School Rewired: How AI Is Transforming Education

ElementsED brings researchers, educators, and institutional leaders into conversation about questions emerging from the work of education. Each issue explores a consequential topic through evidence, experience, and perspectives that invite readers to think further.

Content to Competence: Redesigning Education for an AI-Driven World

Challenges education systems built around delivering content and measuring knowledge in a world where information is increasingly accessible through AI. Bhatt explores how schools can shift toward developing transferable competencies, adaptability, and the human capabilities needed to navigate an unpredictable future.

The Assignment is the Problem: How AI Exposed Education’s Quiet Assessment Crisis

Examines how generative AI has exposed longstanding weaknesses in traditional assignments and assessments. Averri argues for rethinking how schools evaluate learning, placing greater emphasis on authentic understanding, independent reasoning, and the processes through which students develop knowledge.

Productive Failure in an AI World

Explores why struggling with difficult problems, making mistakes, and reflecting on unsuccessful attempts are essential to deep learning. Kapur examines how AI can support productive failure without removing the cognitive effort that makes learning meaningful.

Beyond the Prompt

Explores the educational implications of AI beyond the mechanics of writing effective prompts. The article considers how educators can approach AI more thoughtfully, focusing on learning, human judgment, and the capabilities students need as intelligent systems become increasingly integrated into education.

Reclaiming Purpose in the Age of AI

Examines how the growing capabilities of artificial intelligence invite educators to reconsider the deeper purpose of schooling. Malin explores the importance of helping young people develop meaning, direction, and a sense of agency in a world increasingly shaped by intelligent technologies.

Durable Versus Vulnerable Instruction

Explores which instructional practices remain valuable as AI becomes capable of performing tasks traditionally associated with teaching and learning. Radday distinguishes between approaches vulnerable to automation and those that cultivate lasting understanding, critical thinking, and meaningful human engagement.

Not Our Creation, Now Our Concern: A Student-Teacher Dialogue on Classroom AI

Brings student and teacher perspectives together to examine the opportunities, uncertainties, and responsibilities created by AI in classrooms. Through dialogue, the authors explore how educators and learners can navigate changing expectations while preserving trust, agency, and meaningful learning.

Protecting Powerful Thinking

Examines the risk that AI tools may replace rather than strengthen the intellectual work students need to develop. Taylor explores how schools can protect deep reasoning, creativity, and independent thinking while using technology to support learning.

Judgment & Taste: An Interview with Austin Volz

Explores the importance of human judgment and discernment in an age when AI can generate increasingly sophisticated work. The conversation considers why the ability to evaluate quality, make thoughtful choices, and develop personal taste remains central to education.

AI Won’t Transform Schools. Teachers Will.: Collaborative Teaching and the Quest for AI-Ready Schools

Argues that meaningful educational transformation depends on teachers and institutional collaboration rather than technology alone. Assisi and Ochi explore how collaborative teaching practices, professional learning, and organizational readiness can help schools integrate AI effectively.