AI as a Teaching Partner: Early Lessons from Classroom Codesign with Secondary Teachers
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📝 Original Info
Title: AI as a Teaching Partner: Early Lessons from Classroom Codesign with Secondary Teachers
ArXiv ID: 2512.12045
Date: 2025-12-12
Authors: Alex Liu, Lief Esbenshade, Shawon Sarkar, Zewei Tian, Min Sun, Zachary Zhang, Thomas Han, Yulia Lapicus, Kevin He
📝 Abstract
This report presents a comprehensive account of the Colleague AI Classroom pilot, a collaborative design (co-design) study that brought generative AI technology directly into real classrooms. In this study, AI functioned as a third agent, an active participant that mediated feedback, supported inquiry, and extended teachers' instructional reach while preserving human judgment and teacher authority.
Over seven weeks in spring 2025, 21 in-service teachers from four Washington State public school districts and one independent school integrated four AI-powered features of the Colleague AI Classroom into their instruction: Teaching Aide, Assessment and AI Grading, AI Tutor, and Student Growth Insights. More than 600 students in grades 6-12 used the platform in class at the direction of their teachers, who designed and facilitated the AI activities.
During the Classroom pilot, teachers were co-design partners: they planned activities, implemented them with students, and provided weekly reflections on AI's role in classroom settings. The teachers' feedback guided iterative improvements for Colleague AI. The research team captured rich data through surveys, planning and reflection forms, group meetings, one-on-one interviews, and platform usage logs to understand where AI adds instructional value and where it requires refinement.
💡 Deep Analysis
📄 Full Content
1
November 2025
Authors:
Alex Liu1, Lief Esbenshade1, Shawon Sarkar1, Zewei (Victor) Tian1, Min Sun1, Zachary Zhang2, Thomas Han2, Yulia Lapicus2,
Kevin He2
1 University of Washington, 2 Colleague AI
For questions or further information about this report, please contact amplifylearn@uw.edu.
Acknowledgments: This work is supported by the Institute of Education Sciences of the U.S. Department of Education, through Grant
R305C240012 and by several awards from the National Science Foundation (NSF #2043613, 2300291, 2405110) to the University of
Washington, and a NSF SBIR/STTR award to Hensun Innovation LLC (#2423365). The opinions expressed are those of the authors and
do not represent views of the funders.
AI as a Teaching Partner:
Early Lessons from Classroom
Codesign with Secondary Teachers
Table of Contents
Executive Summary............................................................................................................................................................................1
Study Design .........................................................................................................................................................................................5
Participants and Recruitment ........................................................................................................................................5
Timeline and Teacher Learning Arc .............................................................................................................................6
Limitations and Future Research...................................................................................................................................7
Teacher Experience and AI Perspectives.................................................................................................................................8
Experienced Teachers with Limited AI Exposure..................................................................................................8
Teachers Entered the Study Seeing AI as a Backstage Tool, Not a Classroom Partner....................10
Prior AI Experience Shaped Implementation Across Tools..............................................................................11
AI-Assisted Conversation via Teaching Aide.........................................................................................................................13
Teacher Framing and Tool Design Drive Meaningful Student-AI Conversations.................................14
AI Supports Learning When Aligned to Student Needs and Instructional Goals.................................17
Teachers Were Confident in Using the Teaching Aide.......................................................................................19
Assessment and AI Grading as Formative Feedback Tools............................................................................................20
High AI Grading Coverage, with Student Engagement Shaped by Teachers........................................23
60% of Teachers Found Grading Rubrics Useful and 57% Reported Helpful AI Feedback ...........25
AI Grading: Feedback as Formative Scaffold..........................................................................................................26
Teacher Oversight Enables Trust and Personalization........................................................................................27
Student Engagement is Mediated by Interface Design and Accessibility...............................................27
AI Feedback Supports Instructional Adjustments..............................................................................................................28
AI Tutor as a Window into Student Curiosity and Struggles..........................................................................28
Conversation Summaries Reduced Oversight Burden.......................................................................................29
Student Growth Insights Directed Real-Time Instructional Adjustments...............................................30
SGI Surfaces Actionable Patterns Strengthens, But Does Not Replace Teacher Judgment.........31
Teachers See Potential in SGI-Customized Content Generation.................................................................34
Insights from Teacher Co-Design: What’s Needed for Effective AI
Integration...............................................................................................................................................................................................36
Teacher Reflections: Value, Friction, and Design Priorities..............................................................................36
Subject Insights: Math.......................................................................................................................................................38
Subject Insights: Science...........................................................
