Clear is Kind: Establishing Student AI Expectations for Middle and High School Educators
When: September 16, 2026 · 45 minutes
Price: Free
Presented by: Lewis Poché
We do our students an unkindness when we do not share clear expectations for acceptable and unacceptable use of generative AI. You'll leave this webinar with a working draft of AI expectations you can use in your classroom, along with research-informed language for talking with students about AI in a way that builds their confidence in their own thinking, rather than their dependence on a tool. Why focus on AI expectations? To start, roughly two-thirds of middle schoolers and high schoolers said that their school does not have an actual school wide rule for responsible use of AI (RAND 2026). There's a real vacuum of guidance here. Without a school wide rule, expectations either fall to individual teachers or don't exist at all. In her leadership book "Dare to Lead," researcher, author, and professor Brené Brown shares the following advice with leaders who at times are reluctant to share firm expectations: “Clear is kind. Unclear is unkind.” In the absence of clearly stated expectations, we hold students accountable to standards they were never told about. Emerging research on student AI use points to a consistent finding: the single most effective lever educators have isn't a stronger detection tool or a stricter policy — it's clarity. When students are given explicit, task-specific expectations for how AI may be used, appropriate use goes up and misuse goes down. In this session, we'll unpack why vague or one-size-fits-all AI policies fail students, and walk through a simple stoplight framework you can apply to any assignment — red, yellow, and green zones that make the boundaries of AI use clear and consistent across different phases of student work, from brainstorming to drafting to final submission.
For: Middle School and High School Educators
About Lewis Poché
I partner with school and district leaders to leverage educational technology purposefully and skillfully. A former middle school math and science teacher, I help leaders make sure their teachers actually know what they need to know — and can do what they need to do — when it comes to technology in classrooms.