WN #23

4 Frameworks to Guide AI Adoption in Your Classroom

As AI continues to reshape the educational landscape, teachers all over the globe are having to rethink how they do things and figure out how this new technology can enhance, rather than detract from, the educational experience. To help navigate this new terrain, several frameworks have emerged that offer guidance on how to effectively incorporate AI into teaching practices, united by the common theme of encouraging critical thinking about the process of using AI rather than simply viewing it as a means to get to an end product. Here is a sampling of a few of these frameworks, each with a linked article that includes more details and examples:

DEEPLEARN

To promote holistic AI literacy, consider the ‘deep learn’ framework from Birgit Phillips of FH Joanneum University of Applied Sciences in Graz, Austria, which challenges both ourselves and our students to:

Discover: Use AI to explore

Engage: Interact meaningfully with AI

Evaluate: Critically assess AI-generated information

Probe: Ask follow-up questions to dive deeper into a subject

Link: Connect AI insights to academic concepts

Expand: Broaden intellectual horizons

Adapt: Cultivate flexibility in AI use

Reflect: Consider broader implications, ethics, and impacts

Navigate: Understand AI's capabilities and limitations

This framework expands our relationship with AI well beyond “type prompt, get answer.” It aims to create well-rounded, AI-literate students and educators who can leverage AI tools effectively and ethically.

PAIR

For integrating AI into assignments, Professor Oguz A. Acar of King’s College London proposes the PAIR framework. Key elements include:

Problem formulation: Clearly define the issue before turning to AI

AI tool selection: Choose the most appropriate AI tool(s) for the task

Interaction: Engage with AI through hands-on experimentation

Reflection: Evaluate the process and outcomes of AI use

“What do I need to do?” “What’s the best way to go about it?” “How did it go?” These questions aren’t new to the learning process, but using this approach encourages students to think critically about AI use, rather than relying on it blindly.

ABE+

When it comes to writing instruction, Dr. Benjamin Nye of USC’s Institute for Creative Technologies helps design generative AI tools that leverage the ABE+ framework (pg. 36-41):

Authoring

By

Editing

+ Revising

The framework emphasizes critical thinking in the writing process, real-time feedback and suggestions, and multiple cycles of reflection and revision, all of which are (ideally) tracked and summarized for a course instructor to review. 

Again, this isn’t a revolutionary concept, but the speed at which the feedback/reflection/revision cycle can now occur, along with AI’s ability to collect and synthesize information from that cycle to provide insights about a student’s process, opens up lots of new doors. Of course, the extent to which you are able to adhere to this framework depends on the tools you have access to, but the overall idea of focusing on process over product can be applied in a variety of ways, and helps students develop deeper writing skills while mitigating cheating risks posed by traditional, product-based assignments.

SAMR

This one is an old friend. While not specific to AI, the SAMR model provides a valuable perspective on integrating any technology into education. Most teachers start their AI journey by thinking about (or worrying about!) what AI can replace, then move down the list as they become more familiar with tools and capabilities:

Substitution: AI replaces traditional tools without changing the task

Augmentation: AI enhances existing practices

Modification: AI allows for significant task redesign

Redefinition: AI enables entirely new forms of learning experiences

This framework can help you move from simple applications to transformative uses as you think about how to deploy AI in your classroom.

As we navigate the future of education, these frameworks offer valuable roadmaps for integrating AI into our teaching practices. Too often, the conversation revolves around whether to use AI or not, rather than focusing on HOW we use AI. By shifting our focus to thoughtful implementation guided by frameworks like these, we can better prepare ourselves and our students for a world where AI is increasingly prevalent.

PISA’s AI-Enhanced Tests

The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) is already playing with some of the ideas mentioned above, with plans to begin implementing AI-powered components into its tests beginning in 2025. For example, PISA is exploring the use of AI to track and assess a student’s process in working through a task, rather than simply assessing knowledge recall. This would be aided by AI-powered chatbots that can answer basic questions and help students focus on higher-order thinking skills, as well as offer real-time feedback to help them understand and improve their performance during the assessment.

The Trouble with “Ed”

Los Angeles Unified School District has been a pioneer in the AI space, piloting their own AI tool, “Ed,” this past school year, which was designed as a resource for students, parents, and faculty that pulls info from the district’s various databases. However, “Ed” has recently been under fire, stemming in large part from the collapse of the startup LAUSD was working with to build and manage the tool, and questions about how that company handled sensitive student data. LAUSD has turned off the chatbot feature of the tool for now, but still plans to move forward with it as they investigate what went wrong and how to improve.

The Current (and Future) State of AI Models

Ethan Mollick, a leader in the exploration of AI’s impact on work and education, gives a good overview of the evolving landscape of AI models. While some companies aim for highly advanced AI that could revolutionize many fields, others focus on practical, easy-to-use AI features for everyday tasks. For educators, this means a growing range of AI tools will become available, from sophisticated assistants capable of complex tasks to more straightforward, privacy-focused helpers built into devices and existing systems. Worth a read for a quick look at where we are at and where we are headed.

📌 Microsoft x Khan Academy x AI

Microsoft has teamed with Khan Academy to offer U.S.-based, K-12 educators free access to Khanmigo for Teachers, an AI-powered platform with pre-built tools like lesson planners, text levelers, and rubric generators (similar to platforms like MagicSchool). You can also edit and discuss outputs with the Khanmigo chatbot, use it to brush up on your own knowledge, or link your classes to get insights into student progress.

📌 AI for College & Career Counseling

The College Guidance Network has launched AVA, an AI chatbot designed to help students navigate topics related to college and career planning. It can answer questions on things like the financial aid process or college admissions and applications in a variety of languages, aiming to free up time for overloaded school counselors. Ivy, by CollegeVine, is another AI-tool that serves this purpose, and offers some additional features aside from just a chatbot.

📌 AI Video Generation

AI video generation continues to improve and become more accessible. While some models, like OpenAI’s Sora and Google’s Veo, remain limited to a select group of users, others, like Runway, Dream Machine, Haiper, Pika, and China’s Kling AI are free to try.

7 Ways to Utilize AI in Summer Planning Sessions

As we head into August, many of us are starting to turn our focus to the upcoming school year (if we haven’t already). Here are seven ways you can use AI to help with your summer planning sessions:

Have AI help you:

1. Create differentiated versions of the same task/question/example/idea

2. Incorporate a specific framework, model, or strategy into a lesson/unit

3. Create or modify a lesson to focus on a specific theme, skill, standard, etc.

4. Critique one of your lessons, units, or ideas, highlighting strengths, limitations, and opportunities to bolster its effectiveness.

5. Find opportunities to incorporate various perspectives into your lesson/unit

6. Connect content from your lesson/unit with other content from your course, or with the content of another course.

7. Make lessons more localized, culturally relevant, tailored to student interests, and/or integrated with current events

You don’t need any sort of subscription to do this. The easiest way is just to have a ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, or Copilot tab open to bounce ideas off of as you do your planning (or pull up the app on your phone). Remember to add additional context, details, focal points, examples, etc. as needed, and take advantage of iterative dialogue. You don’t need to settle for whatever is in the initial output!

More Ideas…

Canva for Education is free for educators and includes a bunch of AI features for all of your creation and design needs. They’ve put together a series of brief guides showing how you can use each of these tools as a teacher.

• If you are watching the Olympics in the U.S., you’ll be seeing plenty of Google’s AI chatbot, Gemini, on NBC’s coverage, as well as some other new Google features.

• President Biden signed an executive order on AI back in October addressing safety, risks, and opportunities. Republicans are hoping to repeal it.

• AI is good at predicting Parkinson’s, and Alzheimer’s.

• The world’s first Miss AI has been crowned. Congrats, Morocco.

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