Can teacher wisdom steer the AI transition in education?
Artificial intelligence is fundamentally reshaping countless industries; education is no exception. As AI tools rapidly enter classrooms, there are concerns about fair access, effective implementation, and the risk of widening the still persistent digital divide. Who are the players best positioned to guide this transition in a way that truly benefits every student?
Q: Your background as a public school teacher and startup founder is unique. How has that journey shaped your vision for DonorsChoose and its mission to resource every classroom?
Alix Guerrier: I’m a proud product of the New Haven, Connecticut, public school system. I had a front-row seat to the resourcing challenges schools face, which inspired me to become a public school teacher. Despite funding constraints, teachers went above and beyond for their students, and I saw the potential of a grassroots approach that serves individual teachers, which I later brought to my startup.
DonorsChoose is unique because we maintain a laser-like focus on the needs of individual teachers and their students, while partnering with school, district, and state leaders. Together, we can learn from the grassroots innovation, then use those insights to shape broader policy and funding decisions, which we have been leaning into as an organization.
Q: DonorsChoose has an unrivaled view of teacher needs. What is your data currently telling you about changing trends in classroom requests?
Alix: We have access to a wealth of qualitative and quantitative data, because our model requires teachers to submit descriptions of the resources they need and how they plan to use them. Some requests remain the same year over year. For example, books were a primary request at our founding in 2000 and remain an important need today.
Instructional technology, however, has been a major category of change. Over the past 25 years, we’ve tracked the shift from older tech to smartboards and Chromebooks. And starting in 2020, we saw a dramatic, sustained change in the amount of instructional technology requested. While AI-specific requests are still a small category, they are rapidly growing. Last school year, we saw around 600 requests for AI learning tools and resources; that number is already 1,000+ this school year.
What has been most surprising is the primary AI use case emerging from our data. We expected to see requests centered on student productivity or teacher planning, and those exist. But the majority are focused on addressing diverse student needs. Teachers are using AI to generate real-time translation tools for multilingual language learners, or to rapidly adapt a lesson plan for students with disabilities. We are seeing teachers leverage AI to hyper-personalize learning.
Q: How can we ensure that AI funding doesn’t exacerbate existing challenges, like the digital divide?
Alix: Resource equity is explicitly woven into DonorsChoose DNA. It’s our goal that every student in every community has access to a great education regardless of a school’s resources. This year, over 80% of funding directed through DonorsChoose went to projects in historically under-resourced schools. Moreover, our work to close the digital resource gap felt by these schools must include AI learning tools.
Access to the hardware is only part of the equation. We know that the vast majority of teachers—97%, according to a survey we conducted—don’t feel they have the necessary training to successfully implement AI in the classroom. Educators have a hunger and readiness to incorporate AI learning tools, but there’s a clear gap in preparedness. This points to our biggest strategic bet: The sector-wide conversation about the future of AI in K-12 education must be driven by what teachers know about the actual needs of their kids.
Q: If you had a single message for those designing the next wave of AI tools and the policymakers making education funding decisions, what would it be?
Alix: Stay forcefully focused on the needs and experiences of students.
In education, as in other fields, new technologies are often first adopted by individuals on the ground—the teachers running micro-experiments every day in their classrooms. Their collective wisdom about what works and enables a better learning outcome is an invaluable dataset. If we, as a sector, choose to be guided by those use cases—the ways teachers are actually succeeding, like using AI to personalize learning for a non-native English speaker—we can effectively scale.
The technologies that truly support student learning and growth are those that are human-centered, supporting a learner’s exploration and creativity. By staying anchored to the individual learner, we ensure the immense power of AI is directed toward the highest and best use—making a meaningful difference in the life of every child.
Q: Looking ahead 10 years, what is the most important role you hope DonorsChoose played in ensuring this AI revolution was accessible, effective, and human-centered?
Alix: I hope we will have been the critical platform that elevated the teacher’s voice to the forefront of the AI conversation. We want to be the connective tissue that translates the thousands of successful, human-centered AI experiments happening in classrooms across the country into actionable insights for the entire system.
We have an opportunity now to steer the ship. We know more than ever before about how students learn and what they need to thrive, and we have the technology to make dramatic improvements. Our role at DonorsChoose is to use our unique access to the grassroots to keep the entire sector—the companies, the foundations, the policy leaders—focused on the human impact, not just the technical promise. We are equipped to do amazing things, but we just have to decide to do so. And I’m optimistic that we will.
Celia Jones is global chief marketing officer of FINN Partners.