Each year, thousands of educators gather for Panorama Education’s annual virtual summit focused on the future of teaching, leadership, and student support. This year’s event, Panoramic 2026, brought together nearly 7,000 educators for a full day of high-energy sessions, practical strategies, and forward-looking conversations about AI, data, and the systems schools need to support students well.

Here are a few of the takeaways that matter most for teachers looking to save time, support students, and bring new tools into the classroom.

AI is becoming part of how students learn, write, and explore ideas. At the same time, teachers are already thinking carefully about how to guide that use so it supports rigor, curiosity, and growth.

At the recent Panoramic Summit, educators explored how AI can deepen thinking, strengthen engagement, and make feedback more meaningful in the classroom. Here are five key takeaways for classroom teachers.

1. Start With the Learning Goal, Not the Tool

It’s tempting to ask, “How can I use AI in this lesson?” A more useful question is, “What do I want students to think through, practice, or demonstrate?”

Richard Culatta, CEO of ISTE and ASCD, framed it this way:

In the classroom, that might mean:

• Using AI to generate counterarguments so students must defend their reasoning
• Asking AI to model multiple problem-solving strategies, then having students critique them
• Using AI to provide immediate practice questions before a formative check

The tool should support the thinking you want to see, not replace it.

2. AI Can Support Critical Thinking, If You Design For It

One of the strongest classroom-focused sessions at the summit, presented by Matt Miller, Head Textbook Ditcher at Ditch That Textbook, pushed back on the idea that AI automatically weakens rigor. AI can actually increase cognitive demand when students are required to:

• Compare AI-generated responses with their own
• Revise AI output for clarity and accuracy
• Identify bias or weak reasoning
• Use AI as a starting point, not a finished product

Rebecca Winthrop, Global Education Expert, Policy Advisor, and Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution, presented research on how engagement adds an important layer to learning. Students move into deeper “explore mode” when they feel challenged and motivated.

AI can support that exploration when it is used to extend curiosity rather than shortcut effort. The difference lies in how the task is structured.

3. Engagement Still Depends on Students Doing the Thinking

In her keynote, Winthrop reminded us:

Students are already using generative AI tools outside of school. The opportunity inside the classroom is to guide that use toward habits that strengthen learning.

That shows up in whether students:

• Seek feedback and revise
• Test multiple solutions
• Question answers instead of accepting them
• Stay with a problem when it becomes challenging

Culatta described himself as a “digital humanist,” someone who believes technology should help us do uniquely human work better. In practice, that means designing assignments where thinking, judgment, and reflection remain central.

When students are required to explain, defend, and refine their ideas, AI becomes a thinking partner rather than a shortcut.

4. AI Can Save Time and Improve Feedback

Many teachers at the summit shared a common frustration: feedback takes time, and time is limited. Used thoughtfully, AI can help:

• Draft feedback that you personalize and refine
• Generate additional practice aligned to your rubric
• Create differentiated examples
• Help students revise writing in multiple rounds

This is where tools like Class Companion come into play. AI-powered feedback and tutoring can give students immediate responses on their writing, allowing them to revise before work reaches you. That creates space for more targeted, higher-level feedback from the teacher.

Similarly, AI grounded in student data, such as Panorama Solara, can help surface patterns in attendance, performance, or intervention history that inform classroom decisions.

The goal is not to automate your expertise. It is to free up time so your expertise can be applied where it matters most.

5. Move From Experimentation to Strategy

Throughout the summit, leaders emphasized that AI should support educators, not replace them.

As Keich Willis, District At-Risk Coordinator, Mesquite ISD, put it:

Winthrop echoed this, anchoring on three pillars of using AI in education:

The takeaway? AI can generate drafts. It can surface data. It can suggest ideas. But teachers decide:

• What aligns to your standards
• What meets the needs of your students
• What requires revision
• What deserves deeper discussion

When AI is used intentionally, it can expand what’s possible in the classroom while keeping teachers firmly in control of learning.

Where Teachers Go From Here

AI will continue to evolve. Students will continue to use it, and the classroom will continue to change. The question now is not whether AI belongs in education; rather, we need to be asking how AI can support the kind of thinking and engagement we want to see in students.

If you’d like to explore the classroom strategies, examples, and demonstrations shared at the Panoramic AI Summit, you can register to watch the full sessions on demand and dive deeper into the approaches that resonate most with your teaching.