Teachers are told to review AI output before using it. But what does review actually mean? Most teachers check three things. Is the material accurate? Is it aligned to the standard? Is the tone appropriate? If all three pass, the material goes into the lesson. That is a read-through, not an audit. A read-through catchesContinue reading "Your AI Lesson Plan Passed the Read-Through. It Still Might Fail These Two Tests."
The Measurement Problem: Why Districts Are Tracking the Wrong AI Metrics
The Stanford SCALE review screened 818 papers and found zero high-quality causal studies of AI's impact on K-12 students in U.S. schools. Most districts track engagement metrics, not learning metrics. Here is what to track instead.
The Offloading Trap: Why You Must Audit Every AI-Generated Instructional Output
Claude for Teachers launched this month. Teachers can pull in assessment data, lesson plans, and standards from all 50 states, then ask an AI to build personalized instruction overnight. That’s powerful. It’s also the exact moment to be honest about what happens between the prompt and the classroom. I’ve written about this distinction from theContinue reading "The Offloading Trap: Why You Must Audit Every AI-Generated Instructional Output"
Cognitive Offloading vs. Cognitive Outsourcing: The Distinction That Determines Whether AI Helps or Harms Learning
A calculator offloads arithmetic so a student can focus on problem-solving. That’s cognitive offloading: the tool handles the mechanical work so the learner can focus on the cognitive work. Now imagine a student who types a word problem into an AI tool, copies the answer, and moves on. The tool did the thinking. The studentContinue reading "Cognitive Offloading vs. Cognitive Outsourcing: The Distinction That Determines Whether AI Helps or Harms Learning"
Two Roads: What China and the U.S. Are Actually Doing With AI in Schools
A side-by-side reading of primary-source AI-in-education policy from both countries reveals a structural difference with real consequences for practice: China has a binding K-9 AI curriculum standard, prescriptive classroom guardrails, and explicit rural-equity funding. The U.S. has a state patchwork and federal encouragement. Both bets are uncertain. Both could learn from the other.
The Laptop on the Desk Already Runs a Model
Open-source models can run on school laptops today. Free, private, controllable. The technology is ready. The barrier is institutional, not technical.
Beyond the Hype: An Evidence-First Framework for AI Literacy in Education
An evidence-first framework for how educators should think about AI in the classroom — anchored in cognitive science, grounded in real research, and committed to pedagogy preceding tooling.
Every Student Will Have AI Agents Sooner Than Later: The Question Is Whether Schools Will Be Ready
The shift is not coming. It is already underway and the pace is about to accelerate beyond what most educators are prepared for. A few weeks ago, I published a piece about how I built a personalized study system using Claude and the principles of the science of learning : retrieval practice, spaced practice, interleaving,Continue reading "Every Student Will Have AI Agents Sooner Than Later: The Question Is Whether Schools Will Be Ready"
I Built a Personalized Study System with Claude. Here Is the Science Behind Why It Worked.
I built a personalized study system using Claude and cognitive science principles: retrieval practice, spaced repetition, cognitive load. Here's what happened and why it worked.
Graze and Tag: The Most Underrated Strategy in Your Co-Teaching Toolkit
It was third period of 11th-grade American Literature. My co-teacher had just introduced the closing image of The Great Gatsby chapter 1, the moment Gatsby stretches his arms toward the green light at the end of Daisy's dock, and I started walking around the room. Two minutes in, I noticed students were paraphrasing the language but missing what the green light was actually doing in the chapter. Without missing a beat, I stepped back to the front, took the marker from my partner, and said, "Hold on. Before we go further, let's unpack what that green light is doing here." He moved into the room to circulate. We had just executed Graze and Tag, and we had not planned for it that morning. That fluidity of this co-teaching strategy is the magic of this strategy. It may also be the most undervalued tool in your co-teaching toolkit.