Classroom Toolkit
Copy-paste-ready. Everything here is meant to be used Monday.
1. The Traffic Light Statements
Paste the matching block into the assignment description. Edit the bracketed parts.
🔴 RED — No AI
🔴 AI-FREE TASK
This one is all you. I need to see your unassisted thinking so I know what to
teach next. Work happens in class, on paper / on a locked device.
No chatbots, no AI writing help, no "humanizers," no homework-answer apps.
Grammar/spellcheck is fine.
If you're stuck: ask me. That's literally my job.🟡 YELLOW — AI with disclosure
🟡 AI ALLOWED — WITH A NOTE
You MAY use AI to: brainstorm, outline, explain something you're stuck on,
generate practice problems, or check grammar.
You MAY NOT use it to: write the text you turn in.
Add these three lines at the end:
Tool I used: ______
What I asked it: ______
What I changed or rejected: ______
Honest disclosure is never penalized. Hidden use is.🟢 GREEN — AI encouraged
🟢 AI ENCOURAGED
Use AI as hard as you can. The skill I'm grading is your ability to DIRECT it,
JUDGE it, and IMPROVE on it.
Submit three things:
1. Your prompts
2. The AI's raw output
3. Your final version
I'm grading the distance between #2 and #3.2. The AI Use Note (student-facing, Yellow tasks)
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ AI USE NOTE Name: ____________ Date: ____ │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ ☐ I did not use AI on this. │
│ ☐ I used AI. Here's how: │
│ │
│ Tool: ____________________________________________ │
│ │
│ I asked it to: ___________________________________ │
│ ___________________________________________________ │
│ │
│ What I changed, fixed, or threw out: _____________ │
│ ___________________________________________________ │
│ │
│ One thing I learned doing this: __________________ │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘Teacher note: that third line is where the learning is. "I changed nothing" is a
data point, not a crime — it's an opening for a two-minute conversation about what the
AI got wrong that they didn't notice.
3. The Guardrail Card
Print, laminate, one per classroom.
╔═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗
║ AI GUARDRAILS · IRVINGTON TOWNSHIP SD ║
╠═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════╣
║ 🚫 NEVER PUT IN AN AI TOOL ║
║ • Student names or identifying details ║
║ • Grades · IEP / 504 · behavior · health data ║
║ • Anything from a student record system ║
║ • Family contact info or circumstances ║
║ Rule of thumb: if it wouldn't go on the hallway ║
║ bulletin board, it doesn't go in the chatbot. ║
║ ║
║ ✅ ALWAYS ║
║ • VERIFY every fact, quote, citation, link ║
║ • READ every word before it leaves your hands ║
║ • DE-IDENTIFY: "a 7th grader who struggles ║
║ with fractions" — not a name ║
║ • USE district-approved tools for student data ║
║ • CHECK for bias in anything describing people ║
║ ║
║ ⚠️ AI NEVER DECIDES ║
║ Not grades. Not discipline. Not placement. ║
║ Not referrals. Not retention. ║
║ AI may draft. A human decides. The human is ║
║ accountable. ║
║ ║
║ 🧠 THE HALLUCINATION RULE ║
║ AI is a confident, fluent, well-read colleague ║
║ who sometimes makes things up completely and ║
║ will never tell you which parts. ║
║ Fluency ≠ accuracy. ║
╚═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝4. The Conversation Protocol Card
For the moment something feels off.
╔═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════╗
║ WHEN SOMETHING FEELS OFF — 4 MINUTES, 6 STEPS ║
╠═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════╣
║ 1. GATHER PROCESS EVIDENCE FIRST ║
║ Version history · September baseline · drafts ║
║ NOT a detector score. ║
║ ║
║ 2. OPEN WITH CURIOSITY ║
║ ❌ "Did you use AI on this?" ║
║ (yes/no trap — invites a lie) ║
║ ✅ "Walk me through how you put this together." ║
║ (impossible to fail if they did the work) ║
║ ║
║ 3. NAME WHAT YOU SEE, NOT WHAT YOU CONCLUDE ║
║ ✅ "This doesn't sound like your writing from ║
║ September and I want to understand why." ║
║ ║
║ 4. LISTEN FOR THE REAL REASON ║
║ Usually: overwhelmed · behind · didn't get it · ║
║ afraid to ask · working a job · caring for family ║
║ · thought it was allowed. ║
║ Rarely: contempt. Match the response to the ║
║ reason. ║
║ ║
║ 5. REDIRECT TO LEARNING ║
║ ✅ "Redo it with me Thursday at lunch, in stages, ║
║ so I can see your thinking. This one doesn't ║
║ count against you." ║
║ A zero teaches "don't get caught." ║
║ A redo teaches the content. ║
║ ║
║ 6. ESCALATE ONLY FOR PATTERN OR DEFIANCE ║
║ First incident = teaching moment. Full stop. ║
╚═══════════════════════════════════════════════════════╝5. Process-Weighted Rubric Template
Replace a 100%-on-the-final-product rubric with this.
| Component | Weight | Evidence | AI-resistant? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Topic proposal / conference | 10% | 3-min conversation with you | ✅ In person |
| Annotated source notes | 15% | Marked-up sources, not a list | ✅ Shows reading happened |
| First draft — written in class | 15% | Handwritten or locked device | ✅ You watched it |
| Peer review given to two classmates | 10% | Their feedback forms | ✅ Hard to outsource |
| Revision memo: what changed and why | 15% | Half a page | ✅ Metacognition |
| Final product | 25% | The artifact | ❌ Assume AI-assisted |
| Oral defense (2–3 min) | 10% | You ask 3 questions | ✅ Unfakeable |
A student who used AI on the final product but did every other stage learned the thing.
That student should pass. That's not a loophole — that's the design.
6. The Oral Micro-Defense — Question Bank
Two minutes. Rotating sample. Announce that it's routine and random.
Process questions
- Walk me through how you got to this paragraph.
- What did you try first that didn't work?
- What's the hardest part of this for you?
- Show me where you got stuck.
Decision questions
- Why this source and not that one?
- What did you cut, and why?
- Why did you organize it this way instead of chronologically?
- What's the strongest sentence here? Why?
Understanding questions
- Explain this claim to me like I'm a 5th grader.
- What's the counterargument you didn't include?
- If you had two more days, what would you change?
- What does this word mean, right here, in this sentence?
A student who did the work answers instantly and with texture.
A student who didn't will pause, generalize, or describe the topic instead of the process.
You'll know within 30 seconds — and you never accused anyone of anything.
7. Un-Googleable Prompt Patterns
| Pattern | Template |
|---|---|
| Local anchor | "Use [Irvington/Essex County/this building] as your case" |
| Class event anchor | "Connect this to what ____ argued in Tuesday's discussion — including where they were wrong" |
| Our-data anchor | "Use the data our class collected on ____" |
| Personal anchor | "Tie this to something you noticed on your walk home this week" |
| Constrained source | "Use exactly two of the four sources in our packet, and explain why you rejected the others" |
| Role + audience | "You're advising the Irvington Town Council in 1914. Write the memo." |
| Deliberate error | "Here's an AI answer to this question. Find the three things wrong with it." |
| Failure analysis | "Where does your model break down? Be specific." |
The formula: local + personal + specific + tied to something that happened in this room
8. First-Day Script for Students
Say this. It works better than a policy handout.
"Let's talk about AI, because I know you're using it and I'd rather we were honest.
*Here's how it works in here. Every assignment gets a color. Red means I need your brain
only — that's usually because I'm trying to figure out what to teach you next, and if the
computer does it I'm teaching the computer. Yellow means use it for help but tell me how.
Green means go nuts, because the skill I'm grading IS using it well.*
*If you tell me you used it, that is never a problem. Not once, not ever. If you hide it,
that's a different conversation — not because I'm mad, but because I can't teach someone
I can't see.*
*And everything before today? Clean slate. The rules were fuzzy and that's on me. Starting
now they're not fuzzy.*
*Last thing: this stuff lies. Confidently. It'll invent a source that looks completely
real. Part of what you're learning this year is how to catch that — because that's going
to matter for the rest of your life, and most adults can't do it."*
9. Family Letter Template
Dear Families,
Students are encountering artificial intelligence everywhere — in search results,
on their phones, in the apps they already use. Rather than pretend otherwise, we're
teaching them to use it honestly and to think critically about what it tells them.
This also fulfills New Jersey's K-12 information literacy requirement.
Here's what that looks like in class:
🔴 RED assignments — no AI. We need to see your child's own thinking.
🟡 YELLOW assignments — AI allowed for specific steps, with a short note saying
what they used and what they changed.
🟢 GREEN assignments — AI encouraged. The skill being graded is using it well.
Every assignment will say which one it is.
Two things we want you to know:
1. Honesty is never penalized. A student who tells us they used AI is doing exactly
what we asked. We want disclosure to feel easy, not risky.
2. AI makes things up. Confidently, and in ways that look completely real. A major
part of what we're teaching is how to check — a skill that will matter long after
this school year.
How you can help: ask your child which color an assignment is. That one question
does more than any monitoring software.
Questions are welcome.
— [Teacher/School]10. Low-Risk Starter Uses for Reluctant Teachers
No student data. No student-facing output. Start here.
| Task | Prompt starter |
|---|---|
| Difficult parent email | "Help me write a warm, professional email to a parent about a student who is falling behind. Firm but not alarming. No names — call them 'your child.'" |
| Rubric at 3 reading levels | "Rewrite this rubric at a 5th, 8th, and 11th grade reading level." |
| Practice problems | "Generate 20 two-step equation problems in 4 difficulty tiers, with an answer key." |
| Sub plan | "Turn these lesson notes into a sub plan a non-specialist could run." |
| Curriculum digest | "Summarize this 40-page document into: what changed, what I have to do differently, and what I can ignore." |
| Discussion questions | "Give me 10 discussion questions on [topic] at increasing levels of difficulty." |
| Recommendation letter draft | "Draft a recommendation for a student who is persistent, asks good questions, and struggles with deadlines. No name, use [STUDENT]." |
| Translating a concept | "Explain [concept] using three different analogies for a 7th grader." |
Always: de-identify, verify, and read every word before it leaves your hands.
Never: paste in a name, a grade, an IEP, or anything from a student record system.
11. Questions to Ask Before Adopting Any AI Tool
For teachers and for procurement.
- Is it on the district's approved list? (If there's no list, ask for one.)
- Is there a signed data agreement covering deletion, non-sale, and no targeted advertising?
- What's the minimum age in its terms? (Most are 13+ — this rules out elementary and some middle.)
- Is student work used to train the vendor's models? Can that be turned off in writing?
- What data does it collect that it doesn't need?
- Is it accessible to students with disabilities?
- What happens to the data if we stop using it?
- Who is accountable when it's wrong? (Answer is always: us.)