All Episodes

September 18, 2025 39 mins

What does it mean for students to be 'AI ready?'

In this "in-house" episode, aiEDU CEO Alex Kotran sits down with Chief Program Officer Emma Doggett Neergaard and Director of Learning Khushali Narechania to explore the organization's new AI Readiness Framework. The aiEDU Learning Team unpacks how their framework provides a roadmap for K-12 educators to prepare students for an AI-powered future.

The team dives deep into what makes their framework unique – specifically, its focus on durable skills like critical thinking, creativity, and problem-solving alongside technical knowledge. Rather than prescribing specific AI tools or technologies that quickly become outdated, the AI Readiness Framework emphasizes building foundational skills that will serve students regardless of how AI evolves.

One key point is that AI readiness reinforces many educational priorities that we already value. "Critical thinking is not something we just came up with," Emma explains. "It's more important than ever." The conversation also explores how core subjects like English and math become more crucial, not less, as AI transforms the workplace and society.

Whether you're a classroom teacher wondering how AI impacts your subject area, a school leader developing an implementation strategy, or a district administrator crafting education policy, this episode provides clear guidance on meaningful next steps toward comprehensive AI readiness for all students.

You can download the complete AI Readiness Framework at aiEDU.org and join the conversation about preparing students for success in an AI-transformed world. 



aiEDU: The AI Education Project

Mark as Played
Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Alex Kotran (aiEDU) (00:00):
Hey everybody, we're here with a
fully internal recording ofAIEDU Studios.
I'm Alex, co-founder, CEO.
I'm joined by EmmaDagenier-Gard, our chief program
officer, and Kishale Narachania, our director of learning.

(00:20):
We're going to be talking aboutV2 of our AI readiness
framework that just released.
I would only do a average jobexplaining it, so I figured let
me actually bring the brainsbehind it to talk about what
this document is, why it'simportant and how it's been
guiding our own work as well ashow we envision it guiding the

(00:42):
work that educators are doingall over the country.
But why don't we just do somequick intros?
For those who don't know you,emma, tell us a little bit about
yourself and how you got toAIEDU.

Emma (00:56):
Yeah, thanks, alex, it's great to be on the podcast.
So I started my career as aclassroom teacher.
I taught eighth grade and afterthat I've worked at several
national nonprofit andfor-profit education
organizations.
I was at the AchievementNetwork for over a decade,
building the program therearound high-quality professional
learning for educators, focuson instruction in math and

(01:18):
literacy, high-qualityassessment, design and support
and thinking about district andsystem change.
So, coming to AIEDU over a yearago, felt a very natural
extension of how to support oureducators and our systems in
preparing all students for theage of AI.

Alex Kotran (aiEDU) (01:38):
Yeah, we're very lucky to have you and
we're also very lucky to haveKashali.
Kashali, you're not too farfrom me, just across the bay
just across the bay.

Khushali (01:48):
Um, I'm yes, I'm based out of berkeley right now.
Um, I started my career as ahigh school math teacher in
chicago and new york and then,uh, worked at relay graduate
school of education for over adecade, where we built out a
teacher preparation program andI led the content instruction
arm of that and into the onlinelearning space.

(02:10):
How do we maintain high qualityinstruction in virtual spaces
and reach more teachers thataren't able to go to traditional
teacher prep programs?
And that has just brought me onthis journey with education
technology and how we can usetechnology tools to really
amplify what teachers do bestaround getting to know students

(02:34):
and supporting them in learningoutcomes.
And so that's brought me hereto AIADU to think about this new
frontier we're on with AIreadiness and supporting
teachers and students in allthat they need for the world
ahead.

Alex Kotran (aiEDU) (02:49):
And hopefully our editors are going
to keep this in.
Otherwise, viewers are going tobe like why does Alex suddenly
have headphones?
And the answer is I forgot toput my headphones on, so we're
still learning.
I mean, we're helping teacherswith their learning journey on
AI and I'm on a learning journeynot just on AI, but on podcast
production.
So we have this framework, aframework for AI readiness, or I

(03:14):
think we call it our AIreadiness framework.
We released it last summer andwe just released V2.
Can you tell us about what theframework is?
And, emma, I'll just start withyou, then Gushala will let you
jump in.
Yeah, tell us about what theframework is and what's
different about this new versionthat we just published.

Emma (03:29):
Yeah, so I think we set out originally to provide a
framework to guide our work inmany ways, which was creating
high quality materials to buildAI readiness, supporting
educators in their building ofcapacity and supporting school
systems in evolving to supportall students.

(03:52):
And then we sort of realized,well, actually this would be
really useful to put out thereas a tool that anyone could use
essentially a model ofcompetencies for students and
for educators, and then a rubricof support for school leaders
and for district leaders todefine what is AI readiness and

(04:14):
how do we take those steps toensure all students are AI ready
.
So the student and the educatorcompetencies they're intended to
be across curricular areas.
They're intended to reallysupport educators in
understanding what AI readinesscan look like and they go beyond
using AI tools.
It's not just about using AItools.

(04:35):
It's about all of those durableskills that you need for your
future.
So that includes knowledge ofAI and the use of the tools, but
it also includes criticalthinking aspects and it also
includes a very important domainwe call the human advantage,
which is about how you leveragehuman skills being a lifelong

(04:58):
learner, creativity and problemsolving, that those are just as
essential for the future, thatthose are just as essential for
the future.
And then, as we go to the sortof school leader and district
rubrics, those are intended tobe kind of a roadmap of where
might you start as a district,where might you take the next
step to lead the system changeor the school-wide change that

(05:19):
would support educators andstudents in becoming AI ready.

Alex Kotran (aiEDU) (05:24):
Yeah, so, kishale, we have a new version.
What should our audience expectwhen they open this up,
especially if they sort of wereto compare the two?

Khushali (05:34):
Yep, so there's a lot that's changed in the last year.
There is new research out onthe impacts on kind of the
workforce and skills for futurereadiness.
There is, you know, nascentresearch on what LLMs and AI are
doing to the brain and kind ofthe science of learning that

(05:55):
goes behind using these tools,and there have been, there's
just been a lot of work done inthe AI literacy space in general
and so we have been able totake a lot of that and really

(06:22):
integrate that into, as Emma was, those skills, the durable
skills that folks, thateverybody's going to need,
students, especially in theworld of the future, and what
that can look like in classes asa progression from K to 12.
And so that is a big change inthe student competencies, along
with a very clear call out ofthe importance of core content

(06:46):
area skill development.
So AI readiness developmentdoesn't happen in isolation but
alongside core skills thatstudents need to develop, and I
think that's a really importantthing to call out.
The other, I think, big, bigchanges we didn't have a school
leader version of a rubric.
There was a district readinessrubric and educator competencies

(07:09):
and school leaders are at theforefront of actually taking any
district visioning and strategyand really implementing it in
the school and thinking a lotabout what are the instructional
choices to make as a school andhow do we support teachers in
what the instructional pedagogyneeds to be for the classes and

(07:31):
so that in our minds likerequired some extra thought and
care, especially on teaching andlearning for the school leaders
.
So those are two really bigones.
And then there's a lot ofupdates to the district
readiness rubric to be muchclearer on the criteria for
success, if you will, there, asEmma was describing, the roadmap

(07:51):
a district might take as well.

Alex Kotran (aiEDU) (07:54):
Yeah, thanks, kishali, you know what
you're describing.
It makes a lot of sense, but Ithink, for our audience, this
isn't the only framework thatthey might be aware of.
In fact, there's a lot offrameworks that either are
touching on artificialintelligence and AI literacy,
but then also a lot of thecompetencies that you described.
Really durable skills is maybeone way to encapsulate them.
There are also a lot of otherframeworks about that, like how

(08:16):
does this fit in?
Is it designed to kind ofcompete with all of those?
Or you know like, if not, thenyou know sort of how should
folks imagine it alongside thoseother frameworks?

Khushali (08:24):
Yeah, so this is not intended to compete with any of
the other frameworks out thereand in fact, all those other
frameworks served as part of thefoundational work of
understanding what was out inthe space, what was emphasized
across all of them too.
So taking that and synthesizinga bit across all of them too.

(08:47):
So taking that and synthesizinga bit, and one of the things
that I think the AI readinessframework from AIEDU does is
really highlight the progressionof learning that needs to
happen across these skills sothat we can see what can be
happening at the elementarylevel, middle school level and
high school level.
To, really, what does it meanto build a definition of AI over
time and how nuanced does itget by high?
Really, what does it mean tobuild a definition of AI over
time and how nuanced does it getby high school?

(09:08):
What does it mean to criticallythink about and use AI when
younger kids are probably noteven in the tools yet, right,
and how do you still developthat critical thinking?
And so what our framework aimsto do is really focus in on kind
of what those student outcomescan be, and then everything else

(09:29):
centers that.
So what are the student?
So, with those studentcompetencies in place.
What are teacher competenciesthat are going to serve those?
So what do teachers need toknow to be able to support
students in that?
And then the district andschool leader frameworks kind of
set up the system to supportteachers and students in
achieving those.

Emma (09:49):
Yeah, and I just add I think every framework makes
choices about what's in andwhat's out.
We tried to make choices alonga few lines.
One was coherence, as Kushaliwas talking about, all the way
up through grades, but then allthe way up from students to
district and the other is justpracticality we didn't want this
to be overwhelming and everysingle possible thing, but
actually what are the mostimportant things?

(10:10):
And those are the areas that wewant to continually validate
from the field and from researchIs this the most important
thing for us to focus on?
For students, educators, schoolleaders, district leaders?

Alex Kotran (aiEDU) (10:23):
Yeah, I think the assumption for many
folks is that to be AI ready,students need to be able to
harness AI, and there's sort oflike a logic flow from that
which is okay.
The students are going to beleft behind if they don't know
how to use AI.
Therefore, ai in education isall about how do we make sure

(10:45):
that students have the chance tobe hands-on, which then from
that flows which tools do weprovide students?
Our framework doesn'tnecessarily focus on that.
In fact, I think you I wouldargue that you actually could
see some, a lot of aspects thatwould inform how you do that,
but there really isn't like ablueprint, for example, for here

(11:08):
are the, here are the tools tostart with.
Here's sort of like um, youknow how to get students
hands-on and can you talk about,like, why we made that decision
?

Khushali (11:16):
uh, the technology is rapidly changing.
Uh, what we are using now isdifferent than what we were
using a year ago, and what'sgoing to be coming five years
from now is going to bedifferent than what we have now,
and so anchoring in anyparticular tool shortens the
longevity of what we're continueto evolve as the technology

(11:36):
evolves and still hold true.
And so even if a school isimplementing something now, that

(11:56):
work can still hold true fiveyears from now and it can be
adaptive and flexible.
And I think if we anchor toomuch in very specific or
prescriptive tool use orsequence of tool use, you lose
that adaptability as the marketkeeps changing, and so we really
wanted to hone in on what arethose skills and what will be

(12:20):
long lasting and still flexibleas the environment changes.

Emma (12:26):
Yeah, I think.
Additionally, you can come to atool as a student or a teacher
and you can radically misuse it,and it's not just about how you
use it but about thefoundational knowledge and
skills you have in approachingit.
There's not a lot of research,understandably, yet on the
effectiveness of AI tools inclassrooms because they just

(12:47):
purely have not been around thatlong and our understanding of
what is effective is going toevolve as that research develops
, as tools are used, as we seethe results for students.
So, as that's progressing, Ithink what's most important is
to focus on building thatfoundation so that a student

(13:08):
educator can approach any toolwith the skills and knowledge
and competence to be able to useit effectively, evaluate its
effectiveness, plug it in in theright place or not.
Be cautious about purchasingall of those things that we want
and have wanted for technologyand education, you know, for

(13:28):
many, many years.

Alex Kotran (aiEDU) (13:29):
Yeah, and the case in point I remember
when our team was huddling andtrying to decide whether to
create a, you know, specificlearning series around using
ChatGBG for kids, and we shiedaway from it, in part because,
you know, when we were talkingto the technologists at the time
, everybody was really focusingon how do you prompt engineer?

(13:50):
And they were like promptengineering Bibles being not
just published but sold forwhich is totally snake oil, I
think but, um, that the idea isokay, let's teach people to
become prompt engineers.
And there were even folkssaying like prompt engineer
might be a job of the future.
And then, you know, in the lasteight months we've had the
release of these reasoningmodels and if you've used Gemini

(14:12):
or chat, gpt, you can actuallyclick a button and see the
prompting process and the modelis literally prompting itself.
So a lot of the things that wewould have been teaching in like
a prompt engineering class arenow being performed by the ai
and it's actually a little bitmore about um, it's a little
more subtle actually, the, thequalities I'm like.

(14:35):
I want to sort of hone in onthat because, you know, in the
competencies for students andteachers I actually see a lot of
common threads that are evenrelevant to organizations that
are trying to think about, youknow, ai transformation, and
I'll put our own organization inthe spotlight.
I mean, one of the things thatwe've been really sort of
grappling with is, you know, ourteam isn't just AI literate, we

(14:55):
build AI literacy content andyet that hasn't necessarily
translated to everybody, is nowa power user of AI and
everything is AI automated.
I think there's like some folkson the teams who have actually
been like vibe coding andbuilding amazing stuff, and
there are others who are stillmore in experimentation mode.
Are there any parallels interms of like just even some of
the approaches that we haveinternally to some of that

(15:17):
change management that might berelevant to educators, or like
system leaders who are thinkingabout like how do I, you know,
bring my school or my districtinto sort of like this, like AI
forward posture?

Emma (15:27):
Yeah, I mean, I think A lot of it's tied to what's your
approach to change managementand how do you think about
change management in a veryrapidly changing technology
space.
So sometimes traditional changemanagement has been try
something small, pilot it, learnlessons, roll it out to more

(15:47):
people.
I think in the age of AI, thatmight be insufficient because by
the time you've pilotedsomething, everything has
changed.
So it's not you're rolling outto a fixed endpoint.
You're actually constantlyunderstanding new and novel
things.
So there's more of like adesign thinking, problem solving
, deploying creativity.

(16:07):
That's necessary for people totry and experiment.
But in order to do thateffectively, you need some basic
understandings.
So it's easy to play aroundwith chat, gpt for 20 minutes
and then kind of run into like aokay, that was fun, it was kind
of like a good gimmick.
But in order to actuallytransform work or transform the

(16:29):
outcomes, you need to have somevision of okay.
Let me actually criticallyunderstand where this could be
helpful, what the capabilitiesare, how I?
You know we have a competencyin the framework that's called
determining responsible use.
It says critically assess theappropriateness of using AI for
new problems and include theethical implications.

(16:50):
So we think about that in thecontext of our own work of is
this the right thing to use AIfor?
You might think about talentmanagement.
Is it right to use AI to screenresumes or not?
Why, when?
How should you be doing that?
So I think there's a lot morecritical thought when you take
AI use from just playing aroundand kind of a gimmick and a

(17:12):
showy thing to actually thinkingabout how it might embed in an
organization.

Alex Kotran (aiEDU) (17:16):
I mean, would you say folks shouldn't be
using AI to screen resumes?

Emma (17:23):
I don't think we do that we don't, but I think it's an
interesting question, you know,like does it pick up on the
right things?
Is that equitable, is it fair?
People are using AI to writeresumes.
So yeah, you know, I thinkthose are the questions actually
you need to debate as anorganization.
It takes a huge amount of humantime to screen resumes as an
example, but does AI get itright?

(17:44):
Is that fair to candidatesapplying?
So I think there are those kindsof debates across functions and
for a school district.
I mean, that's exactly what Ithink is coming up all over
districts, which is it's notjust about the classroom, it's
also about the function of thedistrict, the internal
operations of a district, howyou run a school.
And where does AI plug in andfor what purpose?

(18:08):
It's not always to gainefficiency, sometimes it is,
sometimes it's accuracy,sometimes it's combining
information or data in ways thatis very laborious or you can't
really do in other mechanisms.
So all of that is applyingcritical thought to its
deployment and application, andthat's more than just buying a

(18:28):
tool or adopting a tool.
It's actually kind of astrategy.

Alex Kotran (aiEDU) (18:33):
I feel like you stonewalled a little bit.
You know, like I don't.
I think this is actually likethe difficulty of that question
of like should we use AI andscreen resumes?
Comes in part with like manycompanies have been using not
necessarily language models butmachine learning to screen
resumes.
In fact, if you, anybody who'slike, heard the tip, like, oh,
just add a bunch of words andsort of like white font to the

(18:55):
bottom of your resume so thatthey can like, get picked up by,
like the resume scanners.
So I think what you justdescribed is yeah, it is more
complicated, but it actually ismore complicated Like there's,
there's a lot that you have todigest and while that isn't as
neat, as it's like a neatly, aslike a nicely packaged, as like
single decision which is likewhat tool do we buy?

(19:15):
Um, that's kind of that is theonly sort of path forward, is
sort of like this much morebroad-based organizational
change management yeah, project,and it's hard, but it has to be
done and the schools that do itand start moving are going to
have a huge, you know, leg up,because this is still sort of
like the early, the early days.

Emma (19:36):
Yeah, and I think those that are moving are, you know,
see it as a priority from fromthe top of the organization.
So they're they have a champion, like there is a champion, and
often they're putting in placepeople who whose role, at least
in part of course not all allsystems have a whole, you know
person worth of time to puttowards this, but have some
leadership of like okay, this isan intentional strategy and an

(19:58):
intentional change managementproject and we need to think
about what are our approachesand where are the experiments
happening and how do we not havereally great experimenting with
lots of different tools and noware finding themselves saying,
oh, wait, wait, wait, a minute.
Now we need to rein it in alittle bit and have a strategy.

(20:19):
And I think there are some onthe other end who are so
hesitant to try things theymaybe haven't had enough
experimentation.
So it's, as a leader, sodifficult to strike that balance
between experimentation andrapid change and sort of
strategy that is going to makesense for the sort of entity.

Alex Kotran (aiEDU) (20:39):
Yeah, I mean I feel like if I was a
superintendent, I probably wouldhave had an AI ban and I
probably would have gotten a lotof heat for it, but I think
it's.
I think the schools that haveactually like literally banned
AI are not necessarily in a badplace.
The question is, you're goingto have to do something next,
like a ban on AI only makessense as a to just buy yourself

(20:59):
time to sort of set the strategyand the vision.
I mean Kishale, just like withan eye towards you know what
does it actually look like?
You know you've been helping usbuild and grow our AI
Trailblazer Fellowship, which isI'll let you describe it, you
can describe it better than me.
But I'm curious.
You know we had this framework,the V1 of the framework, last
year.
Was it valuable at all in, youknow, in the professional

(21:23):
learning cohorts that we wererunning with Trailblazers?

Khushali (21:26):
The Trailblazers program is a wonderful program.
It's in our third year nowwhere we bring on teachers who
are in the field and kind of atthe forefront of the AI work and
thinking in their schools andwanting to bring AI literacy to
their classrooms in particular.
And so we it is a paidfellowship.

(21:46):
We value our teachers time,implement our curriculum, give
us great feedback on it, get usexamples of what it can look
like in the classroom to usesome of our curricular products,
like the snapshots or theexplorations, which none of
which require AI tools, because,again, it's anchored on what is
that critical thinking orconversation or collaboration

(22:08):
that we want to spark withstudents that has them then be
able to apply that in othersituations or develop deeper
skills from there as well.
And so this fellowship hasgiven us great feedback on what
works well in classes, whatteachers are looking for, what
students really respond well toand helps us evolve our

(22:30):
curricular products.
And the feedback from fellowshas been so, so great and like
they are so satisfied with itbecause it is a space for them
to develop their own skill forhow to have these conversations
with students, to be able tothen have training on the

(22:52):
content that we're providing thecurriculum we're providing like
?
What does a snapshot look like?
How can you facilitate it?
What student responses shouldyou be looking for and how does
that evolve over time?
And then being able to sharewith one another.
They film themselves, they getto watch each other in action,
and I think that's one of themost powerful ways for teachers
to learn together is to be ableto see in action what this

(23:16):
content could look like and seeit across the country in
different school contexts, etcetera.
And so the framework has helpedus be able to zero in on what
specific aspects of the teachertraining do we want to hone in
on in developing their fluencywith how to talk about the
content, how to facilitate thesediscussions and then creating

(23:37):
opportunities for students to beable to have these
conversations as well.
And then what our curriculumshould focus on, so that there
are easy entries for allteachers and the ability to do a
variety of activities withstudents and start embedding
into their curriculum as well.

Alex Kotran (aiEDU) (23:59):
Yeah, I mean you mentioned sort of
curriculum development, which Ithink is such a cool aspect of
Trailblazers is actuallyinforming AIEDU's curriculum
strategy.
I mean, emma, I remember theconversation that you and I had
it was months ago now, but whereyou were basically like, hey,
based on the framework and someof the feedback that we've been
getting, like I actually thinkthere's a really specific shift

(24:22):
that we need to make in terms ofthe stuff we build.
Next, we just published ourelementary explorations, which
we're getting tons of greatfeedback on.
Yeah, what was the shift?
And sort of like, what promptedyou, kind of like, making that
decision?

Emma (24:36):
Yeah, we were getting a lot of feedback which was you
know, these, these curricularpieces are great.
They feel like not enough toactually build a literacy
because they're kind ofscattershot.
So like, how do I actually usethese?
And we were also getting a lotof feedback from core content
area teachers which was saying Idon't really have like a lot of

(24:58):
extra time to start doing AIreadiness lessons, and so part
of what we're doing now isthinking about, you know, core
content.
Teachers have a curriculum.
Often they have really highquality instructional materials
which is excellent.
That's been built over manyyears, they've been trained in
them, they're used to them.
They're making modifications tothem to fit their students.

(25:18):
Why don't we build AI readinessright into the core areas
pieces that you can kind of likeembed within what you're
already doing that actuallyhighlight and build some of

(25:39):
these skills right within aclass that all students are
taking.
It provides more equitableaccess to this content.
Again, it's not about using aparticular tool or even having
AI to do the lessons.
It's about highlighting some ofthose key foundational skills
and saying this is reallynecessary for how we think about
the future skills you'll needin life and work and aspects of

(26:00):
it, like that.

Alex Kotran (aiEDU) (26:01):
I think one of my own growths in and really
with Emma and Kishali, withyour like one of the things you
have helped me to see is AIreadiness actually is grounded
in a lot of the stuff that we'vealready been teaching in
schools, or at least the stuffthat we've talked about wanting
to be teaching in school.
So, like, first of all, durableskills none of that is new.

(26:21):
Maybe they were called 21stcentury skills or durable skills
, or social, emotional skills,or digital literacy, media
literacy, like remixing that andlike sort of layering in the AI
context.
And then you know core subjectslike math, english science,
social studies.
I think teachers in thosesubjects are asking themselves
the question of is Englishlanguage arts relevant now that

(26:47):
AI can write?
It's not as good at math.
So I think math teachers maybehave a little bit more time
before they're feeling that whatyou were describing is no,
actually English is moreimportant than ever because A
there's all these underlyingskills that you also build in
English the ability to form anargument and sort of advocate
for that argument, the abilityto structure your thoughts and

(27:10):
to whether it's an essay orother written you know writing
products.
Are teachers surprised by that?
I mean, do you find thatteachers are often coming and
assuming that what they need tolearn is maybe more
transformative than what weactually are prescribing?

Emma (27:26):
Yeah, I mean it is sort of like oh wait, a minute.
Critical thinking is notsomething we just came up with
that we thought would be a goodidea.
It's more like it's sort ofmore important than ever.
Imagine coming to an essay andnot being able to critically
evaluate whether it's highquality.
So that really puts you at adisadvantage, because now you

(27:47):
know, although AI can write agreat critical essay, you need
even more so those skills ofthinking, analysis,
understanding that we've alwayswanted to build in literacy.
We've always wanted to build inmath.
I mean, the math practicestandards already articulate a
lot of those kind of durableproblem-solving, persistence
through productive struggle typeof skills.

(28:10):
Those are critical in the ageof AI and approaching AI.
So I think teachers are kind ofrelieved like, oh wait, maybe
this puts just more emphasis onsome of those things that we've
thought are the right things toteach.
And still, you know, I'd saylike we don't fully know, like I
don't think anyone has acompletely developed vision for

(28:33):
what it looks like in theliteracy classroom of the future
to have AI tools to teachwriting and critical analysis,
to be strong readers.
Nobody has yet the full visionof what that could look like in
order to be the most relevantand the most prepared students

(28:53):
for the future.
So that's what we all need toevolve Like as an education
community.
That's the kind of thinking andproblem solving we need to do
together, but be open to.
It's not sort of black andwhite, it's not.
Oh well, ai can write now, sowe don't need to teach writing.
Or, you know, ai can research,so we don't need to teach
research skills.
I think that's far toosimplistic.

Alex Kotran (aiEDU) (29:14):
I think one of the most fundamental
questions that everybody isprobably asking or maybe they
don't, you don't realize thatyou're asking it deep down which
is it feels wrong to over-relyon the AI.
Like when you use AI to writesomething and the example that
one of our advisors, michelleCulver, I think really

(29:34):
poignantly uses like if someonewrites a birthday message for
you and sends you this likereally long, very kind,
thoughtful birthday message andthat was written by AI, you know
how does that make you feel?
And most people, I think,respond they're like ah, it's
like doesn't feel as personal.
But then there's even more,maybe fundamental things about

(30:01):
am I going to lose my craft andmy ability to write effectively
if I'm over-relying and sort oflike developing this almost like
crutch, because I'm curious howlike the learning team has
encountered this?
Because you know, a lot offolks ask me like, oh, are you
just using AI to write all ofyour curriculum now?
And I'm pretty sure the answeris it could write stuff that
looks like curriculum, but Imean, has it just replaced the
way we go about creatingcurriculum?

Khushali (30:23):
No, not at all, because this is part of, I mean,
what Emma was talking about howwe're innovating within our
team is thinking about where canwe actually use AI effectively
and how do we do that.
And initial drafts from any AItool we've used for any
curriculum have been terrible,like they're not good because

(30:45):
it's just the initial draftright and it doesn't understand
the full, like you can't get thefull context and the nuances
that you need in the design.
But with a lot of our expertisewe can craft.
Like here are the things thatwe want to focus on.
Here are some of the strategiesinstructional strategies we
want to make sure are capturedin curriculum, and here's how we

(31:09):
would want to format the timing.
Like these are things thatrequire our designers to
understand and know well,because that is not something
that an AI tool is going togenerate on its own, and so, but
there's really really greattools that have kind of helped

(31:30):
us be able to synthesize a lotof like headlines from major
high quality instructionalmaterial, curricula of what,
what are like the key concepts.
And if we read the curriculum,do we agree with that?
And if that's the case, thenwhat does that mean for what we
can build towards, and so Ithink there's a lot of capacity
for us to like keep increasingwhat we're producing.

(31:52):
But it requires so much thinkingand review and scrapping lots
of things which, at the end ofthe day, quite frankly, if we
just sat down and designedourselves the old fashioned way,
we do it a lot faster right,because we have these skills
kind of embedded into the workthat we do already.

(32:13):
But it's actually thinking abouthow do you create tools or use
tools in ways that could thenaccelerate the work later for
you, which requires deepexpertise in the build and the
way in which you interact withit and how you're reviewing any
of the outputs that come out ofit.
And so I think any teacher willsay the same thing.
You put in a request for alesson plan from you know

(32:37):
ChatGPT, it'll look fine, and tosomebody who doesn't know good
teaching or doesn't know thestandards, they'll be like oh
yeah, that seems maybe plausible.
But then you get into it andyou're like this is not aligned
to a standard.
There is no like learningoutcome at the end of this.
The practice is generic and notaligned, and I have nothing to

(32:58):
do with any of my students thatneed any supports and so and
that, I think, is what I keepcoming back to where it's just,
when you have the expertise,you're able to have that
critical eye, and how do youkeep honing that as the tools
evolve and you like, you're ableto do more with them as well?

Emma (33:20):
yeah, I mean I think every teacher's had the experience of
googling like I need a lessonplan on this thing.
I'm like 50 hits pop up now.
It's just that there's like sothat's so fast, much faster, and
there's so much more access tothat.
But teachers have that criticaleye.
They've always been able to golook at those and be like, well,
that's not going to work andlike that's sort of half a

(33:41):
lesson plan, so that's not agood like use of AI, necessarily
it's you know, or at least whatdo you need to feed it, what
context, what thinking?
And I do think, like, as themodels get better with their
memory, with their, you know,collection of information, that
will evolve too, and so we mightbe saying something different

(34:01):
down the road.
But I think right now the onlyreason we're able to look at
something a tool spits out andsay, well, that actually isn't
aligned to the standard isbecause we have that knowledge
and expertise ourselves.

Alex Kotran (aiEDU) (34:12):
Yeah, because people ask me like, oh,
like, like, have you, have youchanged the way that you hire?
Are you looking for people thatare basically um, ai experts or
ai power users?
And I mean, I think, across theboard, the answer is no, it's
like you, you actually you, you,the top priority is someone
that really understands whatgood looks like, like, what is a
good lesson plan.

(34:33):
Um, because that's the hardestthing to teach.
It's not something you can justsort of.
Well, we're not.
We're not an organization thatjust wants to experiment and
sort of experiment on kids sothat people can learn on the job
, and I think there's analogs tothat in so many other domains,
even outside, even withineducation, but even outside of
education, which I think isheartening.
It's like, yes, the world isgoing to, but I think there's

(34:55):
already so much disruption thateducators don't, they're not
eager for more and moredisruption, like it's a
disruption sort of happening tothem, and so the more that we
can show how this is actuallyconnected to the things they
already understand and actuallycenter their expertise in a way
that doesn't make them feel likethey're sort of out of their
element, which the techcommunity is very bad about this

(35:17):
making everybody feel likethey're outsiders and like using
sort of terminology to createsort of like barriers.
Anything that you would closewith, so you know this is it's
not too long of a document, butthere's a lot in there.
Um, someone might have even,while they've been listening to
this, downloaded it and maybeperusing through it, um, you
know, maybe speaking to a coupleof different personas, whether,
like, maybe it's like adistrict leader, or like an

(35:38):
individual teacher, maybe aparent, you know what are the
next steps once they've sort ofread through the document and
are trying to figure out, like,what should I be doing?

Emma (35:47):
Yeah, and I would say you know, just first of all, like we
come to this with a humilityand a mindset of like this is
evolving.
We are learning frompractitioners who are out there
trying things, figuring thingsout every day.
So first, I would justencourage anyone who's reading
or listening to have that samecritical eye and openness to
learn, because this is not thebe all end all.

(36:09):
I'm sure there will be aversion three, there will be
many more takes on what to do,what not to do, but for now I
would say, certainly from adistrict leadership perspective,
I'd go into that districtrubric and sort of look at the
domains and ask, you know, askyourself the question like, oh,
have we sort of taken steps inthis area in our district and
what have those steps lookedlike?
And what have we learned fromwhat we've already done?

(36:30):
Because there are so manythings that everybody's already
done, so what have you learned?
And then, where in hereresonates is kind of a high
leverage next step, and that'sreally what this is intended to
be, which is what's my highestleverage next move here, and
maybe it's that you know what Ifeel like we've done some great
internal learning, but wehaven't really galvanized our
community in a way that theyunderstand what we've done A

(36:52):
really high leverage.
Next step might be along thelines of communicating, engaging
, reaching out, getting moreinput.
So that's really how I wouldapproach it from a district
perspective.

Alex Kotran (aiEDU) (37:05):
Kashal.
I mean, you mentioned thatwe've referenced a bunch of
other sort of materials.
What are some examples of, youknow, like frameworks or
organizations that we werelooking to as we built this?

Khushali (37:14):
Examples of, you know, like frameworks, organizations
that we were looking to as webuilt this.
Yeah, I mean there's so many.
I think.
Digital Promise has an AIliteracy framework that came out
last year.
There's the UNESCO framework aswell, and then there's the AI
Lit framework that just recentlycame out and kind of AI for
K-12 that have some five bigideas that we've looked at as
well.
12 that have some five bigideas that we've looked at as
well, and Common Sense Mediaalso recently released a AI

(37:38):
toolkit that has incredibleresources as well and really
like harnessing what's alreadyout there for what districts are
doing for implementing.
So those are just some of theframeworks that are out there
right now, and we've had somereally great reviewers of our
content.
We had folks from TNTP who havesuch a great eye for what does

(38:01):
it mean to have competencies andkind of building that learning,
and that have reviewed thiswork for us in this round in
particular and in our priorround, and so those are, and
we've had reviewers from theother organizations look through
the content as well.

Alex Kotran (aiEDU) (38:20):
Yeah, I just encourage folks to go to
the check out the framework forthe full list of all the folks
and organizations that we'vebeen tapping, and if there are
other resources out there thatwe missed, drop us a line.
We're you know, one of ourcompetencies is, you know,
continual learning, and we arecontinually learning as we do
this and that's why we've beenreleasing it sort of in versions

(38:43):
.
Yeah, kishali, emma, thank youso much for joining.
I know it's a busy week.
I'll let you get to all thestuff you're doing, but I really
appreciate you tuning in.

Emma (38:54):
Thanks and thanks for listening and yeah, again, just
echoing Alex, drop us a line,share your feedback.
We just love to hear from folksabout how they're using this
and what their reactions are tomake it better, so appreciate it
all.

Khushali (39:04):
There's a human behind the learning at AIEDU email, so
we are eager to hear from youall.

Alex Kotran (aiEDU) (39:11):
All right, excellent, thanks, team.
Advertise With Us

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know
Dateline NBC

Dateline NBC

Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com

CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist

CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist

It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.

Music, radio and podcasts, all free. Listen online or download the iHeart App.

Connect

© 2025 iHeartMedia, Inc.