Prioritizing Critical Thinking and Instructional Processes with AI

More and more teachers are utilizing AI to change how classrooms operate and give students a stronger voice in their learning.

Stephanie Clinise, a 9th grade English language arts teacher and AI coach at Hatboro-Horsham High School, joins guest host Brittany Blackwell to unpack how educators can lead instructional change from within, using AI as a practical tool for critical thinking, feedback, and closing learning gaps.. They explore the rapid evolution of technology in education and how Stephanie proactively embraced AI to support students and create more impactful learning opportunities in order to improve student outcomes.

Together, Stephanie and Brittany dive into actionable strategies for integrating AI tools, such as Panorama’s Class Companion, to enhance student feedback, foster creativity, and individualize instruction to meet all learners where they are at. Stephanie shares her journey from being one of the first adopters of AI in her district to becoming an AI coach, leading both her classroom and fellow educators through effective AI adoption. She also provides practical tips for teachers looking to lead from within, along with valuable advice for school leaders aiming to leverage teacher expertise in the age of AI.

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TOPICS COVERED

Navigating concerns about students using AI-generated essays
Building AI literacy and engaging students in critical thinking about AI
Why avoiding AI might actually be doing students a disservice
How teachers can lead from the classroom and and influence district AI policy
Why teachers should shift focus from product to process in the age of AI
Practical tips for teachers and district leaders on implementing and supporting AI initiatives

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Episode transcript

Brittany Blackwell:
Welcome back to another episode of the Leading and Learning with AI podcast. I'm Brittany Blackwell, your guest host for today and marketing lead here at ClassCompanion and Panorama Education. And I'm here with Stephanie Clinise. She is a 9th grade English language arts teacher and AI coach at Hatboro-Horsham High School, and I'm so excited to be able to talk about how she is leading within the classroom. Hey, Stephanie, welcome.

Stephanie Clinise:
Oh, thank you. I'm so glad to be here. It's so good to see you.

Brittany Blackwell:
So good to see you too. So I would love for us just to kind of kick this off and talk a little bit about how you started using AI in the classroom and how you first started realizing that it was gonna change your classroom in a real and immediate way.

Stephanie Clinise:
I mean, AI has absolutely changed my classroom. It's changed the way that I approach teaching. It's changed the way I approach content and delivery. In such a variety of ways. I guess about a year or so ago, I really became aware of how much AI was rolling out at such a rapid speed. And I considered it as a high school teacher, I've been teaching for 11+ years at this point, and I remember starting teaching when kids had flip phones and this like rapid progression of technology and advancements and the immediate availability of all of it to, you know, children and young people, but especially the high school age. And they're very much expected to be aware of how these things work. So I remember in student teaching, like with the flip phones and being like, I don't, please put that away, you know?

Brittany Blackwell:
Right.

Stephanie Clinise:
And then this evolution of the smartphone and then social media being in their pockets and all of this stuff where teachers really didn't have a lot of opportunity in the education field to bring kids into the conversation and have the conversation right away. And as AI started rolling out and, and I watched, you know, those first iterations with ChatGPT and all the other platforms, I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. The kids have access to this. The kids have all of this information. I am not going to be the second group to find out as the kids are having it. I said, this is not something I wanna miss the way that we couldn't have prepared with cell phones and smartphones and social media and all those different platforms where they're constantly engaging with it. And then on the teacher side, it has nothing to do with school. So how do we monitor that? And, and I always think about that when I think about.

Stephanie Clinise:
The role of AI in my classroom was I saw it coming. I saw these companies start showing up across, you know, all my platforms, like going online and seeing them and going to different conferences. And I was like, you know what? I'm getting ahead of it this time. I am not going to let, like, fear of it or a lack of knowledge of it drive my decision-making around AI in my classroom. So when I saw it coming and I saw how quickly it was coming, I thought, you know what? I'm getting behind it, I'm getting ahead of it, whatever the phrase is for this, I put myself in that space because I was not gonna be caught, you know, unprepared again, or as unprepared again.

Brittany Blackwell:
Yeah. So before using AI with students, what were you most unsure or concerned about?

Stephanie Clinise:
I mean, I think that I shared a lot of the same concerns that most teachers, especially, you know, any of our writing-focused teachers, we're sitting here like, is this just, are kids just gonna go online and get all of their information, just copy it from this generative AI models. I mean, you and I have agreed on this one in the past. Like, I know that we've talked about it, but there's no more additional cheating than there was before. And it's a model that kids aren't familiar with. They were like, I just put this in and it generates something that looks good. So my thought was, okay, I want to see what it generates. I want to see what it's creating. And so I started asking it questions about like my own things of like, okay, like my son had to go dairy-free for a very specific allergy, not vegan.

Stephanie Clinise:
So I'm looking up ways, can I change this recipe or can I do this? Can you help me come up with things like meals based on the things I had in my fridge? And I was like, wow, this thing is like really moving quick. And so I saw that and I said, okay, well they're having it write essays. I'm having it help me figure out how to feed my family. So what else can it do? And I started in that ChatGPT realm of like, give me ideas for my classroom, give me ideas for independent reading novels. And I like slowly got a little bit more specific with it. And then I said, all right, what are the educational platforms then that I could consider having this student facing? Because it's never gonna be like, just let the kids go on ChatGPT. It can't be monitored. There's no conversation between myself and the students, between any teacher and their students in a model that's not education-based.

Stephanie Clinise:
So I liked that idea. And, and kids have been very open with me about what they use ChatGPT for. Like when it comes to school, and I say very open, you know, knowing that I teach high school, but they've been open about it. And I said, okay, well, let's, let's start looking at platforms where I can monitor what's going on because AI is inherently biased and incorrect at times because it comes from the internet, which was built by humans who are biased and frequently incorrect. So I saw it first as, all right, let's see what happens when you interact with it in a monitored setting. So that we can start talking about the literacy and the critical thinking that's gonna come with it. And that's when I stumbled across my little journey, ClassCompanion, which is how we connected in the first place. And I just remember being like, okay, so I'm not gonna be sending them out, like, try and find AI to do this.

Stephanie Clinise:
I can set the parameters. I can monitor everything that's going in and coming out of it. And I got so excited to realize that this was a platform that wasn't just for them. It wasn't just a social platform the way so many of the prior tech tools had been. And I was not wasting that opportunity. So we put it out there and the first thing I said to students was, and this was over a year ago, I said, tell me if you think the feedback is good and when you think the feedback is not good. Point out the flaws. And as that started to happen, I felt that there was a real opportunity for ownership of AI and what it's creating and what it's generating and where its limitations are for our students.

Brittany Blackwell:
Yeah.

Stephanie Clinise:
So it starts here and then I started to float it out when I started seeing how it could be wrong. Yeah.

Brittany Blackwell:
So what I'm hearing you say is kind of like you brought it out with some guardrails, right? Like there were some guardrails that you could set and you wanted to be able to have those conversations to build that AI literacy with your students.

Stephanie Clinise:
Yes. So I hadn't even thought about that language of AI literacy a year ago. It was just, what is AI? And teach the kids how to think critically about what's being generated in front of them and what these different online platforms are presenting them with and suggesting to them. And as the language came out of AI literacy, I, I was like, obviously that's what it is. I'm an English teacher. We never taught kids how to read. We didn't teach kids how to do math. Theoretically, we gave them books, we gave them numbers, we gave them math problems and said, let's solve these together and see where the disconnect might be and how can we overcome it? And that's been my approach to the, the literacy aspect of it.

Stephanie Clinise:
And when I try and talk to other teachers in my building or outside my building, and when I talk to students about it, I just try to be transparent of like, this is new. I'm older than Google. Like this AI idea, this is. This is wildly new, so let's go through it together. Let's be open about it and let's make sure that we are in charge, not the other way around.

Brittany Blackwell:
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think, I think that's one of the biggest things that teachers are afraid of. You voiced some of those fears that teachers have, especially about the copying and pasting. It's writing our students' essays, but you kind of took a different approach to it and you said, hey, like, this is what's happening. Let's get ahead of it. Let's have the conversation together instead of shying away from utilizing it with students. At what point did you kind of realize that avoiding AI might actually be doing students a disservice?

Stephanie Clinise:
Oh, it's a very clear, it was the first time I saw a kid clearly submit something to me that came from AI. I was like, oh, this is not in your voice or any human's voice. It's, it's very formulaic and it's not a formula I taught you. Right. So I saw that happen and I said, oh, this is not a fight I am gonna have. This is not something that's going away. I remember, and it's like so cool to be at the age that I am, where I remember when teachers started being like, we want you to use the internet. You gotta learn how to find sources online.

Stephanie Clinise:
And so for me, I just call back to that experience as well of, okay, so it's out there. They have access to it whether or not I put them on their computers in this classroom. They have access to it. So rather than hide from it, I just kind of leaned into it of like, okay, what do you wanna use it for? What do I wanna use it for? How can this be mutually beneficial in our classroom? Not just to benefit me. I don't want it to do my work for me. The way that it can support, you know, the teachers, but it also supports students and bridging gaps in learning. And I was like, okay, so maybe a kid is going to this 'cause he doesn't understand, like he knows it's not right, or she knows it's not right. But at the same time, this student is also like, I don't really know what else to do.

Stephanie Clinise:
And this is here. So what I wanted to do was kind of take the reins of that and be like, this is not an easy out. This is no more of an easy out than Googling a thematic essay about Animal Farm and copying and pasting that one. More recently, I told the students, I said, I have been reading 9th grade writing since the year you were born. So let's, let's not, let's not play me today. I was like, let's not do that. I said, But at the same time, we gotta be able to talk about it. And historically, ignoring a problem has never fixed it.

Brittany Blackwell:
That is such a good point. That is such a good point. And I think what's really cool to hear about in your story is you were leading from inside of the classroom. Can you talk a little bit more about like how that journey was? How was it received within your district? The work that you're doing now with AI and leading in the classroom?

Stephanie Clinise:
Right. To be very fair about the type of person I am, I'm not gonna sit back and wait to see what happens. I'm not doing that, and I'm not doing that in any aspect of my life, but especially when it came to AI. I saw, like I said, when I first was like, oh, here's my little free trial of Class Companion. And I told my students, I said, we're gonna try this. I said, bring it up, show me the feedback that it gives you. And some kids were like, this is really helpful. Yeah, I know.

Stephanie Clinise:
They're like, it's immediate. It's great. And then some kids came up and said, I don't agree with this. I said, okay. Tell me why, right? We, we had this conversation and I was blown away. I said, these kids aren't just looking for the easy way out. They need feedback faster than I can possibly give it to them, especially in this day and age where they were raised with immediate, you know, gratification. And no, I don't think that they need that.

Stephanie Clinise:
However, they do want feedback. And so I was like, oh my gosh, you guys are getting feedback and now you're questioning it? 'Cause I asked you too nicely. I was like, this is amazing. I'm so proud of you guys. So then I went into a department meeting, 'cause I'm an English teacher, and I said, Guess what I found? This is the coolest thing ever. And some other teachers like, oh, you know, we've heard of this one. We've heard of that one. And so then I was like, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Stephanie Clinise:
What do you mean you've heard of all these different ones? I just got back from PNC at a local conference and I'd heard about a bunch, but I hadn't spent a lot of time. So then I said to myself and anybody who was in the vicinity, I said, okay, well, this is my new hyperfixation and I'm going to learn everything there is to learn about it. And. It was amazing. It's been so much fun. I just like reach out to companies. I ask the questions. I, I talk to people about it.

Stephanie Clinise:
I go online and I, I learn about it there. I go to conferences, learn about it there. And then fast forward a couple months, I was showing other teachers and giving teachers like, hey, here's a tool I'm using. Here's a different platform I'm using. Why don't you take a look at this one? What is the gap you're looking to fill? What is the need you need filled in your classroom? Just with like my hallway homies, right? Like just with my friends in the hallway. And we're talking about it and they're like, oh, I guess I could try that. Oh, are you doing, you know, this platform? Platform or that one? And I said, I'm doing it on Friday. Come in and see.

Stephanie Clinise:
My door is always open. Like, no matter what I'm doing, whether or not they like it, you guys can all come in and see what's up. And so it started there, and the school district was trying to write AI policy. And I was like, well, I'm not on this committee right now, but now I wanna know so much more about it. I learned more about it. I decided to join the committee towards the end of the school year. And then I had wanted to implement a bunch of different platforms, and so I realized that going to department meetings isn't the place to go. So I actually had been observed a couple times just on like central admin being in the building.

Stephanie Clinise:
And so I followed up with an email like, hi, it was so great that you were in my classroom when I was using, you know, this platform. Would you like to come back and talk more about it when you have time? And they did. Yeah. I had my director of curriculum and instruction in my classroom and the director of student services. They were like, yeah, so what's up? I was like, okay, let's do this. And I told them what I'd found. I told them what I discovered. Where it is with the student, how the students were feeling about it, how the students were using it, whether or not we let them.

Stephanie Clinise:
So if we could get ahead of it, which the school district was already looking to do, but I just had more ideas of ways to use it and use it in a way that wasn't going— like some kids who were never gonna cheat started feeling a little demoralized. They were like, these other kids are and I'm not, and I don't like it. So we had conversations about how we can support those students, how we can lock down browsers during all these things where they can still access the different tools. So that summer they opened up this position for AI coaches and there were a few at the high school, two at the middle school, and one at every elementary. And I was like, this is so perfect, guys. I'm so glad you created this job as I've been jumping in many of these. Yeah. Yeah.

Stephanie Clinise:
I was like, oh my gosh, you guys read my mind. But they did. They brought in teachers from different content areas to support throughout the building and to be somebody you can touch base with who is a teacher, not somebody at the central level, not somebody at the administration level, and not somebody from outside the building. So this opportunity to lead from within, especially when it came to AI and any ed tech, I think having teachers on site to do that is what's made so much of the difference of people being willing to adopt it. Because it's not a new, you should try this, you need to get familiar with this. It became very much something of, Where can we help fill in the gap? And I think that when we look at AI and we look at any edtech platform, we need to ask ourselves the same question. Like, how is this filling a need that isn't already being serviced? What is the need that it can fill? And like, how will that work? And once we all started using that language and looking at it, it really started to change things. I also love being able to talk to teachers and I get to share this like, guys, look how cool this is energy with people and I mean, they hear me coming, like, but it's a lot of fun.

Stephanie Clinise:
And to be able to connect with my colleagues on that level has been so cool too, of like, listen, I don't, it's not that I know more, it's that I've spent more time in it. So come watch me use it, not me tell you how to use it. Come see what I've done so that maybe you can do it and bridge like a new gap, reach a new student, get to a learner who they might be struggling. Just anytime where we see a need. It closes the gap a little bit more in terms of our ability to reach that student quicker when it comes to the content. And I think that that's part of what teachers are most on board for. Not that it makes our lives easier, not that it, it does work for us because I work with a guy too who said, it's not that I spend less time doing this work, it's that my product, the end product is better.

Brittany Blackwell:
Right. I think, I think that's such a good distinction to make too, because a lot of people when they first heard of AI was, oh, this is gonna save you so much time. And what I've found as I've talked with district administrators and other teachers is that it's not necessarily the time saved, it's the repurposing of the time for those more impactful things with students. And I just love how you've been talking about how it's providing better outcomes for students, like, there's the students that you may not have seen specific gaps, and now you're able to see that. Can you talk a little bit more about like the student outcomes and the outcomes that you've seen while using AI in the classroom?

Stephanie Clinise:
Absolutely. So when I think about student outcomes as it relates to AI, and like I said, any tool, I look at AI as simply a tool. It's helping any type of learner get from point A to point B. Some of us are taking shorter steps. Some of us need a little bit more support than others, and this is a way when I'm sitting in a room with 21 people with 21 different needs, that some of them that are a little bit more basic, a little bit more streamlined, they can be met before I get to them, before I have a chance to get to them. One of the last assignments I did, I just wanna like kind of tell a story about it. One of the last assignments I did, I gave my students, I said, when you're done, it was a mashup of what's online and what's not online. So they had like their little manila folders with all their printed out articles that they had to go online and find.

Stephanie Clinise:
They had notes that they took, like they had all these different pieces. They could brainstorm with AI. I could track it all because everything was in there. And so by the time they had produced this like rough draft outline through a graphic organizer, I would've never had time to meet with the amount of students that I did as quickly as I did and touch base. They came up with their folders, dropped it down in front of me and said, all right, here's what I'm talking about. Here's my thesis. Here's my first attempt. I said, great job.

Stephanie Clinise:
And then I would like free them to be like, okay, you're approved to get back on the computer and start typing. I put them into the Class Companion platform, as it were, and I gave them the max amount of attempts. I said, I saw your research. I saw everything you did. We're past that. I don't have to police what you're writing.

Brittany Blackwell:
Yeah.

Stephanie Clinise:
Because now I said, put that first draft in. Look at the feedback it gives you. Do you like it or no? What do you like? What don't you? Keep going. Mm-hmm. I said, you're getting, I think it's like 8 attempts they were given. And kids were using 5 and 6 attempts being like, oh, I can fix that. I can fix that. Whereas before it was stopping at every person and a kid saying, can you read this? Is this any good? I don't know.

Stephanie Clinise:
And I'd be like, what do you want me to look at? And they said, I don't know, is it good? And I said, you gotta have something specific. But that's a skill, right? To identify where you're lacking. So now if they're in their 3rd and 4th round of general feedback that's coming from a platform, they can come to me and say, No matter what I do, my topic sentence isn't getting better. Now, I'm not quick reading it saying, this is okay, let's see if we can make it better. There's specific actionable things that are available before they come to me so that when we are meeting, we're not talking about what idea should I do. They've already launched and now I can guide. Now, instead of looking at like grammar or certain writing skills that I think that they should have long since mastered but might be struggling with. They got that reminder for the topic sentence twice before they came to me.

Stephanie Clinise:
They tried, they were forcing themselves to try a few times, and they also know I could track whether or not they tried to make it better. Right. And that's where I saw the change. Now I'm having a conversation with a kid and I see the struggle. It's not that this child is a bad writer or doesn't know how to organize their thoughts. It's that they're organizing their thoughts and now I'm seeing the growth very quickly right next to each other of, okay, you started here, you did grow, and this is where It seems that you've stopped on your own and that's where I get to step in. Now I get to spend more time focused on something with a kid where instead of being in a rush all the time, that's been the biggest student outcomes that I've seen is that not only am I as a teacher creating a better product, if you will, like creating better worksheets, better tests, my time in the classroom isn't spent with the same handful of kids anymore. I'm able to talk to everybody and That's where I saw these projects and I was like, you guys did an amazing thing and you should be so proud of yourselves.

Stephanie Clinise:
And that's where I see the better outcome is this pride that they took and how much they did on their own as well.

Brittany Blackwell:
So, yeah, I'm listening to your, your kind of like your arc here too. It's sounding a lot like some of the way you see your role as a teacher has shifted. Can you talk a little bit more about that?

Stephanie Clinise:
Listen, you wanna go down that path? Yeah, I do feel that my role as a teacher has shifted. I think that for so many years, We were so focused on the product or the outcome of learning, right? We're looking at tests, we're looking at can they produce the paper? Well, kids have access to all the information in the world at their fingertips. They all have these phones, and if they don't have a phone, they have access to the computer. It's a necessity in this world. I'm no longer the keeper of the keys. I don't hide all the information in my teacher copy. They've got it all. So what I need to engage my students with is process, not product.

Stephanie Clinise:
So when we were going through our last big project is this Power of Your Voice thing, and it was about researching different activists about something you cared about. And it was a 9th grade level. It's not like it was my project. We all did it. But my focus was not on get all this and show me the best paper in the world. I said, show me the process. Show me what you're doing to get to this paper. Because when you're done, you can run it through any program to clean up the grammar.

Stephanie Clinise:
You can clean these things up. So what I wanna see, what I'm focusing on is that shift back to What are we doing with our time to get to that outcome? Because I know everybody can find a way to get me a paper that looks right.

Brittany Blackwell:
Right.

Stephanie Clinise:
So how do I hear you in it? How do I find a way for students to want to take that ownership? And so it's been a shift back to process.

Brittany Blackwell:
Yeah, I really, I love that saying that you just said, you're not the keeper of the keys anymore. I mean, the kids have the keys, they just have to be able to look for that and know where to look for it and be able to have that process and go through that productive struggle and all of those things that have been a difficult thing to do in the classroom. I just think your story of how you are leading from within the classroom, how your district was able to utilize teachers and especially excited ones who would love to learn more and want to help their other teachers in the building, that's been really cool to hear. I really, I really like what your district has done.

Stephanie Clinise:
With that. Me too. I would just have to.

Brittany Blackwell:
So just to kind of finish us out, I would love for you just to kind of, if a teacher out there is like, all right, this sounds like something that I wanna do, I wanna lead from the classroom, what would be like your first tip or your biggest tip for those teachers?

Stephanie Clinise:
The opportunity to lead from within. First off, we love to lead from within, right? We are the ones, we're out here, we're doing it, we're seeing what it looks like in the classrooms. My best suggestion, my best tip is to look around your classroom. Is AI being utilized? Who's utilizing it and what for? And then where is the gap that you would like to see something filled, right? I, I've worked with the world language departments, the social studies department. I've worked with so many teachers throughout the building, and what I've said to everybody is identify an issue, whether it's AI related or not, see if there is a fix for that solution or an approach to that solution using one of these tools. And if the question Whatever it is, if it comes back to my students are using AI and I don't want them to, look at how you can take control of that narrative. Look at what's available to you in your classroom, available to you in your district, and bring it up to the people in charge and let them know where that gap is.

Brittany Blackwell:
Yeah, and I wasn't gonna keep going with this, but I do have one additional question for those leaders, those district leaders or those school leaders who are looking to start utilizing their teachers as leaders in the classroom. What is the advice you would give those leaders?

Stephanie Clinise:
Oh, to give the administration? Listen to the ones who are speaking up. Listen to the teachers who are coming in and showing that they're doing this growth and this development and that they want to see things be changed and that they want to take ownership of these changes rather than just letting them happen. Those teachers will make themselves known or listen for them.

Brittany Blackwell:
Yes, I love that. I love that so much. Thank you so much, Stephanie, for being a part of this and for just sharing your teacher-to-leader journey that you've done. You're doing amazing work with your students, with your district, and we just thank you so much for being a part of this.

Stephanie Clinise:
Aw, thanks, Brittney. It's always so fun to be able to catch up and talk with you about this.

Brittany Blackwell:
Yes. Thanks again for listening to the Leading and Learning with AI podcast. If you're watching on YouTube, make sure to hit that subscribe button and tune in next time for another episode.

Prioritizing Critical Thinking and Instructional Processes in the Age of AI with Stephanie Clinise

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