How Students Use AI in the Classroom Can Be a Difficult Choice. Why One Educator Thinks It’s Imperative to Teach Learners to Use AI Ethically and Responsibly

As the nation marks 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the Smithsonian invites educators to reflect on our shared story and imagine the future we want to build. High school teacher, Casey Cuny of California, addresses the current state of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in education sharing that while search engines have brought us the age of “search,” generative AI systems have brought us the age of “ask and discuss.”

Since 2021, the Smithsonian has hosted its signature conference, featuring topics that resonate with classroom teachers, museum educators, and librarians alike. This free event brings together leading education experts to explore instructional strategies and resources that empower educators and their learners.

As our nation marks 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence, this year's Smithsonian National Education Summit theme—Together We Thrive: Towards a More Perfect Union—invites us to reflect on our shared story and imagine the future we want to build. Over the past several years, one of the most consistent trending education topics has undoubtedly become the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in the classroom, as both educators and learners.

Back in 2024, the Smithsonian National Education Summit hosted ISTE+ASCD (International Society for Technology in Education + Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) CEO Richard Culatta as a keynote speaker, who addressed how to support kids to thrive in an increasingly online world. This year, the Summit will feature two sessions about AI: the Smithsonian Science Education Center's "Stories of STEM: AI for the Community" online session, which will include inspiring STEM stories from industry experts  who use AI responsibly and ethically in their work and the "AI, Portraiture, and Exploring Complexity with Project Zero Practices" in-person workshop, which features two local Maryland educators, who use generative AI as a tool to help explore complexity, build agency, and spark conversation.

We’ve also invited award-winning California teacher and Smithsonian National Education Summit Teacher Advisor, Casey Cuny, to share insights into how he leverages AI in his high school classroom to hone skills in supporting claims with evidence and to prepare his students to become deep critical thinkers with complex topics and ideas.

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15-year-old Jake stood at my desk after class, his backpack slung over his shoulder and a soccer ball under his arm. “Mr. Cuny, I actually learned a lot today—the way we used AI. But in most of my other classes I feel like AI is making me dumber.”

“What do you mean?” He looked away, “I give it the questions on my homework and then copy what it says onto the worksheets. Like … I’m worried I’m not learning anything at all.”

As I began speaking, I realized the impossibility of what I was about to ask of Jake— “I get it, but you have to choose to want to learn the concepts in the homework.” His shrug told me everything.

In my class that day, I had given them a large prompt—three pages— on a Google Doc and they dropped that prompt into Chat GPT, Gemini, or Claude. It created an immersive learning experience on the concept of doublethink from George Orwell’s 1984. The prompt begins a conversation asking the student about their interests—sports, music, art, movies, thrifting, etc.—and then it gives an example of doublethink from that topic of interest, and using the Socratic method, it questions the student to differentiate doublethink from plain old hypocrisy or dishonesty. I circulated the room, looking over shoulders, helping students who seemed stuck or unsure. After several iterations with their AI, they shut Chromebooks and completed a hand-written journal: reflecting on their learning, explaining the examples they worked through with their AI, and finally, articulating the difference between doublethink and hypocrisy.

Then we engaged in a full class Socratic seminar. I ran an exit-ticket on the AI-powered app I built—Whitai.app—which gave me mixed ability groupings and insights on most common misconceptions. In their new groups, they engaged in a short group activity followed by another exit ticket. The entire room of 36 students was engaged, typing and reading, and considering, and then questioning and conversing. For the first time in my career, I knew with certainty that everyone left the room that day understanding the concept.

I’m not interested in AI writing lesson plans for me; I can write lesson plans. What interests me is what AI makes possible now that was unimaginable three years ago. I have struggled in years past to help students grasp doublethink—not as some abstract idea from a dystopian novel, but as something concrete and recognizable in everyday life. Never before could I have tailored 36 unique doublethink examples to my student’s interest, and then engage in a Socratic dialogue with each student to help them unpack and analyze the concept and differentiate it from ancillary concepts to gain context and depth of understanding, and then run a formative assessment and respond to misconceptions in one period.

Now I can.

And Jake felt the difference. He stood at my desk completely perplexed—how can I use it like this and not just as a copy and paste machine? There was stress in Jake’s question. This 15-year-old stood at the intersection of an unprecedented technology—one that would shape his future. I was asking him to make the harder choice, when the easier choice was more accessible than ever before. There was something else in his question—while he is a digital native, he is not an AI native. Students I work with don’t know how to use it. Which is why, as educators, we must gain AI literacy to not only help them learn, but so we understand how best to establish guardrails and how to amplify our own abilities as teachers.

Google brought us the age of search, but Gemini has brought us the age of ask and discuss. It is profoundly different. This is a technological innovation that does not require technological skills to use well—it requires creativity, precise vocabulary, architectural thinking, inquiry, evaluation, synthesis, and iteration. Iterating with AI is a skill: the initial prompt, the metacognition and inquiry involved in generating follow-up responses, the creativity in terms of output, the breadth of context one gives the AI—visuals, attaching notebooks, handoff docs, employing skills and projects—and leveraging other AI against and with your workflow. To iterate means to do again, but this way and that way in a recursive manner. However, in the sense of AI, it is only recursive because the human sits at the center. The human is the decider, the evaluator, the conductor...the vision.

Iterate is also connected to the Latin ita for "thus". So to use AI effectively is to say, "do it thus"--and in this way, the human is always providing the authorship and the statement of consequence that closes the loop. And in this manner, the teacher will always be in the lead--orchestrating the AI and the learning, just as we have always done. I have so many concerns about AI, but I also have 36 kids sitting in my class every morning who I must prepare for the world they will walk into. I believe it is a moral imperative that we teach students how to use AI ethically and responsibly.

Last semester in my senior Myth class, we were checking out books for independent reading, and my student Klay said, “Hey Cuny, maybe if I read this book my dad will love me!” He was laughing and his buddy laughed and shook his head. I knew there was truth under his joke, and it hit me. I immediately took an interest in Klay. His transcript was littered with C’s and D’s, and he routinely told me he hated school. Then something happened. I uploaded three myths we had just read into Google Notebook LM and created a podcast. We listened to the podcast before engaging in a Socratic seminar to synthesize the three myths. Klay’s hand shot up on the first question. Repeatedly throughout the seminar, he shared insights and connections, and I watched as all the other students were taking notes on Klay’s ideas!

After class I called him up, “What was that?!” “I don’t know…listening to that, I just got it.” I kept him into lunch for five minutes to teach him how to use Notebook LM. One week later he runs in— “I aced my Econ test! I put the study guide and the teacher’s slides into Notebook, made a podcast, and listened to it at the gym, and I just got it!”

Flash forward to Senior night for Varsity basketball. I was watching from the stands. Klay walked to half-court with his parents, as the announcer spoke over the PA system… Klay’s proudest moment in high school was that just last semester, for the first time ever, he earned straight A’s. Wow. All this time, school had made him feel incapable, because he wasn’t able to access the material through reading like many of his peers. When a different modality was unlocked for him—he took off.

It wasn’t just his grades that changed. He spoke more confidently in class; rather than sneaking his cell phone under his desk, he engaged in the readings. There was a light in him and an eagerness to learn that became insatiable. Was this even possible three years ago?

How many other brilliant minds are hiding in our classes, in need of a different means to access the material, waiting to emerge? And how do we convince a 15-year-old to choose the harder path—to choose to learn and not just to cheat?

There must be a great teacher in their life who builds a relationship, who sees them clearly, who holds them to high standards, and who believes in them and champions their growth. Who unlocks a new modality for their students. Who beams with pride when they ace their Econ test. Who asks Jake the following day how he’s feeling about using AI for good and listens intently when Jake explains he used our self-quizzing prompt, and he finally understands his Chemistry. Who watches as Klay hugs his dad on the sidelines at senior night. Who guides and orchestrates the learning and the human growth that happens every second in a bustling and dynamic classroom. Who is floored and overwhelmed when Jake stands at the door on the last day and says, “Thank you and I love you Mr. Cuny”. We don’t know what the future of AI looks like in Education, but one thing I do know: great teachers must be at the table shaping that future.

Editor's Note: For more details on the 2026 Smithsonian National Education Summit session line-up and to register for free, visit the Summit website at https://s.si.edu/EducationSummit2026.

Ashley Naranjo | | Read More

Ashley Naranjo is a museum educator, specializing in the use of digital resources for teaching and learning. She currently leads education partnerships as the Assistant Director, Education and Outreach Strategy in the Smithsonian’s Office of the Under Secretary for Education. She has developed and implemented professional development opportunities for teachers, librarians and fellow museum educators since 2011. She holds a B.A. in Human Development from the Lynch School of Education at Boston College and a M.Ed. in Learning Design and Technology from the Rossier School of Education at the University of Southern California. She is a 2019 graduate of the Getty Leadership Institute’s NextGen of Museum Leaders program. 

Casey Cuny | Read More

Casey Cuny is the 2024 California Teacher of the Year. Cuny teaches 10th grade honors English and Senior mythology and folklore at Valencia High School in Santa Clarita, California, in Los Angeles County. He serves as English Department Chair and the school’s Instructional Coach. He also teaches at National University in the Masters of Education program working with teachers from all over the country, and he was recently awarded the 2025 National University Academic Excellence Delphi Award. He is also currently working with ASU to develop their new California Teacher Credential program.