2026 AI Educator Summer Institute

In this session, I will invite educators to think about AI as more than a classroom tool. Instead of focusing only on prompting or productivity, we will explore AI literacy as a way to help students ask questions about ethics, bias, decision-making, civic life, and real-world systems. Using examples from English and interdisciplinary teaching, I will share practical strategies such as case studies, discussion prompts, short inquiry tasks, and values-based reflection. The goal is to help teachers move from general concern about AI to concrete classroom practice. Participants will leave with a clearer framework for teaching about AI, not just teaching with AI, and they will be ready to extend that work in the afternoon workshop.

In this extended afternoon workshop, participants will build on the morning session through focused, hands-on work. Educators will revisit the two project examples, taking a deeper look at their structure, design, and classroom applications, with an emphasis on adapting them to their own technology and engineering contexts.

Participants will continue developing the projects they began earlier, refining their resource libraries and expanding content using a closed-source platform such as Google NotebookLM. The session emphasizes curating high-quality materials, aligning resources with instructional goals, and designing practical implementation strategies, with opportunities for guided exploration and collaboration.

By the end of the workshop, educators will share their projects, exchange insights, and leave with a more developed, classroom-ready product and greater confidence in applying AI tools to support student learning.

The afternoon workshop will function as a hands-on design lab where participants adapt the ideas from the morning session into a classroom-ready resource. We will begin with a brief recap and discussion of how students may already be using AI as a shortcut, then examine sample resources such as AI comparison activities, verification checklists, reflection prompts, and student-facing protocols. These examples will be explored collaboratively, with attention to how they can be adapted across grade levels.

Participants will then select an existing lesson, assignment, problem set, lab, or project and redesign it to include structured, responsible AI use. Most of the workshop will be devoted to creation, peer feedback, revision, and facilitator support. Participants will focus on questions such as what students should do before using AI, how they should evaluate AI output, and what evidence they should use to justify agreement or disagreement. The workshop will culminate with participants sharing an adapted resource or implementation plan they can use when they return to school.

The afternoon workshop will be hands-on and product-based. After a short recap and model, participants would choose an existing lesson, text, unit, or topic from their own classroom and use a simple planning template to adapt it into an AI literacy resource. I will provide a small menu of sample case studies, guiding questions, and activity structures so teachers can either build from scratch or revise something they already teach. Most of the workshop will be devoted to drafting, conferring, and peer feedback, with time at the end for revision and sharing. The goal is for every participant to leave with at least one usable product—a discussion protocol, mini-lesson, case-study activity, assessment, or short inquiry sequence. If the participants stay for the entire  three hours, participants will expand their product into a fuller mini-unit; if they stay for 90 minutes, the focus will stay on one strong classroom-ready resource.

*This is a cohort session. All participants who attend the morning session are invited to attend an accompanying afternoon expansion pack session each afternoon this week to apply your morning learning to the Special Education classroom.*

The 3-hour afternoon workshop gives participants dedicated creation time to apply the morning's framework to real materials from their own classrooms. It is structured as a creation studio rather than a continuation of the lecture.

Hour 1 (1:00–2:00) — Identify and Design: Participants select one real instructional challenge. A lesson that needs differentiation, a text that needs to be adapted for a lower reading level, an assessment that needs scaffolding, or a documentation task they want to streamline. Small groups form around shared challenges. Special educators learn as much from each other as from any presenter. Introduction to the creation workflow: original material → AI prompt → draft → critical review → revision.

Break (2:00–2:15)

Hour 2 (2:15–3:15) — Create: Hands-on creation using Gemini and NotebookLM. Facilitator circulates with targeted coaching. Structured peer feedback in pairs: Does this serve the student? What did the AI miss that a human expert would catch? What needs to be fixed before this goes near a classroom?

Hour 3 (3:15–4:00) — Share, Critique, and Plan: Small group shares. Not just "look what I made" but "here's what the AI got wrong and how I fixed it." Whole-group reflection on AI as a tool for inclusive practice versus a shortcut that bypasses expertise. Individual action planning to identify one specific thing I will try with students in fall 2026.

Participants leave with a real, usable adapted resource and a realistic, critical framework for continuing independently.

In this extended afternoon workshop, participants will build on the morning session through focused, hands-on work. Educators will revisit the two project examples, taking a deeper look at their structure, design, and classroom applications, with an emphasis on adapting them to their own technology and engineering contexts.

Participants will continue developing the projects they began earlier, refining their resource libraries and expanding content using a closed-source platform such as Google NotebookLM. The session emphasizes curating high-quality materials, aligning resources with instructional goals, and designing practical implementation strategies, with opportunities for guided exploration and collaboration.

By the end of the workshop, educators will share their projects, exchange insights, and leave with a more developed, classroom-ready product and greater confidence in applying AI tools to support student learning.

The afternoon workshop will function as a hands-on design lab where participants adapt the ideas from the morning session into a classroom-ready resource. We will begin with a brief recap and discussion of how students may already be using AI as a shortcut, then examine sample resources such as AI comparison activities, verification checklists, reflection prompts, and student-facing protocols. These examples will be explored collaboratively, with attention to how they can be adapted across grade levels.

Participants will then select an existing lesson, assignment, problem set, lab, or project and redesign it to include structured, responsible AI use. Most of the workshop will be devoted to creation, peer feedback, revision, and facilitator support. Participants will focus on questions such as what students should do before using AI, how they should evaluate AI output, and what evidence they should use to justify agreement or disagreement. The workshop will culminate with participants sharing an adapted resource or implementation plan they can use when they return to school.

The afternoon workshop will be hands-on and product-based. After a short recap and model, participants would choose an existing lesson, text, unit, or topic from their own classroom and use a simple planning template to adapt it into an AI literacy resource. I will provide a small menu of sample case studies, guiding questions, and activity structures so teachers can either build from scratch or revise something they already teach. Most of the workshop will be devoted to drafting, conferring, and peer feedback, with time at the end for revision and sharing. The goal is for every participant to leave with at least one usable product—a discussion protocol, mini-lesson, case-study activity, assessment, or short inquiry sequence. If the participants stay for the entire  three hours, participants will expand their product into a fuller mini-unit; if they stay for 90 minutes, the focus will stay on one strong classroom-ready resource.

*This is a cohort session. All participants who attend the morning session are invited to attend an accompanying afternoon expansion pack session each afternoon this week to apply your morning learning to the Special Education classroom.*

The 3-hour afternoon workshop gives participants dedicated creation time to apply the morning's framework to real materials from their own classrooms. It is structured as a creation studio rather than a continuation of the lecture.

Hour 1 (1:00–2:00) — Identify and Design: Participants select one real instructional challenge. A lesson that needs differentiation, a text that needs to be adapted for a lower reading level, an assessment that needs scaffolding, or a documentation task they want to streamline. Small groups form around shared challenges. Special educators learn as much from each other as from any presenter. Introduction to the creation workflow: original material → AI prompt → draft → critical review → revision.

Break (2:00–2:15)

Hour 2 (2:15–3:15) — Create: Hands-on creation using Gemini and NotebookLM. Facilitator circulates with targeted coaching. Structured peer feedback in pairs: Does this serve the student? What did the AI miss that a human expert would catch? What needs to be fixed before this goes near a classroom?

Hour 3 (3:15–4:00) — Share, Critique, and Plan: Small group shares. Not just "look what I made" but "here's what the AI got wrong and how I fixed it." Whole-group reflection on AI as a tool for inclusive practice versus a shortcut that bypasses expertise. Individual action planning to identify one specific thing I will try with students in fall 2026.

Participants leave with a real, usable adapted resource and a realistic, critical framework for continuing independently.