reader based on the lives and experiences of your students. Start a blog for teachers, using AI to help you come up with ideas and to edit your work. Script a podcast that your students can listen to. Compose a poem or song that can be used as a pneumatic device for a grammar or spelling rule.
The more experienced adopters of AI technology are ready to try something new, like programming a custom GPT that leads hyper-personalized revision sessions using information you store regarding the syllabus and learner backgrounds. Create multimodal learning experiences using image, video, and song generation tools. Build a website using AI coding tools to share your learning content with other students and teachers. Code that language learning app you’ve been dreaming about and ask your students to beta test it.
Step outside the traditional teacher role to create new, more memorable learning experiences. You have your own creative ideas which have always been yours. Now you no longer have the excuse that you don’t have the skills to make them real.
Measure the Efficacy
Think critically about whether or not AI is saving us time, expanding our offerings, and amplifying student achievement. Start by tracking your productivity.
Compare the time you used to spend planning with how much time you spend prompting AI and also revising and editing that output.
Compare a list of teacher tasks you did before AI with what your role looks like today with AI. Has the list expanded or completely changed?
Ultimately, technology is only as good as the gains it helps our learners to achieve, and researchers are only beginning to understand the extent to which AI is having an impact on learning outcomes. There is plenty of space for you to join the conversation. Here is a bit of research to get you started.
Choose a writing task that students will do twice over the course of a term.
For the first draft of the first piece, you provide the feedback in your usual way.
For the first draft of the second piece, students submit to an AI tool and receive feedback from it.
Keep everything else as consistent as possible.
Take a look at the second draft of both pieces to see which form of feedback led to more coherent and cohesive writing.
Follow this up with a student survey. Ask questions like:
Which feedback did you find easier to understand?
Which feedback made you think harder about your writing?
Which feedback did you actually use when revising?
Which feedback made you feel more motivated to improve?
To recap, take some time to reflect on your AI use over the first few years, and have an honest discussion with your students about ethical use of AI. Challenge yourself to design new types of activities, but also expand your role as a teacher, testing the limits of what is possible. Don’t forget to collect data along the way to see what contributes to the most positive impact for your learners.