How to Talk to Your Students About AI This Year

Most teachers we talk to say the same thing. They want to introduce AI in class but don't know where to start. The good news is that you don't need a curriculum overhaul. You need fifteen minutes and a few honest questions.

Open with a question your students already have an opinion on. Have you ever asked ChatGPT to do your homework? The conversation that follows is the lesson. Listen for what they think it gets right, what it gets wrong, and whether they trust it. That's your baseline.

Three things that work well in this first conversation:

Treat AI as a tool, not a threat. The framing students adopt now will follow them through middle school.
Ask what AI can't do. Students often surprise themselves once they think about it.
End with a class agreement on when AI helps and when it gets in the way of learning.

We've been testing a slightly more interactive version of this conversation through our quests. If you want to bring it into your classroom, you can create a free teacher account in under a minute.