Week 2
Week 3 of 6
Week 4 Exit Slides

Week 3: Faculty Enablement

Empowering teachers, not replacing them

Today’s Session

  • Understanding the faculty challenge with AI
  • Addressing legitimate teacher concerns
  • Designing effective professional development
  • Using AI to enhance teaching

The Faculty Reality

Most teachers right now feel overwhelmed by yet another technology mandate.

Current State

  • Used ChatGPT once or twice at most
  • Cannot distinguish between different AI tools
  • Worry students know more than they do
  • Remember previous tech initiatives that went nowhere

What Teachers Need

  • Knowledge: What AI can and cannot do
  • Skills: Practical ability to use AI tools
  • Judgment: When AI helps or hinders learning
  • Confidence: Willingness to guide students

Concern: AI Will Replace Teachers

  • Articles proclaim AI tutors replace human instruction
  • Budget pressures create incentive to reduce staff
  • Ed tech companies market AI as substitutes
  • Administrative enthusiasm for cost-saving technology

Why AI Cannot Replace Teachers

  • Building trusting relationships with students
  • Understanding classroom dynamics and group psychology
  • Recognizing when student struggles emotionally
  • Professional judgment about when to push or support

Concern: Students Know More

Many teachers feel behind their students.

What Students Lack

  • Judgment about when AI undermines learning
  • Critical evaluation skills for AI errors
  • Understanding of how AI actually works
  • Ability to teach others responsible use

Concern: Academic Integrity Crisis

  • Assignments used for years suddenly unusable
  • Difficulty distinguishing student work from AI
  • Students submitting work beyond their capability
  • Uncertainty about responding to violations

Assessment Redesign Support

  • Subject-specific examples of AI-resistant assignments
  • Templates for process-based assessment
  • Time to redesign key assignments
  • Peer review of redesigned assessments

Concern: No Time

Teachers already plan lessons, grade work, manage classrooms, and handle crises.

Making the ROI Case

  • Differentiated reading materials in 2 minutes vs 30
  • Automated first-pass feedback on student writing
  • Quick creation of practice problems
  • Efficient parent communication drafting

Tiered Professional Development

  • Tier 1: Foundational awareness (required for all)
  • Tier 2: Practical competence (expected for most)
  • Tier 3: Advanced leadership (select faculty)

Tier 1: Foundational Awareness

  • What AI is and what it can do
  • School policies and expectations
  • Basic familiarity with approved tools
  • Time commitment: 3 hours

Tier 2: Practical Competence

  • Using AI for lesson planning
  • Effective prompting strategies
  • Evaluating AI output for accuracy
  • Redesigning assessments for AI era

Tier 3: Advanced Leadership

  • Sophisticated AI integration in discipline
  • Supporting and coaching colleagues
  • Contributing to school-wide curriculum
  • Experimenting with emerging capabilities

Effective Training Format

  • Brief demonstration (10 minutes)
  • Guided practice with real tasks (30 minutes)
  • Small group problem-solving (15 minutes)
  • Share-out and troubleshooting (15 minutes)

Subject-Specific Development

  • How AI handles subject-specific content
  • Common AI errors teachers should watch for
  • Appropriate AI use cases for this discipline
  • Assessment redesign for this subject

Peer Learning Communities

  • Monthly sharing sessions for teachers trying AI
  • Subject-area groups discussing discipline-specific use
  • Cross-grade-level conversations about developmental appropriateness
  • Informal mentoring between early adopters and skeptics

Just-in-Time Support

  • Quick reference guides for common tasks
  • Video tutorials under 3 minutes
  • Templates and prompts teachers can adapt
  • Searchable repository of AI-enhanced lessons

Understanding AI Capabilities

  • AI is pattern recognition trained on massive text
  • AI generates plausible responses, not verified facts
  • AI has knowledge cutoff dates
  • AI output quality depends on prompt quality

Effective Prompting

  • Be specific about what you need
  • Provide examples of desired output
  • Ask AI to explain its reasoning
  • Request multiple options or variations

Evaluating AI Output

  • Always verify factual claims against sources
  • Check for bias in sensitive topics
  • Evaluate whether reading level matches needs
  • Assess cultural appropriateness and inclusivity

AI for Differentiated Instruction

  • Generate reading passages at multiple Lexile levels
  • Create scaffolded versions of complex tasks
  • Develop extension activities for advanced students
  • Produce visual supports for English learners

AI for Feedback at Scale

  • First-pass feedback on student writing drafts
  • Identifying common errors across student work
  • Suggesting individualized practice based on mistakes
  • Creating rubric-aligned feedback comments

AI for Lesson Planning

  • Generate essential questions for new units
  • Create discussion questions from text excerpts
  • Develop warm-up activities aligned to objectives
  • Build assessment items at various difficulty

Building Faculty Support

  • Peer mentoring pairs
  • Regular faculty sharing sessions
  • Protected time for collaborative redesign
  • Recognition for teachers willing to try

Technical Support Requirements

  • Clear process for getting accounts
  • Help desk that understands AI tools
  • Troubleshooting guides for common issues
  • Backup plans when tools fail

Leadership Modeling

  • Publicly use AI for appropriate tasks
  • Share their own learning and mistakes
  • Ask teachers how AI is working
  • Allocate time and resources to support integration

Measuring Faculty Progress

  • Understanding of AI capabilities (survey)
  • Self-reported comfort using AI tools
  • Actual integration into teaching practice
  • Confidence addressing student AI questions

Common PD Failures

  • One-time training with no follow-up
  • Mandates without time or resources
  • Assuming all teachers need same training
  • Ignoring teacher concerns as resistance

The Gradual Release Model

  • Awareness and exploration (Months 1-2)
  • Guided practice with support (Months 3-4)
  • Independent application with resources (Months 5-6)
  • Refinement and sharing expertise (Months 7-12)

Workshop Activity

Design your faculty development plan.

Planning Steps

  • Assess current faculty readiness
  • Identify Tier 3 candidates who could lead
  • Plan Tier 1 training all faculty will complete
  • Outline Tier 2 pathway with subject-specific elements

This Week’s Takeaway

Faculty enablement is not optional infrastructure. It is the foundation.

The Priority

Policy without teacher capability creates compliance problems, not learning environments.

Looking Ahead

Week 4 addresses student AI literacy.

Students Need Instruction

  • Develop misconceptions without guidance
  • Trust AI output uncritically
  • Miss opportunities to develop essential skills
  • Lack vocabulary to discuss appropriate use