The Rewards—And Risks—Of Using AI In The Classroom

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September 16, 2025

By Elizabeth Tucker–

Many of us lacking experience with Artificial Intelligence (AI) find it unnerving. There is the prospect that it can do everything we do, only better—or at least adequately and cheaper. “You won’t be replaced by AI; you’ll be replaced by someone who knows how to use AI better,” quoted Irvington Superintendent Mara Rasevic in a recent conversation. If AI is changing the contours of the workforce, then schools need to train students to use it effectively. The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) this summer established the National Academy for AI Instruction so that teachers can stay on top of their new responsibility to impart AI literacy and also learn how to employ it to make their own working routines more efficient. The AFT has also published Commonsense Guardrails for Using Advanced Technology in Schools, now already in a revised edition.

Jerrod Blair, Director of Technology and Integration in the Irvington school district, articulated an overview of how teachers there are using AI. “Some teachers are exploring how AI can save time on routine tasks, like generating practice questions, lesson ideas, or feedback prompts, so they can focus more on engaging with students,” he said. “Others are experimenting with AI as a discussion starter in class, for example, asking students to evaluate an AI-generated response for accuracy, bias, or completeness.”

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Many districts, including those in the rivertowns, are using the AI teaching platform MagicSchool. Hastings has introduced it at the elementary level. In Sleepy Hollow, according to Technology Integration Specialist Jean O’Brien, AI is being used in instruction from elementary to high school and in math and science classes as well as in the humanities.

At Sleepy Hollow Middle School, social studies teacher Alyson Nawrocki finds MagicSchool especially useful in providing students individualized feedback on their writing. “The AI feedback is never in place of teacher feedback,” Nawrocki says, “but it’s useful as a checkpoint if I’m conferencing with another student so the rest of the class can keep working productively.”

MagicSchool assesses students’ writing according to Nawrocki’s own rubric. For example, under “thesis,” the AI software might opine that the writing is clear but too general, or under “analysis,” it might note that the writing successfully reports what happened but needs to explain why those events mattered. Students can revise on their own and then submit a final version to Nawrocki to read.

Magazine cover for a feature on ice age human migration designed by a Sleepy Hollow student using AI

Another feature MagicSchool offers is a text leveler, which adjusts a text for different reading levels. Blair says, “This doesn’t replace the original text, but it gives teachers another way to ensure that every student can engage meaningfully with the material. For example, a teacher might provide the original text alongside a leveled version so that students can build confidence and gradually work toward the more complex version.”

MagicSchool’s character chatbot allows students to engage in conversation with figures from history. In Nawrocki’s class, students interviewed a World War I soldier about his experience. In another assignment, her students were assigned to read an article about early human migration into North America and then, using details learned from the reading, instruct the image-generating Canva AI to create a magazine cover picturing its contents.

When asked about the technology’s drawbacks, Nawrocki allows that “some students begin to rely too heavily on AI. This can discourage them from taking creative or intellectual risks, which are essential parts of the learning process.”

Then, of course, there is the temptation to use AI to fabricate homework assignments. To counteract this, Nawrocki says, “I no longer assign traditional ‘original’ homework that could easily be completed by a tool. Instead, I design assignments that require students . . . to show their thinking process. . . .The focus is less on producing a polished product at home and more on engaging in authentic skill-building that can be observed and assessed directly.” She might ask her students to relate their homework to the day’s lesson or illustrate historical processes in a drawing or diagram, rather than answer a straight question in writing, as would lend itself to generation by AI.

According to Jerrod Blair, many Irvington teachers as well “are thoughtfully adapting their assignments to reflect the reality that students have access to AI. This doesn’t mean starting from scratch; instead, it’s about asking deeper questions, emphasizing process and critical thinking, and creating opportunities for students to demonstrate their learning in multiple ways.” But also, Blair says, “the district sees this as an opportunity to teach students how to use emerging technologies ethically.”

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