High-school teacher pilots AI chatbots to boost discussion, not replace writing

Amber Clausen, an English 11 teacher, showed the Eden Central School District board how she has been using SchoolAI to create classroom ‘spaces’ that simulate authors and historical figures and to give students tailored feedback on drafts. "My name is Amber Clausen," she told the board before walking through examples where students could ask a Frederick Douglass or Ralph Waldo Emerson persona questions and receive follow-up prompts that push deeper inquiry. Clausen said she configures writing-editor prompts with New York State criteria and an argument rubric so the tool provides feedback rather than finished essays. "Do not write the essays for them," she said, adding that teacher monitoring is essential.

Clausen described classwork where students draft in class, complete a human peer review and then use the editor as a last step so the work remains original. She also showed students’ projects that used an AI image generator for mythology units and said students need to supply detailed content knowledge to generate accurate images. On accuracy, Clausen said the platform gives disclaimers to teachers and that the program advised a student who asked for a chapter summary to read the chapter first. The presentation highlighted both the classroom potential and the safeguards teachers use: in-class drafting, peer review, teacher oversight and explicit instructions to students about appropriate AI use.