Episode Summary

In this episode, I explore teaching in the age of AI through the lens of teacher sustainability. I use AI regularly to brainstorm, organize ideas, develop pacing guides, build starting points for assessments and practice, think through differentiation, and adapt materials. It can save significant time, but I don't believe that makes teachers less important. I think it makes professional judgment even more important.

I look at several ways AI can help teachers, including providing better starting points, supporting differentiation, organizing information, and identifying patterns in student data. But AI output is not professional judgment. Teachers still have to ask whether something is accurate, developmentally appropriate, aligned to curriculum, useful for their actual students, and worth using at all.

I also discuss the danger of allowing AI to replace the thinking students and teachers need to develop. AI should be a thinking partner, not a replacement for thinking. Schools need thoughtful policies around privacy, academic integrity, accuracy, environmental concerns, and appropriate use, but responding to AI with fear alone won't prepare students or teachers for the world they're entering.

Ultimately, I believe AI could make teaching more sustainable if we use it to reduce lower-value work and protect the time it saves. The goal shouldn't be making teachers produce more. It should be giving teachers greater capacity for the deeply human work technology cannot replace: relationships, judgment, empathy, creativity, leadership, trust, and helping young people believe in what they can become.

Show Notes

• How I currently use AI as an educator
• AI as a starting point rather than a finished product
• Differentiation and material adaptation
• Finding patterns in student data
• Why professional judgment still matters
• AI as a thinking partner, not a replacement for thinking
• Protecting the time AI saves teachers
• Why human teaching matters even more

Key Takeaways

• AI can save teachers time by giving them better starting points.
• AI-generated work still requires professional judgment and verification.
• Teachers need enough expertise to recognize when AI output is weak or wrong.
• AI should support student thinking rather than replace it.
• Schools need thoughtful AI policies instead of fear or blind enthusiasm.
• Efficiency should not automatically become permission to increase teacher workload.
• The more technology advances, the more valuable the human parts of teaching become.

This is Mr. Funky Teacher with BeAFunkyTeacher.com. I'm coming to you with another Be a Funky Teacher podcast.

Welcome back, everyone.

Today's episode is called Teaching in the Age of AI.

I use artificial intelligence quite a bit in my work as an educator, and I'm not embarrassed to say that.

I use it to brainstorm.

I use it to organize ideas.

I've used it to help develop pacing guides around a particular school calendar.

I've used it as a starting point for assessments and practice activities.

I've used it to think through differentiation.

I've used it to help adapt material for different grade levels.

Sometimes I just bounce ideas back and forth with it.

And there are things that might have taken me a couple hours in the past that I can now begin organizing in a matter of minutes.

That's pretty remarkable.

But here's the interesting part.

I don't think AI has made the teacher less important.

Actually, the more I've worked with AI, the more convinced I've become that the teacher matters even more.

Because AI can generate something.

But somebody still has to decide whether it's any good.

Somebody has to know the students.

Somebody has to understand their curriculum.

Somebody has to recognize when the AI has drifted away from what you actually asked it to do.

Somebody has to ask:

Is this developmentally appropriate?

Is it accurate?

Does this assessment actually measure what I want students to know?

Would this work with the kids sitting in front of me?

That's professional judgment.

And that's human work.

I've already spent considerable amounts of time on this podcast exploring teaching in the age of AI.

I've gone much deeper into what AI means for education.

But today, I want to look at it through the lens of this particular series:

Teachers Are Not Broken.

Could AI actually make this profession more sustainable?

Could it give teachers back some of the time we've been talking about?

Or will it simply become one more thing added to a profession already carrying too much?

That's the conversation today.

Well, before we get into it, let's ground ourselves in gratitude.

Here are three things that I'm thankful for.

The first thing that I'm thankful for is tools that help me turn an idea into something usable.

Teachers have ideas all the time.

Sometimes the challenge isn't having the idea.

It's finding the time to develop it.

I'm thankful for tools that can help me organize something that's bouncing around in my head and get it closer to something I can actually use with students and with adults.

The idea still needs me.

But getting from idea to starting point can happen much faster.

The second thing that I'm thankful for is opportunities to keep learning.

I'm beginning my 24th year of teaching, and I'm still learning.

I hope that never stops.

Education changes.

Technology changes.

Students change.

And I don't want 20-plus years of experience to become an excuse to stop being curious.

I'm thankful that this profession continues giving me reasons to learn something new.

The third thing that I'm thankful for is conversations that make me think differently.

Sometimes one of the best ways I develop an idea is simply by talking it through.

That might be with another teacher.

A mentor.

A colleague.

Someone who disagrees with me.

And yes, sometimes now it's even bouncing ideas back and forth with AI.

I'm thankful for anything that causes me to stop and say:

"I hadn't thought about it that way."

Because curiosity still makes us better educators.

So the topic once again is Teaching in the Age of AI.

But this isn't really an episode about whether AI is good or bad.

That's too simple.

AI isn't going away.

There are legitimate concerns surrounding it.

There are environmental concerns associated with the infrastructure required to support these technologies.

There are ethical questions.

Privacy questions.

Academic integrity questions.

Questions about accuracy.

There are also questions about how much thinking we're willing to outsource.

And those conversations all matter.

But today, I want to focus on one question:

What should AI actually do for teachers?

Because coming right after our conversation about more responsibilities, same 24 hours, I think there's an opportunity here.

AI could become another responsibility.

Or it could help us remove some of the lower-value work that keeps teachers from doing the deeply human work students need.

And those are two very different futures.

AI can give teachers a better starting point.

This is probably one of the biggest ways I use AI.

Not necessarily to give me the finished product.

To give me a starting point.

There's a difference.

Let's say I need practice questions.

I can begin with AI.

Maybe I'm developing an assessment.

It can help create a foundation.

Maybe I have a pacing guide and need to organize it around the actual calendar for a particular school year.

AI can help.

Maybe I have information scattered everywhere and need to organize it into something coherent.

It can help with that too.

Or maybe I'm just trying to think:

"Hey, what are 10 different ways I could approach this concept?"

That's where brainstorming with AI can become really interesting.

Because staring at a blank page takes time.

Starting with something gives me something to react to.

I can say:

"I like this."

Or:

"I don't like that."

"That's too difficult."

"That's not what I meant."

"Give me another direction."

"This needs to be more appropriate for fifth graders."

Now I'm spending time refining instead of beginning from zero.

And for a profession where time is incredibly limited, a better starting point matters.

AI can help with differentiation.

This is another area where I see tremendous potential.

Teachers constantly need to adapt.

Maybe you've got a text that's too difficult for some students.

Could AI help you develop a more accessible version of that text?

Potentially.

Maybe you want additional practice for students who need it.

Maybe you want to generate examples at different levels of complexity.

Maybe you need to take an idea written for adults and turn it into something a fifth grader can understand.

That used to take considerable time.

And teachers still need to check the result.

That's important.

But AI can help us create options much faster.

Think about what that could mean for teachers.

Differentiation has always been one of those things we know is important.

But doing it well requires time.

If technology helps reduce the preparation time, maybe teachers have more capacity to actually work with students.

That's where I get excited.

Not because the computer differentiated instruction.

Because the computer helped the teacher spend less time producing materials and more time teaching children.

AI can help us see patterns.

Data is another place where I think AI has enormous potential.

Teachers are surrounded by data.

Assessments.

Interventions.

Progress monitoring.

Attendance.

Standards.

Student performance.

Data.

Data.

Data.

And as we talked about in our previous episode, analyzing all of that takes time.

AI may help teachers identify patterns more efficiently.

Maybe a group of students consistently struggles with the same standard.

Maybe an assessment reveals a misconception.

Maybe several pieces of information together reveal something that isn't immediately obvious.

Technology can help surface those patterns.

But here's the distinction.

Finding a pattern and deciding what to do about it are different jobs.

AI might tell us:

"Hey, these seven students appear to be struggling with this concept."

Great.

But then I need to know:

Why are those seven kids struggling?

Do they actually misunderstand the concept?

Was the assessment poorly written?

Was there a language issue?

Did half of them miss instruction?

Does one student need a completely different approach?

That's where professional judgment comes back into the picture.

AI can help us see.

Teachers still have to understand.

AI output is not professional judgment.

This may be one of the most important habits teachers need when using AI.

Don't take the output at face value.

I've seen AI produce something really strong.

And I've seen it drift.

I've asked for one thing and watched it slowly become something else.

I've seen information that needs checking.

I've seen assessments that look good initially but need significant refinement.

That's why I don't think:

"AI created it. Therefore, it's ready."

I think:

"Hey, AI gave me something to evaluate."

That's completely different, y'all.

There's an analogy here with other areas of life.

You can ask AI a health question.

You might learn something.

It might help you formulate questions.

But if I've got a serious medical concern, I'm going to value the professional judgment of qualified medical professionals.

Education should work similarly.

AI has information.

Teachers have expertise.

And expertise includes context.

Professional judgment asks:

Does this make sense?

Is this accurate?

Is this appropriate?

Does it align with what students need?

That's why AI literacy for educators can't simply mean knowing how to type a good prompt.

It also means knowing when not to trust the answer.

AI should not replace the thinking students need to do.

This gets especially interesting when we think about students.

Because the same tool that can help a teacher brainstorm can do the intellectual work for a student.

And that is a problem if the thinking itself is what we're trying to teach.

I teach college students who are preparing to become teachers.

There are ways I absolutely think AI can support them.

Maybe they've written a learning target and want to make it more student-friendly.

Let's look at it.

Let's refine it.

Let's talk about why one version might communicate more clearly than another.

That's using AI while still thinking.

But imagine a future teacher who has never learned how to design a lesson.

They ask:

"AI, write my lesson plan."

It does.

They turn it in.

Okay.

But do they know why the lesson is structured that way?

Can they adjust it?

What happens when students don't understand?

Can they recognize that the lesson AI produced isn't very good?

If you never develop the underlying expertise, you don't have the expertise necessary to evaluate what AI gives you.

That's the danger.

We cannot allow convenience to eliminate the productive intellectual struggle that develops expertise.

Students need to think.

Teachers need to think.

AI should become a thinking partner.

Not a replacement for thinking.

Schools can't respond to AI with fear alone.

I understand why educators are concerned.

Academic integrity is real.

Privacy matters.

Accuracy matters.

Environmental impact deserves serious consideration.

There are legitimate questions about how these technologies should be used.

But simply saying:

"AI is bad. Don't use it."

Doesn't prepare students for the world they're entering.

And it doesn't prepare teachers either.

I think schools need thoughtful policies.

Not panic.

Not blind enthusiasm.

Thoughtfulness.

What tools are appropriate?

What information shouldn't be entered?

When is AI assistance acceptable?

When does it cross the line into doing someone's work?

What should students disclose?

How do teachers verify information?

How do we protect student privacy?

And maybe most importantly:

What are we actually trying to teach?

If the goal of an assignment is thinking, we need to protect their thinking.

If AI can eliminate meaningless busywork without eliminating learning, maybe that's worth exploring.

The answer isn't fear.

The answer is discernment.

Saving teachers time doesn't mean we get to take the time back.

This connects directly to our last episode.

Let's imagine AI saves a teacher three hours this week.

Fantastic.

But here's what I don't want to have happen.

Someone says:

"Wonderful. Now that AI saved you three hours, here's three more hours of work."

No.

That's how we end up right back where we started.

If technology genuinely makes part of teaching more efficient, maybe some of that time should actually remain with the teacher.

Maybe they spend more time giving student feedback.

Maybe they work individually with a struggling student.

Maybe they design something creative.

Maybe they collaborate with a colleague.

Maybe they go home on time.

Yes.

Maybe they go home.

Efficiency shouldn't automatically become permission to increase workload.

Otherwise, every technological advancement simply raises the expectation of how much one human being should produce.

That's not sustainability.

If AI gives teachers time back, we should be thoughtful about what happens to that time.

Because sometimes the best use of saved time is breathing room.

AI could make teaching more sustainable.

Now we get directly into the larger argument of this series.

Could AI help keep great teachers in education?

I think potentially, yes.

Not because AI is going to solve teacher retention.

It won't.

But remember what we've been talking about.

Documentation.

Planning.

Data.

Differentiation.

Communication.

Assessment development.

Organization.

Those responsibilities require enormous amounts of teacher time.

If AI can responsibly reduce some of that workload, that's meaningful.

Imagine reducing the time required for certain routine tasks by even 20%.

That's time.

And time has become one of the most valuable resources teachers have.

But the goal shouldn't be:

"How can AI make teachers produce more?"

I think the better question is:

How can AI reduce lower-value work so teachers have more capacity for higher-value work?

That's a teacher-retention conversation.

Because technology should serve the teacher.

The teacher shouldn't become a production manager serving the technology.

The more technology advances, the more human teaching matters.

This is something I've become increasingly convinced of.

AI can generate information.

Teachers create belonging.

AI can analyze patterns.

Teachers notice the look on a child's face.

AI can generate a lesson.

Teachers can tell when a lesson isn't working and change direction in 30 seconds.

AI can suggest feedback.

Teachers know whether a student needs correction.

Encouragement.

Challenge.

Or maybe just somebody to listen for a minute.

AI can provide ideas.

Teachers inspire.

AI can take data and process it.

Teachers build culture.

AI doesn't stand at the classroom door and notice:

"Something is different about this kid today."

That's human work.

And the more sophisticated technology becomes, I think we may discover that the most important parts of teaching were never the parts technology could easily automate anyway.

Relationships.

Judgment.

Empathy.

Discernment.

Leadership.

Creativity.

Trust.

Inspiration.

Helping a child believe:

"I can do something meaningful with my life."

That's why I don't believe AI makes great teachers obsolete.

I think it clarifies what makes great teachers irreplaceable.

Let AI handle more of what machines can do so teachers can do more of what humans do best.

This is where I want to land.

I don't want AI to become another thing piled onto teachers.

Another platform.

Another expectation.

Another training.

Another initiative.

Another reason administrators believe teachers should somehow accomplish more inside the same 24 hours.

I want us to ask a different question:

What could we responsibly take off teachers' plates?

Maybe AI helps organize information.

Maybe it creates a starting point.

Maybe it helps us analyze data.

Maybe it helps adapt material.

Maybe it handles some routine administrative work.

And then give the human teacher back to the students.

Let me talk with students.

Let me listen.

Teach.

Notice.

Encourage.

Challenge.

Create.

Let me build relationships.

Let me inspire greatness in young people.

That's where I want my energy.

AI shouldn't make education less human.

Used wisely, maybe it can create more room for the human parts of education that matter most.

Well, as I do a reflective close here, I want to acknowledge that we're teaching in an age of AI.

There's no question about that anymore.

And I don't know exactly what these technologies are going to look like five years from now.

Ten years from now.

None of us do.

There are things we should be excited about.

There are things we should question.

There are things we should protect against.

And there are things we probably haven't even thought about yet.

But I know this.

I'm not interested in using AI simply because it's new.

I'm interested in whether it helps us teach better.

Does it help students learn?

Does it help teachers make better decisions?

Does it reduce meaningless work?

Does it create more time for relationships?

Does it help us identify student needs?

Does it allow teachers to spend more of their limited energy doing things that actually matter?

Those are the questions.

And teachers, don't hand over your professional judgment.

Use the tool.

Question the tool.

Challenge it.

Correct it.

Tell it when it's wrong.

Take what helps.

Discard what doesn't.

Because 24 years into this profession, I still believe the teacher matters.

Maybe more than ever.

And leaders, if AI saves teachers time, resist the temptation to immediately fill every minute we've saved.

Maybe giving teachers some time back is part of the solution.

Because we just spent an entire episode talking about more responsibilities in the same 24 hours.

What if technology could actually reverse a little of that?

Not:

"AI saved you time, so here's more work."

But:

"AI saved you time. Now let's protect that time for the work that matters most."

That's a future of education I can get excited about.

Not classrooms without teachers.

Classrooms where teachers have better tools.

Not students who don't have to think.

Students learning how to think alongside increasingly powerful technology.

Not education becoming less human.

Education recognizing just how valuable the human parts have always been.

Because AI can do some incredible things.

But it can't be Mr. Funky Teacher.

And it can't be you.

It doesn't know your students the way you do.

It doesn't carry your experience.

It doesn't replace your judgment.

It doesn't replace your empathy.

It doesn't replace your ability to look at a young person and see something in them that maybe they can't see in themselves yet.

So use the technology.

Learn it.

Question it.

Be thoughtful about it.

But don't surrender the human part of this profession.

Because maybe one of the great opportunities of teaching in an age of AI is finally becoming crystal clear about what only a human teacher can do.

And that's where I think the future gets really interesting.

If you found value in this episode, head over to Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcasts and hit me up with a five-star review.

Let me know what you think.

It helps more teachers find this space.

And as you go into your day, I want you to remember to inspire greatness in young people.

And don't forget to be a funky teacher.

Bye now.