AI as a Teaching Partner: Early Lessons from Classroom Codesign with Secondary Teachers

TL;DR

This study explores integrating generative AI as a collaborative teaching partner in classrooms, highlighting its role in supporting instruction while emphasizing the importance of teacher involvement and iterative design.

Contribution

It introduces a co-design approach where teachers actively shape AI tools, demonstrating practical integration and iterative refinement in real classroom settings.

Findings

AI supported feedback and inquiry in classrooms

Teachers co-designed and refined AI features

AI enhanced instructional reach without replacing teachers

Abstract

This report presents a comprehensive account of the Colleague AI Classroom pilot, a collaborative design (co-design) study that brought generative AI technology directly into real classrooms. In this study, AI functioned as a third agent, an active participant that mediated feedback, supported inquiry, and extended teachers' instructional reach while preserving human judgment and teacher authority. Over seven weeks in spring 2025, 21 in-service teachers from four Washington State public school districts and one independent school integrated four AI-powered features of the Colleague AI Classroom into their instruction: Teaching Aide, Assessment and AI Grading, AI Tutor, and Student Growth Insights. More than 600 students in grades 6-12 used the platform in class at the direction of their teachers, who designed and facilitated the AI activities. During the Classroom pilot, teachers were co-design partners: they planned activities, implemented them with students, and provided weekly reflections on AI's role in classroom settings. The teachers' feedback guided iterative improvements for Colleague AI. The research team captured rich data through surveys, planning and reflection forms, group meetings, one-on-one interviews, and platform usage logs to understand where AI adds instructional value and where it requires refinement.