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Why AI in Education Isn’t the Threat You Think It Is

“We didn’t ban calculators. We taught math differently. We didn’t ban the internet. We taught research differently. So why are we trying to ban AI instead of doing the same?” We’ve been here before. I was a young teacher when the internet showed up in classrooms in the 90s. Educators panicked. Teachers worried it would make students lazy, that it would only be used for cheating, and that memorizing facts and dates would go out the window. They were right. Sort of. The internet did change things. But it didn’t destroy learning. It made us rethink what was worth teaching and how we wanted to spend instructional time. It pushed us away from memorizing trivia and toward analyzing, questioning, creating, and connecting. The same thing happened with calculators decades before. There was real fear that students would lose the ability to compute. But what actually happened was that students stopped getting stuck in multi-digit calculations and started spending more time doing real math. They m...

Effective Strategy for Phonemic Awareness Practice and Quick Whole Class Assessment

 "Classroom strategies should not only support students but also help teachers efficiently measure both student strengths and needs at the same time."

Here is a glimpse at an effective strategy for supporting phonemic awareness in primary grade classrooms while also giving the teacher a quick and accurate measure of student needs and strengths. A few suggestions to consider:

  • Give students time to initially practice using the magnetic wands to accurately pinpoint the sounds in the Elkonin boxes.
  • You may want to only focus on one sound location, but I have found it effective to bounce around the initial, medial, and final sounds to ensure you measure the broad scope of depth of knowledge and understanding.
  • Be sure to have a notepad to record both general patterns and trends you observe during the activity and also track individual student progress to help you plan for small group instruction.
  • You should not spend more than 5-7 minutes on the activity. You will find that the students will be engaged and want to continue beyond the short activity. But that’s a great thing, right?
  • And be nice about my narration! This is new to me! 🤷‍♂️



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