Building Momentum

Building Momentum, our Chapter 2, is when you really hit the ground and work on building AI Literacy throughout your district. The primary method we suggest for this is focusing on staff exposure which naturally leads to staff literacy. With that strategic approach, you also need to focus on two goals for the year:

A backstop practice for student "Plagiarism" via AI (our Stoplight)
A framework for AI Literacy (our Use & Evaluate) to train staff on

AI Stoplight

The first thing that teachers ask think bout when seeing the power of a chatbot is "but what about cheating?!" Addressing those worries is at the top of your to-do list. Read our approach here.

AI Literacy Framework

We all "know what AI Literacy is", but if we can't explain it simply, we can't train our staff on it, much less our students. Choosing/building your own favorite model and definition that you are invested in is the only way it will stick in your district. Read about our framework here.

Download our framework here.

Action Steps

First and foremost, you need a Strategic Plan. Here's a link to ours. Key things you need to cover:

Professional Development. Year 1 is all about staff, so how you approach staff PD is crucial. See our PD breakdown below.
Resources Bank. From prompting guidelines to good articles to "the best AI tools" to lesson design, teachers should be able to find resources without creating themselves. A good Prompt Library is our recommended first win.
Measure of success. For us, this was 25% of staff engaging with AI Literacy training beyond a basic "here's the state of AI right now" level.
Early Adopters are KEY. Whatever this looks like for you (see our AI Ambassadors section below), you need to recruit and empower the staff who are individually driven to leverage GenAI for themselves and their classrooms.

We endorse the "gateway drug" approach of pitching AI as a new EdTech tool at first in order to build Exposure → Literacy. Once teachers see the value of using AI-powered tools to help with tasks they can naturally shift to embracing it as an integral part of thinking, productivity, and flow.

Professional Development by Group

Different groups need different types and pacing of PD to develop Exposure → Literacy. Here's what we did, and the resources we used.

Everyone

Full staff training on the Stoplight framework at the start of year (slides). Goal was common language and showing we had a plan, had a plan to support them re:plagiarism.
Asynchronous Prompting course. We gave PD hours (and a bump in pay) to teachers/staff who completed our custom-designed prompting course. Click here for an overview of the lessons.
Choice sessions teaching #TeacherHacks at full-district PD events. Teachers love anything that makes their job more efficient! It's a great entry point.
Optional If a school site is more invested, an additional round of full-staff PD on AI Literacy core tenets can be awesome. Shouldn't try this if enough folks aren't "on board".

AI Ambassadors (early adopters)

Opt in group of 10-20 teachers (for us that's ~5% of teachers) who receive more support and resources, with the expectation that they then drive AI Exploration on their sites.
- Stipend
- Monthly meetings - training on classroom implementation, prompting ideas, and our AI Literacy Framework. Slides here.
- Chat Space
- Premium access to ChatGPT 4
Expected to run PD for staff, take on initiatives
This was the first group we rolled out our AI Literacy framework to. Here are those slides.
Prompting Frameworks were honed through feedback from this group.

Focused Groups

Different small groups have different needs. Here are some of the trainings/support we provided to different subgroups.

Admin teams - efficiency training, overview of teacher tools, 1 license to ChatGPT4 per team of 5. Slides.
CTE - Support in modifying lessons to meet professional and work-based standards. Efficiency training. Slides.
ESS - Re-emphasize that chatbots are not IEP writers, and we get that. Discuss option of chatbots as Accomodations in the future. Here are some prompt ideas.
Academics - Future of teaching and learning. Many many conversations here. Curriculum modification. Teacher efficiency support. 21st century skill. Slides and notes links.