The Spokane School District in Washington is piloting instructional coaches powered by artificial intelligence to help teachers assess and enhance classroom practice.
“Watching teachers teach themselves and others is arguably one of the most powerful learning opportunities for teachers to grow in their practice,” said a Title I and Special Programs Coordinator, Nick Lundberg, who manages the district. AI teacher training efforts.
In fact, research shows that video-based training helps teachers achieve their educational goals.. Other research concludes that teachers need to be able to observe classroom learning through the eyes of their students to support student practice and improve student performance.
In a video interview for Education Week, Lundberg explained how software company Edthena’s AI technology works for teachers and why school districts have decided to use AI technology. Edthena software is clearly the first of its kind, according to educational technology experts.
To use the program, teachers upload videos of classroom instruction to an online platform, from where an AI coach guides the teacher in analyzing the videos. AI coaches ask teachers about their teaching priorities and goals, and provide appropriate guidance to help them reach those goals. Essentially, this software is her AI version of a teaching coach.
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.
Why did the school district decide to introduce AI coaches?
The problem we are trying to solve is: Our teachers strive to meet the diverse needs of each student while putting great effort into school and district initiatives, curriculum implementation, and building equity in the classroom. Schools with instructional coaches cannot provide the same level of feedback that an AI coach can provide to every teacher in a grade. As such, AI enhances the work of teachers and expands their ability to work with more teachers. Many schools do not have coaches. With AI coaches, we can offer every teacher the opportunity to reflect on their practice in an authentic way.
How do teachers use AI coaches?
The first thing to do is choose a goal you want to work on. Then upload your video and let the technology guide you through the reflection process based on your goals. For example, if you select Differentiation as your goal, it will give you hints or something to look for in the video. For some teachers, they may see something new in their teaching that they didn’t know before about what differentiation is. Next, you’ll be asked to think about your strengths and areas of growth, after which you’ll create an action plan. It holds me accountable and asks me to reflect again after implementing a plan of action.
Are suggestions from AI coaches based on the district’s teaching framework?
These are like if-then statements. So saying this will return a pre-canned response. They’re continuing to upgrade their platform, and one of the previously mentioned feedback items was whether they could tie in a teaching framework. It would be great if the strategies and goals teachers choose were tied to the instructional framework used by the district.
What kind of feedback have you received from teachers so far?
Our school district is just starting to implement this online and we are currently recruiting for teachers. You don’t need anything. It is organized into professional development courses that teachers can access on their own.
So far we have received very positive feedback. What really helps teachers is having the flexibility to reflect on their teaching in their own time. You don’t have to do everything at once like humans do.
We haven’t been doing much peer observation or video reflection in the last few years, so we’re starting to come back to that idea. My hope is that this will not only start sharing what teachers have learned from their reflections with each other, but it will also open the door to video coaching and video sharing among teachers.
What will the district do next with this technology?
So far, we have had about 30 teachers use the program in the last two months during the trial period. We are in the planning stages for next school year and will support several elementary schools interested in implementing this as part of their School Improvement Plan, as well as an asynchronous district-wide professional competence for all interested teachers. It will continue to be offered as a development course.
There is more than one way to use this platform. For example, I’ve considered using this as part of the instructor’s process. Facilitators providing PD must also go through an AI coach.
