Can AI Make Better Teachers?
How one school is putting AI to work in the classroom
To some educators, AI is a genuine game changer: a tool that can personalize learning and free teachers from the administrative grind. To others, it simply robs students of the deep thinking, productive struggle, and slow, disciplined work that real learning requires.
As educators are discovering, the truth is rarely that simple. AI can explain a math problem step-by-step or function as a kind of always-available tutor. AI can help explain a Rashi or generate Chumash worksheets tailored to a student’s needs. Used thoughtfully, it has the potential to help students learn at their own level—even in large classrooms. But educators and schools are still struggling with this technology and trying to figure it all out.
Does AI belong in Jewish classrooms? If so, how? At the IVDU network of schools, those questions are already being tested. IVDU, part of the OU’s Yachad network, serves students with mild-to-moderate learning, social and developmental delays. Before the school year began, IVDU Head of School Rabbi Michoel Druin invited Rabbi Gil Student, OU director of Jewish Media, Publications and Editorial Communications, to train faculty and staff in the thoughtful use of AI as an educational tool. After several months of experience, Chavie Kahn, principal of the Marilyn and Sheldon David IVDU Upper Boys School in Brooklyn, New York, spoke with Rabbi Student about how AI is being introduced in practice at the school.
Rabbi Gil Student: How has AI been working in the IVDU schools? How are teachers and students responding to it?
Chavie Kahn: Working with AI has generated tremendous enthusiasm among staff across all levels. Before the AI training we had some months ago, we had some staff members who were already using it, some staff members who were intrigued, and some staff members who were totally disinterested. Since the training, everyone has gotten on board. Everyone is coming to the realization that AI is a tool that, when used correctly, could really do what the staff is doing in a better, richer and more efficient way.
RGS: What have you been seeing and hearing about how teachers are using AI? Are they using it to save time on lesson preparation? And is it effective in helping them do their job better?
CK: My teachers are innovators. You give them the platform, and they invest time in learning how to bring it to the classroom in a way that will improve their teaching and their efficiency. Every month, they’re using it more and more in different, greater ways.
They’re definitely using it to save time and help with lesson preparation, but they’re also using it to do a better job with the lesson execution. It’s helping them differentiate more and create more opportunities using multiple modalities in the lesson. For staff members who are great with breaking down instruction but are less creative, they’re using AI to help them bring more creativity into the classroom. And vice versa, for the staff who are very creative but less grounded, they’re using it to ground the instruction.
RGS: You referred to differentiated instruction. Can you explain what that is?
CK: Sure. Differentiation is a teaching approach where you tailor instruction, content and assessment to meet students’ needs. For example, in one class, the students were reading a book, and one of the students in the class has strong comprehension skills but struggles with decoding. For this student’s homework, the teacher was able to generate a similar text to the text that the students were reading, but this was on a lower reading level, so the student was able to complete the homework independently.
RGS: Wow. Have staff created classroom visuals and games using AI?
CK: Yes. My teachers use AI to create educational games, interactive activities, quizzes and even “Escape the Room” activities.
RGS: In what way has AI not worked well? Can you recall any failures or frustrations that teachers have encountered?
CK: I wouldn’t say there are frustrations, but I do think teachers grapple with the question of how we are really going to teach our students to use AI responsibly. We’re using AI in the school quite a lot. The students are learning how to use it to brainstorm ideas and for pre-writing drafts when they’re working on an independent project, et cetera. On the one hand, we want to give our students with disabilities the ability to do things that would have taken them a very, very long time to do without the support of AI. We view AI as a calculator; it’s a tool. They need to learn how to use a calculator.
Some of them don’t view AI as a tool; they view it as a way of cheating . . . . It was interesting to hear their perspective on it.
On the other hand, we want to help them use it responsibly. And that’s something that we feel is our achrayut, to give them that chinuch on how to use AI al pi Torah.
In terms of failures, we saw pretty quickly that AI can’t be relied on completely and that it can be very flawed. Our staff has learned to look at an AI output carefully. Recently, we were looking for a transliterated Kiddush Levanah. We asked AI to produce it, and it was completely incorrect. We ended up finding it in an online siddur and using that instead. So we’re using it to make our jobs easier, but we’re not relying on it. You need an intelligent human to make sure that it represents the views of the teacher and the views of the school—because it will make mistakes. Additionally, you should be consulting your rabbi rather than attempting to rely on AI for halachic pesak or Torah guidance.
RGS: How do kids respond to AI?
CK: I was covering for a class one day, and I asked the students to write an essay using AI about something that happened in history, as if they were writing from the perspective of a character who was living at that time. Interestingly, the students were really opposed to using AI for this task. My assumption was that my high school students would be very pro-AI. I was surprised to see that the class was split in half, and some of them don’t view AI as a tool; they view it as a way of cheating, which is really not the way I view it. It was interesting to hear their perspective on it.
RGS: That’s something to be proud of, that the students are evaluating technology, not just running toward it.
CK: True.
RGS: So what are your overall thoughts about AI in a school environment?
CK: In IVDU, we’re using AI thoughtfully. And we’re lucky to work for the OU, which enables us to bring these tools into our school setting. As long as there’s no issue with security or safety, and students are using it responsibly, we learn and we implement. It’s incumbent upon our students and ourselves to keep learning because AI is rapidly changing, so I think the only limitation is ourselves and our level of knowledge.
What Jewish Educators Are Saying About AI
I use AI a lot. My students are in a special education program and need very specific texts—high-interest but highly decodable. A nine-year-old with dyslexia isn’t going to be engaged by Cat in the Hat. So I’ll go to ChatGPT and ask it to create a short, highly decodable story on a topic I know the student loves, like space travel.
Yehudit
Reading teacher
Monsey, New York
We use a program called Flint, which is a school-based AI system designed with built-in guardrails for our students. Because all our classes are recorded, I can take a transcript of the day’s lesson and upload it to Flint to create a review of the previous class.
The program also makes differentiation much easier, allowing each student to work at his own pace and level. Our students come from diverse backgrounds with varying levels of Jewish education, and Flint can walk them through the material to ensure everyone stays on track.
Rabbi Dr. David Shabtai
Educator
Jewish Leadership Academy
Miami, Florida
For years, the Gruss Foundation provided computers to teach math and reading at a student’s own level. With AI, you have that advantage as well . . . learning through AI is almost like having a personalized teacher.
Dovid Teitelbaum
STEAM director and teacher
Marilyn and Sheldon David IVDU Upper Boys School
Brooklyn, New York
I use AI to add vowels to Hebrew text, which is very tedious to do manually. I also use it to provide translations for some texts. I would not rely on the AI; I take its translation and check it closely, fixing any errors. This can be very risky if the teacher does not know what the proper translation or nikud should be.
Rabbi Daniel Freitag
Judaic studies teacher
Atlanta Jewish Academy Middle School
Atlanta, Georgia
One night before a big Chumash test, one of my students uploaded her Bamidbar review sheet into NotebookLM. Within minutes, she had a narrated video overview of her notes, a full set of flashcards and even a short quiz to test herself.
The next morning, she told me, beaming: “Rabbi, the video helped me finally understand how Bamidbar fits together better than I ever understood in class.”
Rabbi Tzvi Pittinsky
Director of educational technology, The Frisch School
Paramus, New Jersey
Because of a method I’ve developed over more than seventeen years of teaching twelfth-grade English Language Arts, I’ve been less affected by AI than many of my colleagues. All essay assignments are written in class, over two or three periods. I photocopy the students’ handwritten drafts and return them, while keeping one myself. Students then take the essays home and type them. Because the original work is done in class, it’s much harder for students to rely on AI, and I always have the original for comparison.
I also remind my students that when it comes time for the New York State English Language Arts Regents, AI won’t be available. They’ll be on their own.
Shari Weiss
Educator
Queens, New York
When we outsource thinking to machines, we don’t make learning more efficient—we make it shallower. Real learning depends on effort, struggle and human connection, all of which are weakened when AI replaces the cognitive work students must do themselves, especially in the early years.
Dr. Doran Katz
Senior director of Jewish day school strategies and dean of Truman Scholars Program
Tikvah Fund
Before Yom Kippur, I uploaded two complete machzorim—Ashkenaz and Eidot Hamizrach—both freely available on www.Sefaria.org. NotebookLM compared the texts and produced a set of flashcards and quizzes highlighting differences between the two liturgies.
A flashcard asked: “Which custom, listed in the Eidot Hamizrach machzor, involves symbolic lashes before Yom Kippur begins?”
A quiz question explored: “Which prayer associated with Eliyahu HaNavi appears in the Eidot Hamizrach Shacharit but not in the Ashkenaz version?”
In minutes, the class had a full interactive review built from authentic sources.
Rabbi Tzvi Pittinsky
Director of educational technology
The Frisch School
Paramus, New Jersey
I use AI to create images to support my teaching—I teach Mishlei using visuals. For example, for the pasuk “Nezem zahav be’af chazir . . .—like a golden ring in the snout of a pig,” I asked AI to generate an image of a large pig in a dress. That strong visual helped the students remember the pasuk. On a test, I used AI-created images and asked students to identify and explain the pasuk associated with each image.
Educator
Valley Torah Girls High School
Los Angeles, California
Since educators are using AI behind the scenes, primarily as a planning aid, my students notice this. And they ask a fair question: If teachers can use it, why can’t we?
Ahuvah
Teacher
Brooklyn, New York
I use AI for ideas. I’ll say: “I have four seven-year-olds with different learning disabilities—how can I make a lesson on Yetziat Mitzrayim interactive, multi-sensory, and engaging?” It comes back with six fantastic ideas.
Sarah
Teacher
Teaneck, New Jersey
I don’t use AI because it feels disingenuous to tell my students not to use it if I am using it myself. It certainly makes my life more difficult, but it also feels more honest. I believe AI has its place—I just don’t think that place is in the school.
Shari Weiss
Educator
Queens, New York
With students, we’ve done a lot with AI. We started using AI to help build things; for example, using 3-D modeling and 3-D printing, we created Chanukah menorahs. For the boys who do coding for robotics, we use AI to help write the code.
Dovid Teitelbaum
STEAM director and teacher
Marilyn and Sheldon David IVDU Upper Boys School
Brooklyn, New York
What worries me the most is that kids won’t learn how to write or express their ideas. If they use AI for their writing assignments, they’ll never have to think of a creative idea in their lives again. And they’ll get no practice writing.
Abby Schneider
Teacher
Chicago, Illinois
What most schools have not addressed yet is putting AI in the hands of the actual students.
And that’s where we have to be extremely cautious. However, schools need to recognize that by not introducing AI to students, they are also not teaching them important skills: how to be transparent with AI use, how to spot bias, and how to understand when and how to use it responsibly.
Rivkah Schack
Senior director of educational technology and digital strategy
The Jewish Education Project
New York
In This Section
Torah in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
How to Use AI (And How Not to Use It) by Dr. Moshe Koppel
When Rabbis Meet AI by Rachel Schwartzberg
AI in Medicine: Halachic Reflections on Emerging Challenges by Rabbi Dr. Jason Weiner
Spotify for Shiurim? The OU’s AI-Powered App Provides Customized Torah Learning by Sandy Eller