Now is the Time: Investing in AI Professional Development will yield the most returns for teachers moving forward
- To Chase Innovation
- 2 days ago
- 5 min read
There is a fantastic book about data analysis and storytelling called Making Numbers Count by Chip Heath and Karla Starr. In the book, they provide an example of how often numbers can be so large that they exceed our practical understanding as humans. One example they shared was the difference between $1,000,000 and $1,000,000,000.
To anyone in the world, both amounts of money are massive, but Heath and Starr help clarify the difference between the two. They shared a story about two people who won the lottery. The first person won $1,000,000 dollars and the second won $1,000,000,000. The only catch is that both winners must spend $50,000 per day until the winnings are fully exhausted. How long would it take to run out of money? For the $1,000,000… 20 days. For $1,000,000,000, it would take 55 years. Fantastic. The new “full-time job”, according to Heath and Starr, of the winner is to spend money.
I share this story to illustrate AI's impact on education (billion dollars) and the need for investment in professional development to enable effective AI integration in classrooms, schools, and districts. Though there are hesitations and concerns about what AI will do in our classrooms, we need to adopt a billion-dollar mindset. Our edtech policies, trainings, and apps made a million-dollar impact on learning. Moving to a 1:1 environment gave the opportunity for full transformation of the learning process. However, that million has run out, and we need to be thinking bigger, focusing first on our teachers and their specific impact on the learning experience, with the full integration of AI as the focus.
Jon Hattie’s research is legendary for its impact on student development. In his 2023 release, Visible Learning: The Sequel, Hattie shares updated effect sizes and their impact on student learning. For the sake of this blog post, moving from one million to one billion, I believe our first investments in AI Professional Development should be:
Collective Teacher Efficacy
&
Teacher Clarity
Hattie’s definition of each of these is as follows:
Collective Teacher Efficacy: “The collective belief of the staff of the school/faculty in their ability to positively affect students.”
Teacher Clarity: (+0.75) “organization, explanation, examples, and guided practice, and assessment of student learning- such that clarity of speech was a prerequisite of teacher clarity.”
How does Professional Development, especially around AI, fit into this conversation that Hattie started? If we look at each of these effects, they have a significant impact on student learning. I believe that investing in great professional development in these areas could continue to support the already impactful areas that Hattie has presented.
Collective Teacher Efficacy (1.57)
For the sake of time and this post's length, I am going to call this Confidence. Does your teacher population have confidence in their abilities to use AI, teach students AI, or think through their instructional design process with the enhancements AI can offer? The simplest understanding of AI use is that you get out of it what you put into it. Educators are the experts in the room, and their abilities to use AI directly impact the students' ability to use AI.
Imagine a person getting a brand-new car. Compared to their previous 1993 Honda Civic, this updated car has many more bells and whistles lighting up. If one doesn’t learn the car's communication, when the tire gets low, or the engine needs service, the lights and bells could go ignored until there is heavy damage to the engine. The same goes for AI in the classroom. As educators, we face challenges to our Confidence in enhancing and developing our skills. Impactful professional development can build that Confidence and support teacher growth forward.
Amelia King writes in her book Thinking with AI, “What matters here is that you’re not leaving AI use to chance. You’re building in specific opportunities to use AI in the classroom so that you can develop students’ skills to think critically before, during, and after AI use.” Building teachers' abilities and Confidence in AI integration is a cornerstone for future learning. Even those who are in a classical-based curriculum will need to understand the impacts and implications of AI. Students are already using it at home, we need to build teacher Confidence so that students can use AI the right way.
Teacher Clarity (0.75)
There is a fantastic SNL skit from 2024 about AI. However, the points about AI in the skit are not the point. During the Skit, Kenan Thompson plays a professor who is an AI expert, being interviewed by Heather Gardner about the impact of AI. Behind the host, Ryan Gosling sits dressed as the infamous '90s MTV cartoon character, Bevis. Throughout the skit, Thompson’s character gets distracted by Gosling’s look as Bevis, eventually Mickey Day, dressed as Butthead, sits next to Gosling, and the interview goes to shams.
I like this skit because it showcases the importance of focus and understanding. Communicating with students clearly and transparently can be difficult. AI can have a big impact on teacher clarity. Hattie explains Teacher Clarity again as “organization, explanation, examples, guided practice, and assessment of student learning.” This means that the information teachers share and collect affects the level of student connection and engagement. How can AI impact teacher clarity? The data analysis capabilities are at the billion-dollar level. There is so much that can be done, from simple analysis to full dashboard development around assessment data. Have you seen the NFL combine commercial with Microsoft Excel and CoPilot?
Pretty incredible. That process, collaboration, and data building require investment and training that teachers need! Imagine being able to analyze and differentiate for students, with an AI partner supporting and suggesting along the design path. In addition, developing clear communication plans and structures to involve parents in the conversation can have a lasting impact on student development. To build Clarity, teachers will need to understand and practice using AI tools that help them see more of their students and their learning progress.
Closing for now…
AI integration isn’t going away, and it is clear that teachers will have to build their AI game to keep up with students. As the first line of offense, teachers need to be empowered to train and guide students in impactful, human-centered AI practices that can help develop their abilities into the future. Dr. Catlin Tucker and Dr. Katie Novak wrote in their book, Elevating Educational Design with AI”, that ultimately, the synergy between AI efficiencies and human oversight ensures that technology enhances rather than diminishes the quality of education. In short, we don’t want AI to replace the human element of education; we want AI to elevate it.”
Teachers need support to build on. Invest in AI professional development. Get dangerous branching outside of old policies, and build a vision on what could be instead of doubling down on what has always been.
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