[00:00:05] Priten: Welcome to Margin of Thought, where we make space for the questions that matter. I'm your host, Priten, and together we'll explore questions that help us preserve what matters while navigating what's coming. Today I'm speaking with Kim Cowperthwaite, an English language arts teacher who spent years watching her students' relationship with writing evolve alongside technology. Kim isn't afraid of AI in the classroom. In fact, she's enthusiastic about it, but her enthusiasm comes with intentionality. She's grappling with the question many educators face: How do we balance embracing technology's potential to enhance creative expression and protecting the foundational skills that make that learning possible? Let's get started.
Kim: My name is Kim Coppery. I'm an English Language Arts teacher at Freeport Middle School in Freeport, Maine. I've always taught language arts at the middle school level. Before this I worked in the news industry just a little bit, and I was going to go out to Hollywood and make films. That didn't happen.
[00:01:06] But I love working with crazy adolescent kids. And I'm a reader and writer myself, so I just love what I do. When AI started coming into the picture in terms of its implications for education, I just got so excited. And then I wasn't met with the same enthusiasm from colleagues. So I've had to back up and ease into it.
Priten: I'd love to hear more about that. That's actually exactly how I've described my reaction. I saw this stuff come out and I was very excited. And then we started talking to teachers and everybody was scared and frustrated and angry. I was like, oh, I had the wrong emotional reaction apparently. Before we talk about AI, I'd love to just start with your earliest memory as a student of using technology in an educational context. What is that memory for you?
Kim: I grew up in a high-tech home for the 1970s.
[00:02:01] We had recorders. My dad was very into technology, and I was always very excited by recording things with my video camera and my little Panasonic tape recorder. My Walkman was incredible—the world changed because I could listen to music with somebody else. We had the dual model where we could plug both our headphones in. I was in a small Catholic school that had no technology, and then I left there and transferred to our middle school, which was brand new, high tech, with an open classroom. It had a TV studio and microfiche and all that technology to look at stuff. I was just really excited by that. So my earliest memories were just going into the room and going through that microfiche and looking at things on the screen. It was around college level that early PCs started coming in. When I was in college, I also worked at our local newspaper in Portland.
[00:03:03] I had moved from Connecticut to Maine and probably had one of the earliest forms of what we think of as the internet—we had the Associated Press lines coming in from all around the world. My job in college was to sift through that and look for the salient stories coming across the wire. I do remember, in the mid 1980s, late 1980s, sitting in a news meeting talking about this thing that was coming: the digital online reading newspaper industry would go under. And here I was sitting in this mega building with a printing press and an underground tunnel in the physical composing room. They were still hand composing and digital composing in the same space. I thought, wow, that's really exciting. Since then the industry has just collapsed. I feel very grateful that I was there at the tail end to see that industry.
Priten: I'm interested to hear a little bit about what that's looked like for you in the last few years when another big change has happened.
[00:04:03] Before we get to the present day, what are your earliest teaching memories of when you tried a new tech tool in your classroom, either on your own or because you were told you had to?
Kim: The district I was in—actually all of Maine—we were the first one-to-one state, so I've never taught without my kids having one-to-one laptops. My earliest memories were the giant white apple computers that were really heavy. They hit the ground and the screen would break, and they'd fly around the room like a pizza. The top would come off. But it was really exciting. What I noticed is that reluctant writers were more excited about writing on a document. I know we're jumping ahead, but what I've noticed is that student buy-in for writing has changed significantly with the incredible amount of distractions now on those laptops. But at first, the quality just elevated the level of writing rapidly.
[00:05:02] That was in 2004 when I first started teaching with it.
Priten: And we can continue that line of thought when you talked about the quality improving and student engagement with writing improving with the device introduction. When do you see that wane away? Did you consistently see improvement for a while, or did it start deteriorating rapidly?
Kim: I consistently saw improvement until kind of Google came on the scene. Then holding kids' engagement while they're in a classroom and they can drift off anywhere they want, all over the world—that's been harder. I started to see the loss of engagement a little bit before COVID. And then I saw a little bump up in engagement when I was online teaching during lockdown. And then it drifted right off again.
Priten: What does it look like post-COVID?
[00:06:01] Pre-AI? I know there's a really small snippet of time we had between those two. I'm curious what that looked like in terms of both student engagement and quality of their work.
Kim: Well, my students in Freeport are just leaning into AI and they're not skillfully using it yet. It hasn't been widely introduced around the building. I'm probably one of the few that's been talking about it openly. I see the sideways looks like, oh, she knows. I do know when you use it. We're just in that early phase of it. And the engagement around access to it is big, unknown, and uncertain. What are the procedures for using it? What aren't? My older brother told me about it. Should I sneak around? Will I get in trouble? That's where we are now.
Priten: Tell me a little bit about those explicit conversations, especially since you're one of the educators talking about it directly with the students.
[00:07:03] There's this hush around AI usage in most schools, especially in middle school. What is their initial reaction beyond, oh, she knows?
Kim: I picked up on that about a year ago. This year when my new class came in, it just became a big part of our community. I share everything I've learned about AI, the conferences I've been to. When I get back from one, I spend a day sharing out, and we play with it. I talk about how I know when you're using it, and I tell them this is how I know. We talk about when it's appropriate to use and when it's a great tool. I'm always really positive about it, and I build them up as human beings and intelligent, fabulous writers.
Priten: And are they receptive to that?
[00:08:00] Tell me a little bit about what that means when they're making the decision to use AI or not. How do those conversations spill over? Do you require them to tell you when they're using AI? Are they open about it? Do you still get instances where you feel like they've used AI inappropriately?
Kim: We're just dipping into using it in the classroom. I'm telling them right out there, here's what we're doing. Let's play around with it. Let's use it for research and compare our results. Let's see what we're finding. Let's work in a group. What are you finding? And then report out on it. I've had a couple instances where they're doing something on their own outside the classroom. It's usually last minute and late, and it comes in and it's all written by AI. So I had to make a decision on how to approach this because I had no guidelines to do so. I just told the student, you used AI.
[00:09:01] Here's how I know. Here's your regular writing. Look at the sentence length, the sentence structure. And then I ask, what did you think of what AI wrote? They start telling me. Then I say, what was your intention? Then I have them redo it. What did you learn from this? What can you mine from it and put into your own piece? And then we move forward. I don't call home. It's not punitive. I just keep moving. So far that's worked. I don't know what September will bring.
Priten: That's reassuring to me—that the students are receptive to those conversations and that you find success in reorienting that conversation. You're not saying, we have all these tools to catch you, I'm gonna look at your keystroke history. You talked about making them understand the value of their own writing. How receptive are they to those conversations and how do you frame them when they can just use ChatGPT to write something?
[00:10:02] Kim: I do a lot of writing by hand in journals. Let's go to different spots in the room. Let's go outside. Let's write a little bit and generate our ideas. Then, which idea do you feel passionate about? Let's come back. Let's do a little writing on a document. Let's share. Let's look at what we've created. And then I individually go around and meet with each student. With a student who's having trouble with sentence composition, I might say, let's pull out these fabulous ideas. Now I'd like you to use some AI and let's see if you can get some traditional structure in here, because you're writing in a non-traditional structure and you can't get your point across. It's been a lifesaver for students with disabilities who are brilliant but just don't have the structure to write. And then I say, you read it again. Do you like it? Do you want to change something? I'm always teaching that critical lens that it's coming from you.
[00:11:00] You're just using this for support.
Priten: Can you tell me a little bit about your classroom? How many classes are you teaching? What is the class size? This approach feels very hands-on, and I think for some folks it's daunting if they haven't tried it. I'd love to provide some context for other folks about exactly what context you're teaching in.
Kim: I have, in any given year, between 80 and 100 students. I teach four sections per day, and in each section there's about 20 to 22 students. I've always taught in a workshop model: mini lesson, here's our task. Then students break off either into small groups or individually, and I'm circulating and supporting them. And then we come back and report our progress. How are we doing? And then we go on to their next class. It lends itself really well to individualizing and personalizing what they're doing.
Priten: That's similar context to the average American middle school, so that's very reassuring.
[00:12:01] We hear some pushback from folks about the value of still having students write by hand versus typing everything, or even pushback against why they have to learn these skills when they could just talk to AI and have it write something for them. Have you had those conversations with parents in particular? And how do you view the role of what you're teaching in the future?
Kim: Parents have been concerned about their students' handwriting and spelling more than ever. I've seen such a deterioration in that. I sent out an email to parents about their kids and asked, do you want more instruction in this? They said yes. It's not part of my middle school curriculum, so I sent home some practice stuff for kids to do. I sent home about 60 of them. Not one came back. Nothing was being done at home. So I mostly have the conversations with the students. I haven't had pushback about handwriting even.
[00:13:03] It seems like they want more of a return to traditional writing and less screen time because their students are having so much screen time at home.
Priten: It does seem like parents in different areas have different responses. We've heard some parents who are excited to advocate for the importance of writing and handwriting in particular, and also the struggle of the writing process, even at higher levels. And then we have parents pushing back against some curricular decisions based on, why is my kid still learning this? Why aren't they using the tools they'll use in their future careers? It's interesting to hear what different contexts parents have in thinking about the role of their kids' classrooms. You talked about experimenting with a lot of AI tools. It sounds like you're one of the few doing so in your school. What makes you feel compelled to try these AI tools? What is exciting about them?
[00:14:00] Kim: I haven't used a lot of different kinds of things. I'm not that interested in teaching the technology of it because I see it come and go. What I'm interested in is teaching students how to make choices about which technology they're going to use based on what they've sketched out or drawn or written in their journals by hand. What's your goal here? Oftentimes they've discovered the tools they want to use on their own. But what compelled me is that this is just such a natural extension of teaching reading, writing, communication, and creation. It's a natural human extension to me. I never looked at it as anything artificial. I felt like it's an obligation to bring students into this new medium and provide them the support and structure, which I've had to invent a little bit as I've gone along.
Priten: The pace of development is so fast.
[00:15:01] I'm sure that looks different even from a year ago versus what you're thinking about for the fall. Obviously responsible usage of the tools is a huge part of how you approach it with your students. Do you use the tools yourself and how do you communicate that to your students?
Kim: I tell them how I compose an email to parents. I'll definitely show them. I say, hey, here's what we need to learn in this lesson. Here's some stuff I've taught in the past and I put it into ChatGPT, or I've gone online and found some other lesson resources and shown them what it gave me and what I've changed. Middle school kids love to find errors in things, so sometimes I'll physically print a couple pages and say, here's our goal. Help me go through this. What do you think? They'll find errors in there, especially for something like an author study. We've studied a little bit about the author's life, and they'll say, wait a minute, this isn't correct.
[00:16:04] And I'm like, oh, I left it in there.
Priten: It's nice to capitalize on that know-it-all energy that students have, especially when they can channel it in a productive way. Now, when you decide to use a particular AI tool, what does that look like? Is it a decision that you make independently? Do you have to go through an IT department? Do you have to tell your parents about it? What is the landscape of that?
Kim: I just use it. To me it's like asking permission to use a book or a pencil. It's just a tool. We're always teaching it in a process. And I'm very lucky to just be able to make decisions in our school on what works best. So I haven't had any pushback in my school.
Priten: You've been able to make the decision based on what's right for your classroom. Now, shifting a little bit to thinking about how students are engaging with the technology—and this can be broader than just AI. You mentioned concerns about keeping them engaged when they can get distracted and use Google or go up on whatever else on the internet. What do you do to ensure that when you're using the technology it's productive and that students are staying engaged with the actual classroom material?
[00:17:02] Kim: Paper checklists by their side. Paper by their side to refer back and forth. I talk about how the human brain and the process needs that paper by your side. You've made your plans. Now you have your technology by your side. So we go back and forth. Also, I circulate a lot and stop the class a lot for check-ins, which helps. Students who have difficulty with impulse control for a variety of reasons—probably about 10% struggle with addiction—I've talked to them about that. I said, your brain, as soon as you take a pause and you're thinking, your brain's gonna want to just go right out and start gaming. You have to be aware of that.
[00:18:04] Get it off your tab. Close your tab so you don't go there. Make a plan for when you're gonna go back there. I'm always talking to them like that. I think it helps. It's not 100%, but I'll yell across the room, I see your eyeballs shifting back and forth. You're gaming. And they go, yeah, I am. And I just say, catch yourself. You're gonna have to deal with this your whole life.
Priten: It's also helping them build the right habits, right? Like you say, this is something that's gonna follow them outside the classroom. Even if you can enforce it in your classroom, it's much better that they can go home and decide when to game and not game and make those decisions. It sounds like at every stage you have a very flexible, let's talk about this and why we're doing this approach. I think it's good to hear that it's working, especially with the middle school audience.
Kim: One of my jobs has also been as a strategist and teaching coach. I did that for a couple years. One of the things is really getting teachers off the idea that it's not about the technology. It's about building community and relationships in your classroom.
[00:19:02] Once you get that, then you can kind of go into technology and it's less scary. You're teaching students about self-control and their self-control using it.
Priten: You obviously have thought about this a lot and learned about the technology and what's available. Where does that happen? Are these formal PD sessions? Are you on the internet? Are you learning from the students? Where do you gain your knowledge about the tech?
Kim: I first started with your organization over the summer of 2022. I saw a couple things come out that I took. And then in August I got hold of my principal. I said, we're already a year behind. We gotta move. I got some money and Nina did a workshop for our staff. We received a bunch of slots, and teachers were also given the option of working in the room instead. I ended up having just like eight or ten come, but that was one of my first sessions.
[00:20:08] I attended an all-day workshop with the Maine principals association with Jethro Jones, and it was one of my best experiences. He was fabulous. I did an all-day session with Trevor Aisle. He was really good. I read your book as well.
Priten: It sounds like it's largely on your own. Do you hear from your peers that they're struggling with these developments in the tech?
Kim: Only that I got a paper turned in the other day and it was all written by AI. Not a lot of movement beyond that. The first year when I was going around saying, hey, let's all take these workshops, I got looks of deer in the headlights. Now it's evolved into, we have to have rules in place now, and they're cheating. I feel like this is a stage that school systems need to go through first to get to the other side.
[00:21:09] Which makes sense. We can't go forward if we don't have procedures in place. But I think we need a lot more PD.
Priten: When it comes to that PD, what does the ideal look like for you? There's obviously a whole spectrum. There's let's talk about what an algorithm is and talk about the data science behind it. There's here's this very specific tool and how do you use this tool? What parts of that feel appealing or right to you when you think about what your colleagues need or even what you need?
Kim: I think what my colleagues need, especially older teachers, is hands-on. They want something they can use right now. Which doesn't hold up without a little theory. So it's kind of a light theory, hands-on, light theory, hands-on approach. But definitely, I learned from Jethro that I translated to my classroom: what is your goal? What do you want to achieve?
[00:22:01] Map that out carefully. Get it straight in your mind. Then go out and find the AI tools on your own. What did you find? And when teachers have that opportunity, you start hearing them get excited. We did a little bit of that in one of our workshops because it became personal to them. I think starting with how can you use AI for managing yourself, your profession, and communication is the first step.
Priten: When you think about the next five years, what are you most excited about with the technology?
Kim: What excites me most is leading students into knowing themselves as individuals. Understanding themselves as being part of humanity in a whole global community. And how do they express themselves as individuals and figure that out first? Whether it's crayons and markers on paper, whatever it is. And then how do we use these tools to make mind-blowing videos, podcasts, whatever their creativity can imagine.
[00:23:11] And I want them to have themselves in it. I can see that coming over the next five years.
Priten: That does seem like the ideal—helping students express themselves better rather than squashing their ability to express. What are you most concerned about?
Kim: I am most concerned about students not seeing themselves as experts and learners and just taking what comes at them passively from anything online. Just passively taking it and not putting themselves into it. So I think as we go forward in technology, we need to pour a lot more effort into those soft human skills so we don't lose them.
[00:24:00] Priten: Yeah. Thank you very much. This is very helpful.
Kim: Thanks for having me. I enjoyed talking with you and best of luck with this new project.
Priten: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. How to teach writing in the age of AI is one of the most difficult questions. Kim pushes us not to take sides and focus on teaching students to think critically about when and how to use AI. Her focus on student agency, creative expression, and cultivating soft skills reminds us that technology should amplify learning, not replace it. Stay with us this season as we continue exploring how educators are navigating these difficult questions. And for more on how to approach these difficult questions, pre-order my upcoming book Ethical EdTech at ethicaledtech.org. Thanks for listening to Margin of Thought. If this episode gave you something to think about, subscribe, rate, and review us. Also, share it with someone who might be asking similar questions. You can find the show notes, transcripts, and my newsletter at priten.org. Until next time, keep making space for the questions that matter.