Adapted from A Teacher's Guide to Using AI by Meenoo Rami.
When you start thinking about how to use AI in your teaching life, don’t begin by asking what it can replace. Instead, ask how it can help make your work more sustainable and joyful. A helpful first step is to reflect on what gives you energy and what drains it. As educator and author Donald Graves suggests in The Energy to Teach (2001), understanding your personal energy patterns can be a guide to making better decisions. For example, maybe you come alive when designing project ideas or crafting essential questions. That’s work you want to keep close. But maybe selecting images for your slides or formatting documents zaps your energy. That is where AI can step in as a helpful partner. You don’t need to outsource your creativity or your craft, but you can thoughtfully delegate the tasks that pull you away from the parts of teaching that matter most to you. Where you are in your journey also matters: if I had had this technology as a new teacher, I would have used it to help me design lessons or pace out a unit. A decade later, as a more experienced teacher, I might have used it to help me research fresh content and update existing units and lessons.
Using AI to focus on your areas of strength not only positively impacts your work, it also has positive outcomes for your life. As a Gallup Business Journal post explains, “The more hours per day adults use their strengths, the more likely they are to report having ample energy, feeling well-rested, being happy, smiling or laughing a lot, learning something interesting, and being treated with respect” (Sorenson 2014).
As you start to consider how and when to use AI in your teaching, get clear on what parts of the work give you energy and what parts tend to drain it. Below are some reflection questions to guide you.
Considerations Before Using AI Tools
- What parts of teaching consistently leave me feeling energized or fulfilled, even when I’m tired?
- What tasks or routines feel like they drain my energy, and why do I keep doing them the same way?
- If I could hand off one repetitive task to a thoughtful assistant who understands my goals, what would it be?
- Are there parts of my practice where I tend to overwork or second-guess myself that could benefit from a starting point or structure?
- In what ways might AI help me create more time and space for the parts of teaching I value most?
- How will I decide when to use AI in my work with students, and how will I ensure it supports their growth?
- Where will I feel pressure to be perfect? Could AI help me take one step toward ease or experimentation in that space?
- What would it look like to use AI in a way that honors my strengths, protects my energy, and expands what’s possible for me and my students?
These questions aren’t meant to be answered all at once. Instead, let them live in your practice for a while. Revisit them when you feel stuck, when you’re curious, or when you’re tempted to try something new. Your power lies in knowing what you bring to this work and in choosing how to partner with AI in ways that keep you connected to your purpose. As the famous poet Rainer Maria Rilke once said, “Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer” (Rilke 1993, 35).
Check in with yourself regularly as you use AI. You need to stay grounded in your purpose and protect what matters most: your connection with students, your ability to stay present, and your sense of agency. AI can be helpful, but it should never put you on autopilot. You don’t want to find yourself becoming a bystander in your own classroom. Consider the questions below to help you stay centered as you navigate this work.
Considerations While Using AI Tools
- Is this tool supporting or weakening my relationship with my students?
- Am I relying on AI to do something I actually care about doing myself?
- Would using AI here take away a chance for me or my students to grow?
- Am I still close enough to the work to notice when something feels off?
- Is this use of AI actually saving time?
- Is using AI making a task more complex than it needs to be?
- Do the materials and communications I create with AI align with my voice and my highest goals?
- Do I trust AI’s suggestions and guidance more than I trust my own?
- Have I started working for AI, or is AI still working for me?
- Does this help me show up with more energy, or is it quietly draining me?
These check-ins are small, but they can help you keep your hands on the wheel.
