AI and the Role of Educators
AI & the Role of Educators
AI Is the Tool. Student Learning Is the Goal.
AI can be a powerful tool for teaching and learning—but the goal is always meaningful student learning. This guidance helps educators use AI to strengthen instruction, deepen student thinking, expand access and creativity, and build learners' ability to understand and use AI responsibly.
What This Guidance Is For
Welcome, educators! These resources provide practical strategies, lesson ideas, and professional learning to help you make thoughtful decisions about AI in teaching and learning.
The focus is not simply on using AI. It is on knowing when, why, and how AI can meaningfully support learning while preserving educator expertise, student agency, authentic thinking, and strong relationships.
Why This Matters for Teaching and Learning
AI is changing how people learn, work, communicate, and access information. Educators have an important role in helping learners use these technologies while preserving the thinking, creativity, communication, relationships, and decision-making that make learning meaningful.
Thoughtful AI integration should begin with an instructional purpose—not with the technology itself. Ask first: What do we want students to learn, experience, create, or understand? Then consider whether AI can strengthen that learning experience.
Student learning comes first: AI should support deeper learning, critical thinking, creativity, communication, problem solving, and meaningful demonstration of learning—not simply make a task faster or easier.
AI Literacy
Learners already encounter AI in their daily lives. AI literacy means helping learners understand how AI systems work, what they can and cannot do, and how to use them ethically and effectively in school, work, and civic life.
AI literacy also means helping learners make informed decisions about when, how, and whether to use AI—not simply teaching them how to operate an AI tool.
1. Understand Risks
Help learners recognize bias, misinformation, disinformation, privacy concerns, inaccuracies, and the limitations of AI-generated content.
2. Evaluate Opportunities
Explore how AI might strengthen learning through personalized feedback, creative exploration, accessibility supports, simulations, and new ways of engaging with ideas.
3. Make Informed Choices
Help learners question, verify, critique, and make thoughtful decisions about AI-generated information rather than accepting outputs at face value.
Connections to Wisconsin Learning Standards
AI literacy is not a separate task added on top of standards-based instruction. It can be integrated into existing learning when AI helps students develop the knowledge and skills identified in Wisconsin's 2025 standards. The connection is determined by the learning goal and what students are expected to know and do.
Think beyond the tool. The use of an AI tool does not automatically make an activity standards-aligned. Consider what students are learning, what they are doing with AI, and what they are expected to demonstrate.
What might this look like?
| If students are learning to… | They might… | Potential Wisconsin connection |
|---|---|---|
| Evaluate information | Compare an AI response with credible sources, identify inaccuracies or bias, and defend which evidence they trust. | ITL: Information Architecture; Digital Citizenship |
| Create and communicate | Use AI to brainstorm or revise, then create and explain an original product for a specific audience. | ITL: Innovative Design; Effective Communication |
| Solve problems | Ask AI to generate possible solutions, test those solutions, identify limitations, and refine an approach. | ITL: Innovative Design; CS: Algorithms and Design |
| Understand data and AI | Investigate how training data or algorithms can produce biased or unfair outcomes. | CS: Data and Analysis |
| Use technology responsibly | Examine privacy, intellectual property, attribution, academic integrity, and the consequences of AI-generated content. | ITL: Digital Citizenship; CS: Computing and Society |
| Collaborate and consider perspectives | Use digital tools to examine an issue from multiple perspectives and develop a solution with others. | ITL: Global Collaboration |
Why these connections matter
Wisconsin's 2025 Information and Technology Literacy (ITL) Standards are designed to be integrated across content areas rather than taught only as a standalone curriculum. They emphasize using information and technology purposefully to explore ideas, solve problems, communicate effectively, collaborate, and participate responsibly in digital environments.
The standards also explicitly address emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence, as students develop the ability to use technology critically, ethically, and responsibly.
Wisconsin's Computer Science Standards provide additional opportunities for AI literacy, particularly through Algorithms and Design, Data and Analysis, and Computing and Society. Students can explore how algorithms work, how data influences AI systems, and how issues such as bias, privacy, fairness, and automated decision-making affect people and society.
Guiding Principles for AI in Education
These principles support thoughtful, ethical, and effective use of AI while keeping educators and learners at the center.
Student Learning Comes First
Begin with the learning goal. Use AI when it strengthens meaningful learning, deeper thinking, creativity, communication, access, or problem solving—not simply because the technology is available.
AI as a Tool and Partner
AI should support, not replace, educators and learners. Teach learners how to craft quality prompts, evaluate outputs, recognize limitations, and decide whether an AI-generated result is useful.
Human → AI → Human
Human purpose and thinking → AI assistance → Human judgment and action.
AI can generate, suggest, summarize, translate, or transform—but people remain responsible for evaluating the result and deciding what to use.
Protect Authentic Student Learning
Design AI use so students still do the thinking, creating, communicating, collaborating, and demonstrating of learning that the lesson is intended to develop.
Ethical Use and Privacy
Teach bias awareness, ethical expectations, responsible use of information, privacy, transparency, and academic integrity when working with AI-generated content.
The Role of Educators
Educators are central to building AI literacy, helping learners understand AI systems, question outputs, and make informed choices about when—and whether—to use AI.
Educators support learners by:
- Designing subject-specific learning experiences that use AI when it meaningfully supports the intended learning goal while explicitly teaching how AI works and where it appears in learners' lives.
- Modeling ethical use, transparency, verification, and critical thinking with AI-generated content.
- Protecting authentic student thinking, creation, communication, collaboration, and demonstration of learning.
- Encouraging classroom dialogue about fairness, bias, misinformation, privacy, and the impact of AI on learning and society.
- Helping learners develop the judgment to determine when AI adds value—and when human thinking, collaboration, or direct experience is more appropriate.
AI integration is not the same as AI literacy. Learners need opportunities to understand and evaluate AI before—and while—they use it. Educators need professional learning and clear guidance to decide which tools to use, how, and when, in alignment with local policies and district expectations.
Using AI to Strengthen Teaching and Learning
AI can support educators when it strengthens the learning experience—not simply when it makes a task faster. Consider the instructional purpose first, then determine whether AI adds meaningful value.
Access and Learner Responsiveness
Draft and adjust practice questions, examples, or texts at multiple reading levels to better support diverse learner needs while preserving educator judgment about instructional appropriateness.
Feedback and Reflection
Generate first-draft feedback, rubrics, questions, or suggestions that educators review, verify, and refine. AI-generated content may contain inaccuracies or bias and should never replace educator judgment.
Creativity and Exploration
Use AI to generate possibilities, perspectives, questions, or starting points that students can critique, transform, and build upon. The goal is student creation—not simply AI-generated products.
Communication
Translate or adapt classroom communications while maintaining educator control over tone, accessibility, accuracy, and appropriateness for learners and families.
Before using AI, ask: What is the learning goal? What will students still need to think, create, communicate, or demonstrate themselves? Does AI meaningfully strengthen that experience? If not, there may be no reason to use it.
Keep Humans at the Center
AI can provide assistance, but educators remain responsible for instructional decisions and learners remain responsible for their learning. Meaningful relationships, professional judgment, student agency, and authentic thinking should not be replaced by AI.
Educator Judgment
Educators evaluate AI outputs, determine appropriateness, and make the final instructional decisions.
Student Agency
Learners remain active participants who question, create, revise, communicate, and demonstrate what they know.
Human Relationships
AI should support—not substitute for—the relationships, collaboration, feedback, and connection that are central to education.
Explore More AI Resources for Educators
- Curriculum Integration Explore classroom ideas, instructional strategies, and lesson integration examples.
- Ethical Use in the Classroom Learn about privacy, academic integrity, bias, and responsible AI use.
- Professional Development Access learning opportunities and resources to build educator confidence with AI.
- Toolkits Find templates, planning tools, and practical implementation supports.