Embedded Classroom Support
AI Technology & Learning
Artificial Intelligence technology is rapidly evolving and carries significant implications for education. We understand each student’s unique strengths and challenges, and recognize the potential of what AI-enabled learning can offer our student population.
Values and Best Practices of AI Use
We approach AI-enabled learning from a proactive lens and with our Core Values in mind. Our flexible strategy allows teachers to be open to its possibilities and aware of its limitations and risks. Any AI use by faculty and students stems from intention and purpose, emphasizing literacy, ethics, and age-appropriate exploration, with a clear recognition of the importance of preparing students for the 21st-century workforce.
We Approach AI Through a Lens of Literacy
Before integrating AI into the classroom, we work with our students to understand the potential, limitations, biases, and ethical implications of this evolving technology.
We approach AI literacy as we do media literacy: critically thinking, analyzing, and assessing the information that generative AI produces for clarity, bias, and credibility.
We Put Human Connections First
At McLean, human connection comes first. Technology, including AI, serves that relationship rather than replacing it.
AI does not replace actual teaching and critical thinking. If anything, AI means human involvement and analysis of the information that AI produces.
We Integrate Technology With Intention
Faculty integrate AI thoughtfully and purposefully, with clear connections to curriculum and learning goals.
AI is not a superficial add-on or a bandaid for teaching. It builds upon and deepens foundational knowledge and understanding provided by our teachers at every grade level. Thoughtful use of AI can help deepen learning, not shortcut it.
We Meet Every Learner Where They Are
Students learn in a variety of ways, and AI tools are one way to meet them where they are. They help personalize learning and provide additional access for students, while maintaining high expectations for growth and independence.
AI is also a tool for deeper engagement, helping students pursue topics and ideas in ways that connect to their strengths and curiosity.
We Are Committed To Preparing Our Students For The 21st-Century Workforce
Students deserve to understand and engage with AI critically and confidently. Many are already interacting with AI outside the classroom. As educators, we must help them engage with it ethically and with intention.
Our approach equips students to be informed, ethical users of technology, prepared to enter a workforce where these tools are increasingly prevalent.
We Protect Student Privacy and Data
Employees leverage AI systems that are either committed to protecting student privacy or closed-loop platforms. Closed loops refer to systems in which the data entered is not used to retrain the AI.
Some tools leveraged:
Gemini for Education
ChatGPT for Teachers
Magic School
SchoolAI
NotebookLM
Choose a Core Value to see how our approach to AI reflects and supports what we believe.
AI presents genuine opportunities for curiosity and creative expression. We encourage faculty and students to approach AI as a tool for deeper inquiry and to use AI to spark new ideas and extend thinking in meaningful ways. At McLean, we believe that the most powerful use of AI starts with original thinking and that AI should amplify our ideas rather than replace them. By encouraging curiosity and innovation in how our students engage with AI, we are preparing them with the very skills they will need for a 21st-century workforce that increasingly calls for creative, critical, and adaptable thinkers.
We recognize that AI can be a meaningful tool for inclusion by making learning more accessible and responsive to the full range of learners in our community. Whether students have needs or challenges, AI can be a tool to help level the playing field through differentiation, scaffolding, and more. At the same time, we recognize that AI can also reflect bias and inequity. Our commitment to inclusiveness means approaching AI in ways that critically examine its output for potential bias while still affirming every student’s place in our community.
One of AI’s most promising possibilities is its capacity to adapt to the individual learner, and, in doing so, encourage more flexible ways of thinking. Consistent with our Abilities Model®, we see AI as a tool that can meet each student where they are, offering different pathways to challenging materials and helping students build on their unique strengths. The process of interacting with AI itself (prompting, evaluating, refining) can teach students to approach problems with curiosity and flexibility, skills that are essential for the world they are entering.
When it comes to AI usage, we expect the same standard of respect that guides all interactions at McLean. This means being transparent about when and how AI is used and approaching AI-generated content with the same critical lens we apply to any source. We expect all members of our community to engage with these tools in ways that honor the privacy and dignity of every community member. Part of that respect is also fostering conversations around naming and analyzing the biases and ethical dilemmas that AI can carry. Attentiveness to how AI shapes our attitudes, behaviors, and interactions is part of what it means to use it responsibly.
We are attentive to the ways AI can support student well-being, as well as the ways it can undermine it. We recognize that for students growing up in the digital age, relationships with technology can feel inseparable from their social and emotional lives, and helping them navigate that landscape is part of our responsibility as educators. Our approach encourages healthy, intentional engagement with AI, including honest conversations about when AI is and isn’t the right tool. AI use at McLean must always contribute to a safe and nurturing environment, never adding undue pressure or replacing the human connections that are central to who we are.
AI is a conversation that belongs to our whole community. AI touches all of our lives, and navigating it well is a shared responsibility. Faculty, students, and parents are all stakeholders in how AI shapes the McLean experience, and we are committed to approaching that conversation with openness, honesty, and a willingness to grow and learn together. We see our approach to AI as a reflection of the same collective commitment that our entire community makes to strengthen McLean and contribute to the growth and well-being of every student.
Dive Deeper
Discover the McLean Experience
It’s critically important for a child to be in a school that respects them for who they are, and supports their academic strengths and challenges. This has always been true for McLean.