AI and the Instructional Core: Transforming the Teacher-Student-Content-Assessment Quartet

The instructional core, developed by David Cohen and Deborah Ball and advanced and championed by the late Richard Elmore, consists of a teacher and student in the presence of content. Informative assessments are a crucial fourth element. The relationship among these four elements determines the nature of instructional practice. The instructional core helps educators and education leaders identify where improvement is needed, appreciating that changing one element influences the others. The four interdependent components of the instructional core hold immense power in shaping student learning by enhancing (a) teacher knowledge and skills, (b) student engagement, (c) academically challenging content, and (d) assessments that measure what students know and can do.

But how can we unlock the full potential of the instructional core in the age of artificial intelligence (AI)? While AI will never replace teachers, it can be a powerful catalyst for amplifying the instructional core by supercharging teacher expertise, boosting student engagement, redefining "academically challenging," and revolutionizing assessments.

Supercharging Teacher Expertise

Building on Learning Forward's Standards for Professional Learning, AI can enhance the creation, support, and ongoing improvement of teacher professional learning.

Leadership Decisionmaking

By analyzing school and educator data, AI-enhanced systems can generate insights to inform leadership decision-making around professional learning strategies and resource allocation. Predictive analytics help optimize budget allocations, ensuring funds are directed toward professional learning opportunities and materials that will have the greatest impact on teacher expertise and student outcomes.

Professional Learning Design

AI-enhanced professional learning experiences, such as Mursion's virtual environment developed by Dr. Mark Atkinson and his colleagues, can support individualized pathways, microlearning modules, and adaptive learning experiences, all while helping educators master the complex interpersonal skills necessary to be effective This personalization maximizes both relevance and effectiveness for each educator. AI-enhanced tools analyze the individual strengths and weaknesses of educators, recommending tailored professional learning opportunities that directly address each teacher's needs. This combined approach ensures efficient, impactful learning journeys for every educator.

Boosting Student Engagement

Learning requires engagement. Engagement is shaped by: (a) physical, mental, and emotional development; (b) chemical processes within people; (c) personal interests and sociocultural influences; and (d) tasks and situations, cognitive challenge, arousal, expectancy, and incentive. Engagement is measurable, teachable, and socializeable for all learners. To maximize the benefits of teaching and instruction, students must actively participate in the learning process, and teachers require insights into their students' level of engagement. When learners are disengaged, their learning potential diminishes.

AI-Driven Insights for Teaching and Learning

Advanced AI tools built into digital tools and learning platforms can measure and enhance disciplinary knowledge and understanding and identify student weaknesses, such as areas they struggle to understand. This information allows teachers to tailor their teaching methods and provide targeted support. For example, Ryan Baker and his colleagues investigate how data and associated AI models can better be used to study and improve learning and teaching. Using data from educational software and digital platforms, they examine how students respond to computer lessons, focusing on engagement and disengagement, and how these responses impact learning. (Additional examples available in "The Cyclical Ethical Effects of Using Artificial Intelligence in Education.")

Interactive Content

AI can enhance learning experiences through simulations and augmented reality, making content more engaging and fostering curiosity. EcoMUVE, for example, is a middle school curriculum that utilizes immersive virtual environments to teach about ecosystems and causal patterns developed by Chris Dede and his colleagues. Building upon this foundation, EcoMOBILE, an extension of EcoMUVE, combines virtual environments with real-world ecosystems, enriching them with digital resources. This blended approach increases student engagement and deepens student understanding.

Redefining "Academically Challenging"

Academically challenging coursework demands significant student effort, pushing them to the edge of their comfort zones to grapple with complex concepts, problems, and questions. This requires dedicating substantial time and energy to deeply engage with the material, think critically, and expand intellectual capacity, not just memorize facts. Educators create stimulating environments by designing rigorous experiences that encourage analysis, application, and synthesis of knowledge through diverse activities like collaborative projects, simulations, and research. High expectations from students, teachers, families, and others further stretch students' capabilities by setting ambitious goals and providing critical feedback. While demanding, these challenges foster meaningful engagement with subjects, sparking curiosity and personal growth. The result is an education that compels students to reach their full potential.

Real-world Connections

AI can curate relevant news articles, simulations, and case studies, making abstract concepts concrete and sparking critical thinking. For example, Newsela is an online platform that provides high-interest, nonfiction articles at various reading levels to help students improve their literacy skills. It offers a free version with news and current events, as well as a paid subscription that includes a wide range of features such as quizzes, writing prompts, and access to subject-specific content for ELA, Social Studies, Science, and SEL. The platform engages students, facilitates differentiated instruction, and aligns with state education standards.

Personalized Learning

AI can assist teachers in supporting personalized learning by generating engaging learning materials that resonate with their students' unique needs and perspectives. Personalized learning is learner-centered, focused on and demonstrated by the learner's needs and interests, and connected meaningfully to their peers, mentors, and the community. It is an enabler of educational equity, ensuring that all learners have access to the resources and rigor they need at the right moment on their learning path to succeed in school, work, and life, regardless of their race, gender, ethnicity, language, disability, sexual orientation, family background, or family income.?

Revolutionizing Assessments

Assessments are a critical component of the instructional core, providing insights into student learning and guiding instructional decisions. AI has the potential to revolutionize assessments by improving their quality, accuracy, and fairness.

Multi-Modal Assessments

When AI and learning science come together, data can authentically provide insights into learners' most meaningful skills. The 'Harry' experience developed by Kara Smith McWilliams and her colleagues is a prime example of an AI-driven assessment tool showcasing this combination's power. It utilizes process data to evaluate learners' self-regulation skills while they are engaged in solving puzzles, capturing their problem-solving strategies and metacognitive processes in real time. The 'Harry' experience also leverages the power of AI to engage learners in dynamic, structured conversations with built-in guardrails, ensuring that key points are addressed and eliciting the desired data from the learner. This approach allows for a more personalized and interactive assessment experience. The 'Harry' experience incorporates multimodal AI to provide signals on learners' effective communication, confidence, persuasion, and other essential skills by simulating a real online classroom experience and analyzing learners' responses across multiple modalities (e.g., text, speech, facial expressions).

Enhancing Assessment Design

AI can assist in the creation of assessments by generating questions based on learning objectives, ensuring alignment with standards, and providing insights into question difficulty and discrimination. This can lead to more valid and reliable assessments that accurately measure student learning.

Measuring Creativity

Educators and employers recognize creativity as one of the essential skills needed to succeed in our complex, interconnected world. Seyedahmad Rahimi ahimi, Valerie Shute ute, and their colleagues have investigated the video game as a medium for measuring creativity in the context of a game called Physics Playground using stealth assessment. Physics Playground uses stealth assessment to unobtrusively measure students' physics understanding, problem-solving skills, and creativity as they interact with the game-based learning environment, allowing for real-time feedback and personalized support without disrupting the flow of gameplay. The use of evidence-centered design as the framework for building the stealth assessment ensures alignment between the learning activity and assessment by linking student actions to the measured competency variables.

Final Thoughts

AI is a tool, not a replacement. Its true impact lies in empowering teachers, amplifying student agency, making challenging content accessible and relevant, and enhancing the quality and effectiveness of assessments. By embracing AI responsibly and holistically, we can transform the instructional core into a vibrant ecosystem where teachers excel, students thrive, and the pursuit and application of knowledge improve individuals and society.