Empowering Teachers to Use AI with Discernment

Te Hurinui Karaka-Clarke, Associate Professor, Education, the University of Waikato

Introduction

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has shifted from science fiction into the heart of our classrooms. From lesson planning to email drafting, AI tools offer efficiencies but also raise significant concerns around ethics, cultural safety, and professional integrity. As AI becomes more embedded in teaching practice, it is essential that teachers lead with discernment, guided by professional values and reflective pedagogy.

Why Discernment Matters

Discernment means understanding not just what AI does, but how, when, and whether to use it. The promise of AI to reduce workload and enhance learning must be balanced with its limitations, particularly its inability to account for lived experience, emotional intelligence, and the complexity of diverse learner needs. As stewards of learning, teachers must critically evaluate AI’s role in their practice, remaining vigilant about whose knowledge is being privileged and whose is being left out.

Understanding AI: Foundations for Teachers

AI systems like ChatGPT generate responses based on patterns in vast datasets. However, they do not "understand" content or context. Their outputs reflect dominant norms, often privileging mainstream, English-language worldviews, and can reproduce bias or misinformation.

For teachers, this means:

- Recognising AI’s limitations in cultural depth and emotional intelligence.

- Understanding that AI lacks the values base that underpins good teaching: empathy, ethics, and professional responsibility.

- Viewing AI as a tool, not a teacher.

Benefits When Used Wisely

AI can support teachers when used intentionally:

- Reducing workload: drafting newsletters, summarising meeting notes, generating base lesson plans.

- Supporting differentiated learning: adjusting reading levels, creating multiple versions of tasks.

- Inspiring creativity: generating ideas for activities or assessments.

- Enhancing reflection: aiding professional inquiry or providing alternative perspectives.

However, these should complement, not replace, professional judgement and relationship-based practice.

Risks When Discernment Is Lacking

Without careful use, AI can undermine the core responsibilities of teachers:

- Professional erosion: over-reliance on AI risks diluting teachers’ unique voice and agency.

- Student misuse: AI can enable plagiarism or shortcut learning if not scaffolded properly.

- Data and privacy concerns: particularly with tools developed by private companies with unclear data policies.

“With critical awareness, professional grounding, and a commitment to sound teaching values, ai can be integrated in ways that empower rather than displace good teaching”

- Cultural and contextual exclusion: AI often misrepresents or oversimplifies local, diverse, and minority worldviews.

There is also a lack of shared ethical guidelines on AI use in classrooms, creating a vacuum where unexamined assumptions may shape learning.

Principles for Discerning Use

A principled approach to AI is essential. Teachers can ask:

1. Critical Awareness - Who created this AI tool?

- Whose knowledge is centred or marginalised?

- What are the cultural implications of this output?

2. Ethical Anchoring - Align use with the Code of Professional Responsibility

 - Use educational frameworks to balance innovation with care and accountability.

3. Transparency and Control

- Be open with students when using AI.

- Use AI to support, not substitute, authentic learning and engagement.

- Retain professional control over how and why AI is used.

4. Collaboration

- Engage students and colleagues in decisions about AI integration.

- Co-construct classroom norms and expectations around digital tools.

Practical Guidelines for Teachers

To use AI responsibly, consider the following:

- Reflect first: Does this task require empathy, lived experience, or human connection?

- Scan for bias: AI-generated texts often reflect dominant narratives.

- Integrate, don’t delegate: Use AI as a starting point, then infuse local, authentic content.

- Use AI as a provocateur: Let AI spark debate, critique, or collaborative editing, not deliver final answers.

Scenario in Practice

A teacher asks ChatGPT to create a Year 9 lesson on identity. The AI offers examples from Western literature and popular culture. Realising the cultural disconnection, the teacher modifies the lesson by adding local stories and inviting students to share their own perspectives. The result is a lesson grounded in relevance, identity, and authenticity, an example of discernment in action.

Conclusion

AI is not going away. But the power to shape how it is used in education lies with teachers who understand the relational, ethical, and pedagogical dimensions of learning. With critical awareness, professional grounding, and a commitment to sound teaching values, AI can be integrated in ways that empower rather than displace good teaching.

Artificial Intelligence