A practical look at AI’s role in instruction
Lessons from seeing 20 student-facing, AI-powered products in action
32
classroom observations in 16 school systems across 7 states
50+
teacher interviews
100+
student interviews
25+
school and system leader interviews
There is plenty of speculation about AI’s role in schools and new tools are emerging quickly.
The AI in Action Learning Tour aims to help leaders cut through the noise to understand how AI-powered products are currently being used in classrooms, their instructional benefits and risks, and what it takes to support effective use.
Product
profiles
Detailed descriptions of each product, including:
- The role of the AI, teacher, and students during use
- User feedback on the strengths and limitations of the product
- Evidence of impact on student learning
- Our instructional take on the wins and limitsations of the product
Insights from
the tour
Our overall findings from the tour, including:
- Trends in product design
- What teachers and students like about the products—and what concerns them
- Subject-specific benefits and risks for math and literacy
- What this makes us think about the future of instruction
Actions you
can take
Role-specific actions you can take to:
- Learn about and from what is happening already
- Mitigate the harm of bad uses
- Identify and leverage beneficial uses
- Communicate consistently, transparently, and humanely
About the AI in Action Learning Tour
During the 2025–26 school year, Instruction Partners studied 20 student-facing instructional products that use AI to analyze student work and/or provide feedback to students.
In the 2026–27 school year, we plan to study at least 20 additional student-facing products, expand the tour to evaluate teacher-facing products, and partner with a research institution to evaluate empirical research on product efficacy.
For each of the products, we followed the same basic process for gathering information:
About Instruction Partners
Instruction Partners works shoulder to shoulder with instructional leaders across the country to provide teachers with high-quality resources and tailored instructional support. Our team of former educators brings deep expertise in foundational reading, English language arts, and math to help our partners build strong instructional leadership practices grounded in research on how students learn each content area.
Download the white paper
Explore and share insights from the AI In Action Learning Tour.
