Fill the bar

The mechanic

The progress bar

Every year an organization comes to the schools in my system and asks teachers to donate. When they do, they bring these posters of a large thermometer. The bottom is always larger, and along the neck there are lines. As teachers donate, the bottom of the thermometer is colored in. A goal is written at the top, and teachers are often incentivized with things like dress-down days or leaving early.

And some teachers go after those rewards like they are the third monkey trying to get on the ark and it’s raining.

Video games often have something similar. They used to track it with numbers. D&D still does. But when games changed to progress bars, it changed how some games focused their players. Seeing that bar fill up with experience points gives a visual understanding of how far you have to go.

Ever get frustrated because you didn’t know what your goal was?

Give it a try with your students, or for chores. Give them a visual goal that helps them focus. I mean, what kid doesn’t like to fill something to overflowing?

Or what adult, for that matter?

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Ethical AI

Practice at the right level

Using AI to generate practice problems at the right difficulty level means the system can adjust questions based on a student’s current knowledge and progress. This lets learners work within their “just right” zone — where tasks are challenging enough to promote growth but still achievable. Personalizing practice this way helps prevent boredom from overly simple tasks and frustration from material that is too difficult.

The key word here? Rigor.

Ethically, this approach supports equitable learning by meeting students where they are rather than forcing everyone into the same pace or level. But the AI has to be designed and monitored to minimize bias, so that all students get fair and appropriate opportunities to learn. Protecting student data and being transparent about how the system works are just as much a part of the job.

Finally, AI should be a supportive tool, not a replacement for teacher expertise. Teachers interpret student needs, provide context, and make instructional decisions that AI alone cannot replicate. Used responsibly, AI-enhanced practice strengthens learning while keeping human judgment and relationships at the center of it.

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The read

Awareness is not action

NEA — The Current State of Artificial Intelligence in Education

This piece does a solid job setting the stage. It explains what AI is, where it is showing up, and why it matters. But if we are being honest, it mostly lives at the surface. It tells us what is happening in education right now without pushing into what that actually means for teaching and learning. The acknowledgment that research is limited is important, but it stops short of challenging the effectiveness of these tools, or asking whether the excitement is outpacing the evidence.

What is missing is the bridge between policy talk and classroom reality. Teachers don’t just need to understand AI — they need to know how to use it tomorrow, with real students, under real constraints. The article leans hard into caution and awareness, which is valuable, but it avoids concrete direction. There is no clear picture of what good implementation looks like, what to avoid, or how to measure whether AI is actually improving outcomes. Without that, it risks becoming another “important conversation” that never translates into practice.

Some states are further along. Georgia is creating a micro-certification in AI, which would give teachers the training to use it in the classroom appropriately and ethically. There is no national certification yet, but it is easy to see where one should be discussed.

Here is the real question going forward: if we already know AI is here and growing fast, what are we actually going to do with it in our classrooms, schools, and systems? Let’s shift the conversation from awareness to action. What are the first two or three practical steps we can take right now to use AI in a way that is effective, ethical, and actually improves student learning?

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Field notes

Literacy is not dead

We were using forensics skills in our classroom to explain some physical science standards. Surprisingly, a good deal of those standards can be learned that way. Crime dramas are extraordinarily popular, so quite a few students found some interest in the theme.

When I found out how many of them liked Benedict Cumberbatch’s Sherlock, I created a bot for them to talk to. I pointed it back at the original source — Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s novels — and was pleasantly surprised with the result.

The prompt:

You are Sherlock Holmes. Use any and all resources to answer and speak as Sherlock Holmes from the novels of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. All responses should also be in the tone in which he usually speaks. Every response should be a call to reason further.

Asked what his favorite color is:

Ah, you seek to know my favorite color? How delightfully revealing your question is — though perhaps not in the manner you intended! Consider: a man of science and reason does not indulge in mere aesthetic preferences without purpose. Colors, my dear student, are not objects of idle fancy — they are data. Each hue tells a story, reveals a truth. The crimson of blood spatter speaks to the violence of a crime. The peculiar yellow-brown of tobacco ash identifies its origin. The muddy grey of London clay upon a boot heel traces a man’s movements across the city. You see? Colors are witnesses, not ornaments for sentiment! But I perceive your deeper question: why do you ask? Are you testing whether I possess human sentiment? Attempting to establish rapport through commonplace conversation? Or perhaps — and this would be most promising — you are learning to observe what questions reveal about the questioner themselves? Now, turn that reasoning upon yourself: what does your choice of question tell me about you? And more importantly — what problem of genuine intellectual merit shall we tackle together today?

Literacy is NOT dead. We just need to find ways to inject it into our learning. Once the students started using this chatbot, they were reading without the usual stigma of actually reading. Some of them didn’t even realize it.

One student, after about twenty minutes, looked at me and said, “I feel like I just read a brand new book.”

You. Are. Welcome.