Getting Ready to Teach With AI This Year — Not Just Around It

Dear School Leader,

By now, most of your teachers are already using AI in some form — for lesson ideas, worksheets, parent emails. The question for August isn't whether they'll use it, but whether they're using it well. A little groundwork now means teachers walk into the year with sharper prompts, better instincts, and more time back for the parts of teaching only they can do.

Leadership Insight

The strongest use of AI in teaching isn't about speed — it's about precision.

Teachers who get real value from AI tend to do a few things consistently: they write specific prompts — grade level, standard, format — they treat AI output as a first draft to build on rather than a finished product, and they stay closely involved in reviewing what it produces for accuracy and fit. Teachers who skip these habits often end up with generic, underwhelming results — and conclude AI “doesn't work,” when really the prompting did the work.

Leadership Lens

What's Worth Checking Before the Year Begins

Do your teachers know how to write a strong prompt — one with a clear goal, context (grade, subject, standard), and constraints (format, length, tone)?
Are teachers comfortable using AI across the full range of tasks — lesson plans, differentiated materials, rubrics, parent communication — or only one or two?
Do they know how to ask AI to adjust difficulty, simplify for ELLs, or extend for advanced learners?
Is there a go-to person on staff — you, a coordinator — they can bring good prompts or questions to?

Red Flag / Green Flag

Red Flags

Teachers use vague one-line prompts and accept the first result.

Materials go straight from AI output into the lesson unchanged.

AI use is scattered, occasional, or limited to one narrow task.

Green Flags

Teachers write detailed, specific prompts and refine them over several tries.

AI-generated materials are reviewed and adapted to the class before use.

Teachers use AI across planning, differentiation, and assessment as a connected workflow.

Leadership Use Case (Before the First Week)

At your pre-year staff meeting, ask two or three teachers to share one AI prompt that worked really well for them last year — a rubric, a lesson hook, a parent letter. Real examples travel further than any general guidance, and it signals from day one that this is a shared, normal part of how your school plans.

A Leadership Question to Carry Forward

“If every teacher on my team wrote AI prompts as well as my strongest planner does, how much stronger would our instructional materials be this year?”

Leadership Connection

If your team is looking to build stronger AI-supported planning habits this year, we've put together two courses worth exploring: Generative AI for Teachers: A Practical Guide, which walks educators through using AI for lesson planning, resource creation, and assessment, and AI Prompting in the Classroom, which builds core prompt literacy from the ground up.

Explore these and other courses at courses.chaptersnco.com and find the right starting point for your team ahead of the new school year.