BrainTools at Schools

samuelholston
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Hear from leading educators on preparing our students and schools for a world of AI with brain science and thinking skills. Practice-based episodes jam packed with practical strategies for your classrooms. braintoolsatschools.substack.com

Episodes

  1. Oct 22

    Start Small, Scale Well: An AI Strategy Schools Can Actually Use

    AI did not wait for a school strategy. Students and staff were already experimenting with the tools, while leaders were still working out the policy, the purpose, and the boundaries. That can make a big response feel sensible: adopt a platform, write a policy, train staff, revisit assessment, give students guidance, and do it quickly. But Luke Harris, Head of Computing and Digital Strategy at Bloxham School, makes the case for a calmer route. AI strategy is not chiefly a technology-rollout problem. It is a change-management problem. The practical work is helping people feel safe enough to ask questions, clear enough about the problem they are solving, and supported enough to try one useful thing without being asked to transform everything at once. In this episode of BrainTools at School, Luke shares a practical rule for leaders: start small, scale well. What You’ll Learn * Why the same AI strategy will not work for every school. * How to distinguish capacity and caution from resistance. * Why the tone of AI professional learning matters as much as its content. * How to identify a small, real problem worth testing first. * What makes a pilot useful enough to learn from before it scales. * Why teacher bandwidth has to be part of the implementation conversation. * How AI literacy can develop judgment rather than cognitive offloading. Featured Practice: Start Small, Scale Well Luke’s approach is not a call to be timid. It is a way to create the evidence, shared language and confidence that a school needs before it expands. * Name one live problem. Start with friction that teachers or leaders already feel: a time-consuming task, a quality problem, an assessment question, or a recurring communication challenge. * Keep the use case narrow. Do not try to change policy, pedagogy, assessment and tool adoption in one move. * Make it safe to try. Staff need permission to be new at this. A pilot should not depend on everyone becoming an AI expert overnight. * Look for visible value. The first experience needs to be useful enough for people to see why it might be worth their attention. * Learn before expanding. Ask whether the trial saved time, improved quality, and made sense in the school’s context before deciding what comes next. This changes the leadership question. Instead of asking, “Which tool should we roll out?”, a team can ask, “What one problem are we trying to improve, and what would a safe first test look like?” The human side of implementation Some teachers will be curious about AI. Others may feel overloaded, cautious, embarrassed that students seem more confident, or unsure whether this is one more initiative being added to a crowded term. Luke’s point is that these reactions are useful information. They should shape the design of professional learning, rather than being dismissed as reluctance. A session needs to connect with a real task and make one meaningful next move possible in a teacher’s own context. “The tone of the training matters as much as the content of it.” When leaders make room for honest questions and low-stakes experimentation, staff are more likely to develop the confidence to use judgment. Protect bandwidth, not just momentum AI work sits alongside everything else schools are asking of people. That makes teacher capacity an implementation issue, not a side concern. There is a difference between a sensible strategy and a strategy a staff body has the time and attention to enact well. If too many initiatives arrive together, even a promising idea can become another item people are expected to manage superficially. The answer is not to abandon the work. It is to decide what deserves depth now, what can wait, and what must be made easier before asking for more change. “Teachers need to see the value in minutes, not months.” AI literacy: use tools without handing them your thinking Luke also brings the same principle to students. AI literacy is more than knowing how to access a tool or write a prompt. It includes setting context, asking for a useful format, iterating, comparing outputs, and applying judgment. The aim is not to move thinking from the learner to the model. AI can be a thinking partner, but students still need to evaluate what it gives them, make decisions, and remain responsible for the work. “We’re not looking for students to cognitively offload their thinking to these tools.” For leaders, this matters because the school’s approach to AI is ultimately a culture question: what kinds of thinking, discussion and professional judgment do we want to strengthen? Memorable Quotes “The tone of the training matters as much as the content of it.” - 06:13 “Teachers need to see the value in minutes, not months.” - 08:43 “One strong pilot teaches you far more than five weak, poorly embedded initiatives.” - 18:25 “We’re not looking for students to cognitively offload their thinking to these tools.” - 26:21 “If we can get the culture right then the tools will follow.” - 28:18 Timestamps * 01:32 - AI arrived before the rollout: shadow use, caution and overreach * 05:15 - Psychological safety and the emotional temperature of AI change * 06:13 - Why training tone matters * 08:43 - Start with work teachers already find burdensome * 13:18 - Assessment authenticity and finding AI across the curriculum * 16:03 - Start small, scale well: one defined use case * 18:25 - Why one strong pilot beats five shallow initiatives * 19:09 - Professional learning that makes one meaningful move possible * 20:50 - Selecting tools that solve a real school problem * 25:23 - AI literacy: foundations, prompting and judgment * 26:21 - Avoiding cognitive offloading * 28:18 - Culture first; tools follow Resources & References * Luke Harris on LinkedIn * Bloxham School Listen / Watch * Apple Podcasts * Spotify Podcasts Continue the Conversation Before your next leadership or department meeting, choose one recurring task that takes time, creates friction, or reduces quality. Then ask: what would a safe, two-week AI experiment look like here? If this episode helps sharpen a conversation in your school, share it with a colleague and subscribe to BrainTools at School for more practical conversations about AI, learning and leadership. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit braintoolsatschools.substack.com

    Start Small, Scale Well: An AI Strategy Schools Can Actually Use

  2. Oct 15

    Make the Boundary Visible: How Clearer AI Guidance Reduces Student Anxiety

    Ashley Bryant is Director of IT Innovation at Frankfurt International School. Her role sits between technology strategy and the daily reality of teaching and learning: teachers trying to adapt, students making choices about AI, families interpreting school expectations, and leaders deciding what deserves time and investment. In this episode, Ashley shows why the answer often depends less on the tool than on the clarity, confidence and shared language around it. What You’ll Learn * Why mobile confidence does not automatically become digital fluency * How teacher psychological safety supports better technology adoption * What student feedback revealed about traffic-light AI guidance * Why expectations need to be visible inside the assignment, not only on a classroom wall * How technical AI knowledge and ethical classroom practice fit together * What it means to help students become “critical sceptics” * How AI can support source evaluation without doing the research for students * One practical way to find the real friction in your school’s technology use Featured Practice: Put AI Guidance Where the Learning Happens Frankfurt International School already had AI guidance. It used a familiar red, yellow and green structure and was displayed as a classroom poster. Then the school invited student working groups to test it. The students asked for more detail and more explicit examples. When the team revised the poster, the students rejected the first redesign. They also explained that the traffic-light colours themselves felt anxiety-inducing. The deeper issue was access to the expectation. Students travelling for sport or performance might complete work away from school. Their families could see them using AI without knowing that the assignment allowed it. A classroom poster could not provide the same clarity at home. The team responded by removing the traffic-light framing, refining the examples and giving teachers a small visual to embed in each Canvas assignment. The expectation now travelled with the work. That change supported more than students. Teachers had a clear point of reference when concerns arose. Families could see what the school permitted. Pastoral and leadership teams could discuss an incident against the same published expectation. The lesson is simple: guidance is useful only when the people making the decision can see and understand it at the moment of choice. Build Adaptability, Not Button Memory Ashley argues that tool-specific training has a short shelf life. Interfaces change, products disappear and compliance requirements shift. A teacher who has learned only where one button sits can feel stranded when that button moves. Her response is relational as much as technical. She and her team spend time in the school’s open Tech Deck, where students, teachers, parents and volunteers can ask questions. The space exposes recurring friction early and makes help feel normal. “There’s no stupid question and you’re not an idiot,” Ashley says. “Things change and we have to understand that it’s okay to ask questions, just like we do with our kids.” The durable outcome is not confidence in one application. It is the confidence to experiment, recover from a mistake and ask for support. AI Literacy Has Two Parts Ashley separates AI literacy into technical understanding and ethical use. The technical side includes models, algorithms, training data and the reasons an AI system can produce an unreliable answer. A technology specialist may be well placed to introduce some of that knowledge. The ethical side belongs in everyday teaching. If a learner uses AI during real classwork, they need to understand what the choice changes about their thinking and learning. As Ashley puts it: “You can’t just tell them that’s cheating. Why is it cheating? What’s going on when you do that? And what are you robbing yourself of when you use AI instead of your own brain?” Rules identify a boundary. AI literacy helps a learner understand the reason for it. Support the Skill Without Replacing It Ashley’s middle-school research example offers another test for learning-first design. Students still find possible sources themselves: a blog, Wikipedia, a museum article or another result. A custom AI tool then helps classify each source as yes, no or maybe and explains the reasoning behind that judgement. The tool speeds up feedback for students and teachers, but it does not perform the research task. Students still have to locate sources, inspect them and decide what belongs in their work. “It didn’t replace the need to learn how to research,” Ashley explains, “but it helped to build the research skills.” That is a useful design question for any classroom tool: does it remove the skill—or give the learner better feedback while they practise it? Memorable Quotes “They’re tech savvy, but in a very different way than what is productive and necessary in a school or a work environment.” “Once they click the button, the whole world won’t fall apart.” “There’s no stupid question and you’re not an idiot. Things change and we have to understand that it’s okay to ask questions, just like we do with our kids.” “We don’t want them to always be sceptical of everything, but thinking critically about the things that they’re seeing.” “Communication, collaboration before accusation.” “It didn’t replace the need to learn how to research, but it helped to build the research skills.” Timestamps * 00:00 — Introducing Ashley Bryant and the learning-first question * 01:23 — Finding balance in the backlash against technology * 03:56 — Preparing students for technology beyond school * 06:30 — Mobile-savvy is not the same as digitally fluent * 07:48 — AI strategy, regulation and a school’s risk appetite * 10:19 — Moving teacher learning beyond tool-specific training * 13:45 — The Tech Deck: listening where support happens * 15:20 — Student working groups redesign AI guidance * 18:45 — Making AI expectations visible inside Canvas assignments * 21:12 — Giving technology leaders a seat at the table * 24:24 — Should AI literacy be separate or embedded? * 25:08 — Technical knowledge and ethical classroom practice * 27:12 — Helping students become critical sceptics * 31:48 — A custom tool for evaluating research sources * 34:28 — Technology Readiness Council and where to follow Ashley Resources & References Mentioned * Frankfurt International School * FIS leadership profile for Ashley Bryant * Canvas * NotebookLM * MagicSchool * Gemini * SAMR model Where to Follow Ashley Bryant * LinkedIn * X * Instagram * Threads * Bluesky Listen / Watch * Spotify * Apple Podcasts Continue the Conversation Choose one place where students make a decision about AI this week. Can they see the expectation, understand why it exists and explain what learning it protects? If this episode was useful, share it with a colleague working on AI guidance, teacher learning or digital strategy. Subscribe to BrainTools at School for more practical conversations about AI, cognitive science and learning. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit braintoolsatschools.substack.com

  3. Jul 21

    Responsible AI in Schools: Governance, Literacy and Human Judgment with Matthew Wemyss

    Matthew Wemyss is a school leader, computer science teacher, and AI governance professional who runs IN&ED. From a career that began in media and IT to nearly 17 years teaching computer science and internet safety, his work sits where school leadership, safeguarding, curriculum, and technology meet. That combination makes him unusually well placed to answer a question many schools are wrestling with: how do you guide responsible AI use when the tools, risks, and everyday behaviour are changing faster than policy can keep up? In this conversation, Matt makes the case for governance that starts with reality. Staff are already experimenting. Students are already using AI. Parents are trying to make sense of it at home. A useful school response has to guide all three groups—not pretend the tools can be kept outside the gate. What You’ll Learn * Why an AI policy can fail when its rules do not match how staff actually work * The practical one-page guidance Matt recommends for schools that feel behind * Why AI governance needs voices from EYFS through to A level * How parent education fits into safeguarding and responsible AI use * A “human sandwich” approach that keeps thinking before and after the tool * How more than 3,000 students used design thinking before vibe coding in the Create Code Change competition * Why a teacher who builds a student-facing AI app may accidentally turn the school into an edtech provider * How schools can guide staff, students, and parents without waiting for a perfect policy A Reality-First AI Governance Starter Matt’s advice is deliberately practical. Schools do not need to begin with a perfect, exhaustive policy. They need a clear starting point that reflects what is actually happening. 1. Find out where you are Ask which AI tools staff are already using and what they use them for. Treat this as discovery, not a disciplinary exercise. Hidden use makes responsible guidance harder. 2. Publish a one-page guide Name the approved tools. State the non-negotiables clearly: no student data, personal information, confidential documents, or school policies in unapproved systems. Then give staff useful examples of what they can do. 3. Support the ecosystem you already have Whether your school uses Microsoft or Google, help staff get genuine value from the approved tools. If the supported option does not meet their needs, people will drift towards personal accounts and unsanctioned platforms. 4. Build a representative AI group Include colleagues from different phases and roles. AI use in EYFS may be almost entirely teacher-facing; at A level, students may be working directly with chatbots. Governance has to account for both. 5. Guide the whole community Staff need boundaries and practical training. Students need to learn when AI is useful and when it replaces thinking. Parents need clear information about age limits, safeguards, and productive use at home. 6. Review what changes AI guidance cannot be a document written once and filed away. Revisit the tools, risks, and behaviour regularly so policy continues to match practice. The “AI sandwhich” Matt describes the human role as the bread on either side of an “AI sandwich.” Students should arrive at a tool with context, a defined problem, and ideas of their own. After using it, they should return to human discussion, judgment, editing, or action. The Create Code Change competition put that principle into practice. More than 3,000 students from 19 countries used Canva Code to build an app connected to a Sustainable Development Goal. But the app was only part of the submission. Students also had to identify who they wanted to help, refine their idea, think through data ethics, and show their design process. Judges assessed the thinking as well as the finished product. That distinction matters. “Go and use AI” tends to produce generic work. A learner who brings a clear problem, knowledge of the user, and their own constraints can use the same tool with much more judgment. The Parent Piece Most Schools Are Missing School guidance only covers part of a child’s relationship with AI. At home, families are also navigating chatbot age limits, AI-generated search summaries, smart glasses, image and video generators, and tools with very different guardrails. Matt has run parent workshops since the early days of ChatGPT and is developing a parent handbook that explains the tools, productive uses, and safeguarding issues in plain language. His point is not that schools can control everything that happens at home. It is that repeated, practical communication gives parents a better chance of guiding it. Parent education is not an optional extra to an AI policy. It is part of the governance system. Vibe Coding Turns Schools into Edtech Vendors The episode also surfaces a less obvious risk. A teacher can now assemble a useful-looking app or chatbot in minutes. If that tool collects data or is placed in front of students, the school may no longer be simply using somebody else’s product. It may have become the provider responsible for security, data protection, and what happens when the system fails. That does not mean schools should suppress experimentation. It means enthusiasm needs an infrastructure check: What data does the tool collect? Where does it go? Who can access it? Are secrets or API keys exposed? Who is responsible if something goes wrong? Is building this ourselves actually the right solution? Schools hold medical information, SEND diagnoses, addresses, contact details, financial records, and other sensitive data. Responsible experimentation starts by treating that environment with the seriousness it deserves. Memorable Quotes “I think it’s got to match reality as well.” “The more context you can bring to these tools, the better.” “You could smash an app together in like 30 minutes, but everyone who uses your site’s data might be leaked in 30 seconds as well.” “If we’re to do anything, it’s got to be for a good reason and it’s got to be safe.” “If your staff are using it, guide them. If the students are using it, guide them. If parents need help, guide them.” Timestamps * 00:00 — Introducing Matthew Wemyss and responsible AI governance * 02:16 — How safeguarding concerns around AI are changing * 05:43 — What parents need to know about AI tools and age limits * 10:31 — Teaching internet safety through scenarios and reflection * 13:51 — Vibe coding without removing the thinking * 14:39 — Create Code Change: 3,000 students, 19 countries, and design before prompts * 18:19 — The human–AI sandwich: thinking before and after the tool * 20:39 — Using chatbots as coaches rather than answer machines * 22:32 — Why infrastructure, sovereignty, and local AI matter to schools * 23:13 — When a school becomes the provider of an AI tool * 27:11 — Why schools are high-risk data environments * 29:04 — The one-page starting point for schools that feel behind * 31:30 — Guide staff, students, and parents instead of ignoring AI use * 34:49 — Matt’s current projects and where to follow his work Resources & References Mentioned * IN&ED * AI Strategy Consulting for Schools * Open-Source AI for Schools: Building Ethical Data Infrastructure * Why Students Trust AI Less But Rely On It More * AI in Education: An Educator’s Handbook * AI Insights Focus: School Leaders, the EU Just Made AI Literacy Your Job * AI Insights Focus: A Manifesto for Responsible AI in Schools * Ctrl + Alt + Teach Where to Follow Matthew Wemyss * LinkedIn * IN&ED This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit braintoolsatschools.substack.com

    Responsible AI in Schools: Governance, Literacy and Human Judgment with Matthew Wemyss

  4. May 28

    AI as a Thought Partner, Not a Task Doer — Dr. Shannon Doak

    The question has changed A couple of years ago, the conversation in most schools was about adoption. Get teachers using AI. Normalise it. Stay curious. Lower the fear. That still matters. But Dr. Shannon Doak, Director of Technology at Nanjing International School, makes a point in this week’s episode that I think marks a real shift in how schools need to be thinking: the responsibility has gotten harder. “It’s not just use AI. It’s more about protecting thinking these days.” Shannon has spent over thirty years in international schools across Guangzhou, Hawaii, and Nanjing. He’s watched this move faster than almost anything else he’s seen in edtech, and his concern now is not adoption. It’s judgment. The TALK Framework Shannon developed a framework called TALK to help teachers approach AI differently. It came out of a realisation he kept arriving at across workshops and presentations in Asia: teachers were treating AI like every other piece of technology. Something to learn. Something with a correct way of doing it. His response was simple: just talk to it. TALK stands for: Talk it out → Ask, explore, wonder → Listen → push back → Keep going → Create. The framework isn’t really about AI. It’s about maintaining the teacher’s thinking throughout the process. AI performs better when you use it this way, Shannon says — and more importantly, so do you. For students, the framework is almost identical. With one change: the final “Create” step belongs to the student, not the AI. They use the dialogue phase to expand their thinking. Then they put the AI aside and produce the work themselves. A cleaner approach to assessment One of the most useful things Shannon said in the whole conversation was about assessment — a topic that’s generating a lot of heat in schools right now. His rule: if you’re assessing a skill, students can’t use AI for that specific skill. If you’re not assessing it, they can. “If I’m trying to assess your ability to make an outline, you can’t use AI for that. But if I’m assessing your five-paragraph essay, making the outline — sure, go ahead.” It’s not a total ban and it’s not a free-for-all. It’s a question: what are you actually trying to find out about this student? On AI detectors Shannon tested six of them. Within three prompts, he got 100% AI-generated content to pass as 100% human. His advice: don’t use them to catch students. Use them to start a conversation. “Even if it says 80% chance, you’ve got to let that go because it’s probably not true.” Especially, he notes, for ELL students, where the false positive rate is even higher. The 80/20 rule Something Shannon’s school has operated with from early on: AI does the heavy lifting — about 80%. But a teacher must put professional eyes on the work and own the final 20%. Not as a formality, but as a genuine quality check. It’s a practical frame that respects both the tool and the professional. One thing to do this week Shannon’s takeaway for school leaders: help your teachers shift from using AI as a task doer to using it as a thought partner. In practice, that means replacing prompts like “make me a lesson plan” with prompts like “challenge my lesson design” or “where is the cognitive demand too low?” or “what might I be missing here?” Start with teachers’ existing thinking. Let AI expand it. End with teachers’ professional judgment. That’s the pattern. Links * Dr Shannon Doak’s website: https://www.drshannondoak.com * Dr Shannon Doak’s Linkedin: LinkedIn * Alignment Education: https://alignmentedu.com/ * Nanjing International School: https://www.nischina.org/ * IPLNA - International Professional Learning Network Association * EdTechGZ 2025 Keynote: Look Who’s Keynoting * Key articles: * “Innovative EdTech: Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing” (LinkedIn Pulse, 2018) * “Our Responsibility in an AI-Driven Future” (EdTechGZ Keynote, Jan 2025) This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit braintoolsatschools.substack.com

  5. May 19

    Digital Fluency, Metacognition & AI — John Mikton

    “The AI tool you’re using today is the worst one you’ll ever use.” — Warren Appel, Director of IT ASIJ quoted by John Mikton and as a Head of Media and Education Technology/Deputy principal of a large international school in Luxembourg John Mikton has spent 35 years inside international schools - classroom teacher, digital learning coach, IT director, head of media and education technology, and most recently deputy principal of a large international school in Luxembourg. After COVID he stepped out of senior leadership, moved back to Switzerland, and is now the digital learning facilitator at a bilingual primary school where he runs a makerspace called the Creation Station. Alongside that he consults for the Principals’ Training Center and ECIS, coaches aspiring and transitioning school leaders, and hosts The International Schools Podcast. He writes regularly at Beyond Digital. If anyone has earned the right to be calm about AI in education, it’s John. What You’ll Learn * Why “digital fluency” is the right frame - and why citizenship and literacy were always a stepping stone * How the IB ATL skills (thinking, research, communication, social, self-management) map directly onto AI fluency * Why cognitive offloading is the central risk of AI in schools and how to counterbalance it * A concrete metacognitive framework (CRITIQUE routine) for interrogating any AI output * How to scaffold problem-solving with learners as young as three, without AI * Why the value-add of a school in the age of AI is the human skills it builds * One practical, low-stakes way for teachers to start building AI fluency next week Featured Framework: John’s CRITIQUE Routine A metacognitive routine John uses with students (and adults) to interrogate any AI output. Synthesized from sources at UNESCO, ISTE, and his own practice: * What does the AI say? What is the main idea? * Why does it say that? What reason or logic is given? * Is this proof enough? What might be missing — a perspective, a voice, a marginalized community, a counter-angle? * Who would disagree with this, and why? * What’s the impact if I just took this as-is and used it? * Where do I verify? Which primary source, library book, website, teacher, or parent do I check this against? The goal is not to produce a perfect output. The goal is to keep the human in the loop at every step — and to build the mental muscle that prevents passive cognitive offloading. Memorable Quotes “We’re talking about 21st century skills, but we’ve been in the 21st century for 26 years.” “This is really the first time that children, parents, and educators were all on the starting line at the same time.” “It’s better to first write your text and then get AI to do it, than get AI to do it and then you edit it.” “Whenever I get blown away, it’s like an alarm bell saying — okay, now my thinking has to be even more important here.” “Don’t wait for tomorrow. The future is today.” Timestamps * 00:00 — Welcome & introducing John Mikton * 00:55 — 35 years in international schools: John’s journey from classroom to senior leadership * 02:36 — Digital citizenship → digital fluency → AI fluency: why the language matters * 05:03 — Building teacher fluency: starting with curiosity, not the tool * 07:45 — Why nobody should be ashamed of using AI — and where the line really is * 08:20 — Human skills as the durable layer above any model * 09:39 — “Seduction and being fooled”: developing critical awareness of AI outputs * 12:01 — Brain first, AI second: cognitive offloading and the counterbalance * 13:15 — Practical strategies for building metacognitive habits with students * 15:43 — Three-year-olds and Alexa: scaffolding the AI-vs-human distinction * 17:32 — Why this can’t be subcontracted to the digital learning facilitator * 18:29 — The CRITIQUE routine explained: a framework for interrogating AI outputs * 22:13 — Scaffolding problem-solving with PYP learners: Indy Spheros, towers, and “three before me” * 24:42 — From physical problem-solving to digital fluency: a nod to Seymour Papert * 25:58 — Why coding is the carrot, not the point — and what teachers should teach instead * 28:45 — The value-add of school in the age of AI: humans, ethics, and resilience * 31:37 — “The future is today”: the speed of change and what it demands of educators * 32:23 — One practical thing teachers can do next week to start building AI fluency * 34:39 — Where to find John’s work, workshops, and the International Schools Podcast Resources & References Mentioned * The International Schools Podcast - hosted by John Mikton * Beyond Digital - John’s blog * ECIS (Educational Collaborative for International Schools) — workshops and courses * Principals’ Training Center (PTC) - consultancy and faculty work * The Intelligence Curse - white paper by Luke Drago (referenced as “Luke Drado” in the conversation) * Ethan Mollick - on why teachers are uniquely well-placed to work with AI * Common Sense Media - curricula and resources for digital citizenship * UNESCO and ISTE frameworks - informed John’s CRITIQUE routine * Tools John uses with young learners: * Indy Sphero cards * Bee-Bots * LEGO Spike Essential & Prime Where to Follow John Mikton * Podcast: The International Schools Podcast * Blog: Beyond Digital * LinkedIn: John Mikton Continue the Conversation If you took something from this episode, share it with a colleague who’s wrestling with AI in their school. And if you want more conversations like this one - practical, grounded, and centered on the human - subscribe to BrainTools at Schools wherever you get your podcasts. BrainTools at Schools - for educators and school leaders making sense of cognitive science, AI, and learning. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit braintoolsatschools.substack.com

  6. 05/21/2025

    Effective Teaching Practices & AI - Paul Matthews

    Episode Summary In this episode of the Brain Tools at Schools podcast, host Samuel speaks with educator Paul Matthews about the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in education. They discuss the principles outlined in Paul's book, 'Artificial Intelligence for Real Literacy,' and how AI can enhance teaching practices without replacing the educator's role. Paul shares insights on using AI for differentiation, retrieval practice, and other evidence-based strategies, while also addressing concerns about teacher burnout and the importance of maintaining traditional assessment methods like essays. The conversation emphasizes the need for educators to embrace AI as a tool for improving their impact in the classroom. Key Takeaways * AI can be used to enhance pedagogical practices * Teachers should ask for options, not answers from AI * AI is a tool to assist teachers, not replace them * Differentiation is a key area where AI can help * Teacher burnout can be mitigated by using AI effectively * Essays are important for developing critical thinking skills * AI can help create assessments that are more engaging * Educators should focus on deepening their understanding of a few pedagogical practices * Training should involve all staff, not just tech enthusiasts * One effective way to learn AI is through practical application Where to follow Paul Matthews * Socials: Linkedin * Book : Artificial Intelligence, Real Literacy: A Practical Guide To Using AI For 10 Evidence-Based Literacy Practices in Education * Paul’s AI Software for Teachers : My Teachers Aide Timestamps 00:00 Introduction to AI in Education 03:06 The Journey to Writing 'Artificial Intelligence for Real Literacy' 06:04 AI as a Teacher's Assistant 09:02 Pedagogical Practices Enhanced by AI 12:05 Preventing Teacher Burnout with AI 15:13 The Role of Essays in Education 18:03 Navigating AI in Assessments 20:53 Effective Teaching Practices in the Age of AI 24:13 Training Teachers to Use AI Effectively 27:05 Final Thoughts and Resources This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit braintoolsatschools.substack.com

    Effective Teaching Practices & AI - Paul Matthews
  • 6 Episodes

About

Hear from leading educators on preparing our students and schools for a world of AI with brain science and thinking skills. Practice-based episodes jam packed with practical strategies for your classrooms. braintoolsatschools.substack.com

Information

  • Creator
    samuelholston
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    6
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © samholston
  • Show Website
    BrainTools at Schools