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AI in K-12: deciding what belongs in your classroom

How Kindred K-12 actually helps with AI

Curriculum & instruction Homepage

Educators are not prepared for AI

Guidance Survey gallup-walton-2026

82% of teachers have received no formal guidance on AI.

  • 82% no / informal guidance
  • 18% formal guidance
  • 82 no formal guidance
  • 18 formal

Nobody handed you a policy on this

So we are writing it down as we go — what the research supports, what it does not, and what to do on Monday. The newsletter is where each piece goes out.

Kindred K-12 newsletter

Every page in this hub

ai-in-k12 › all
7 AI Practices to Avoid in the Classroom Seven uses that hand the tool the thinking. Should you use AI for this assignment? Five questions settle whether AI belongs on an assignment. The Four Modes of AI Assignments How much AI on this assignment? How to design assessments when students have AI A final draft no longer shows who did the thinking.
Using AI in Social Studies A critic and an argument opponent, not an authority. Teaching students AI literacy What a student must know, check, and refuse. How teachers should use AI Real value goes to teachers who know a good lesson.
Using AI in elementary school The teacher's tool, not the children's. Using AI in middle school Supervised, bounded, attempt-first. Using AI in high school Permissions belong to the task, not the grade.
AI-in-education frameworks, explained Which framework answers which question.

One assignment, rebuilt

Before

Grade 11 US History · as it is assigned today

After

Grade 11 US History · the same objective, rebuilt

new-deal-essay.txt

In five paragraphs, argue whether the New Deal was a success or a failure. Use at least three sources from the unit. Introduction, three body paragraphs, conclusion. Due Friday.

What comes back

The New Deal was one of the most important periods in American history. It was a time of great change, and it had both successes and failures. This essay will argue that the New Deal was largely a success.

First, the New Deal provided relief to millions of Americans who were suffering. Programs such as the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Works Progress Administration put people back to work. This shows that the government was willing to take action to help ordinary people.

Second, the New Deal brought about recovery and reform. The Agricultural Adjustment Act helped farmers and the Securities and Exchange Commission made the financial system safer. While some historians argue that the recovery was incomplete, the economy clearly improved during this period.

In conclusion, the New Deal was largely a success. It changed the relationship between the government and the American people forever, and its legacy can still be seen today.

Mode 0 — AI-free Assumed, never written down — and nothing in the assignment can check it.
new-deal-rebuilt.md
  1. 01 Read the packet and mark it up Four documents, on paper, annotated in your own hand before anything else happens. Mode 0 — AI-free ↳ Five Tests
  2. 02 Build the claim-and-evidence chart One claim per row, the document it came from, the page. Then a thesis you are willing to defend out loud. Mode 0 — AI-free ↳ Assessment
  3. 03 Argue with the chatbot Ask it to attack your thesis. Turn in the part of the exchange that changed your mind, and a memo on what you rejected. Mode 2 — AI-assisted after an attempt ↳ Modes
  4. 04 Audit the machine's version Here is an AI account of the same question. Mark every claim you cannot source in the packet. This part is graded. Mode 3 — AI-integrated ↳ AI literacy
  5. 05 Four minutes recorded, three minutes live Make the case in your own voice over the documents, then defend it — two questions from me, one from the room. Mode 0 — AI-free ↳ Assessment
Five pieces of evidence instead of one, and the thinking is visible in four of them.
What it takes to build one of these
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