“Is using AI in the classroom even ethical?” I get this question more times than I can count. And my answer has always been the same: If your school allows it, GO FOR IT.
Because the real problem as far as I am concerned is not about AI ethics but about comfort zones. Some educators hide behind vague hand-wringing about “ethics” or parrot tired lines like “AI is teaching for the student.” That’s nonsense. Lazy nonsense.
Let’s call it what it is: many teachers want to keep teaching the way they’ve always done it because it’s familiar, easy, and doesn’t require rethinking anything.
But that’s not the kind of teacher I’m talking to here.
I’m talking to the teachers who are reflective practitioners, what Dewey called reflective thinkers in How We Think.
- The ones who are constantly experimenting, iterating, and improving.
- The ones who see failure not as a threat, but as a diagnostic tool.
- The ones who guide students, learn alongside them, and use every tool available, including AI, to deepen learning, not shortcut it.
To those teachers AI is not a threat. It’s a historic opportunity. It’s a chance to elevate your craft, not replace it.
I feel genuinely lucky to be teaching in this era. We’re living through a once-in-a-century shift, not just in education, but in how humans think, learn, and interact with information.
Historians will talk about Pre-AI and Post-AI classrooms. We’re the ones building the bridge between those two worlds.
Now, none of this means we embrace AI blindly. That would be reckless. And if you’ve followed my work, you know I never advocate that. I push for intentionality, purposeful, pedagogically grounded use. Don’t throw AI at your lesson plans like someone tossing spaghetti at the wall hoping it sticks. (That’s not innovation. That’s dinner prep gone wrong.)
We need to be asking:
- Why am I using this tool here?
- What pedagogical purpose does it serve?
- Is it helping students think, or just helping me get through the week?
That’s where today’s visual comes in. I created it as a field guide for using AI responsibly in your classroom. Because responsible use doesn’t mean avoiding it. It means knowing what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and how it impacts your students.
Here are just a few highlights:
- Keep Student Data Private: Don’t enter names, grades, or personal info into AI tools. Treat them like public spaces.
- Don’t Trust AI Outputs Blindly: Review. Revise. Question. AI is a draft assistant, not a content expert.
- Be Transparent with Students: Tell them when you used AI to prep something. It builds trust. Simple.
- Teach Students to Question AI: Bias, hallucinations, missing voices—your students need to spot them.
- Always Cite and Acknowledge: AI doesn’t erase citation. In fact, it makes modeling it even more important.
- Don’t Use AI to Grade Students: Grading is human. Nuanced. Contextual. AI doesn’t get that.
- Personalize, Don’t Standardize: AI can help tailor instruction. But don’t let it flatten your teaching.
And perhaps most importantly: Blend AI with Human Judgment. You are the teacher. AI is the tool. Your experience, your values, your instincts, they still matter more than ever.
If you’re a teacher who wants to think critically, teach ethically, and grow professionally, this is your moment.
- You don’t need to know everything about AI.
- But you do need to engage with it.
- Because the worst mistake you can make right now isn’t “overusing AI.”
- It’s pretending it doesn’t exist.
