AI Edge #3 — The AI Icebreaker Toolkit

📡 Issue #3 Insights

AI news, leadership trends, and bite-sized breakthroughs for education leaders.

👉 Prompt-tuning for emotional tone - Educators are using custom GPTs to simulate difficult conversations before they happen, fine-tuning for tone, empathy, and word choice. Learn how in our Ice Breaker Prompt Toolkit below.

👉 AI as rehearsal partner: a hidden superpower - The AI use no one’s talking about, practicing the human side of leadership. We explore this in this issue.

👉 AI tool delivering tone adjustments and coaching support - Wordtune is a real AI writing assistant that lets you rewrite content in different styles, casual, formal, concise, expanded, all to match the tone you want. Check it out!

What’s trending on social media?

“AI for Principals” is quietly gaining momentum on LinkedIn. Top posts are no longer about fear of AI, now they are more interested in functionality.

For example, Darren Coxon (an AI governance expert) wrote recently, “School Principals must treat AI like safeguarding, as it will soon be inspected in a similar way”.  Kyle King noted that “AI isn’t a passing trend.

Now it’s a paradigm shift,” spotlighting how leaders now use AI ethically and transparently in school decision-making. AI Edge is here to keep you informed!

As promised……

🧰 The Icebreaker Prompt Toolkit!

🧠 Use AI to prepare for the moments you can’t script. Use these sets with ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, or Perplexity. Adapt freely with more specifics, data, etc.

👤 4 impactful prompts for campus & district Leaders.

💬 Addressing Underperformance (High-Stakes)

Badge: 🟠 High-Stakes

Scenario: You need to start a conversation with a teacher whose test scores are consistently low, but who is resistant to feedback.

AI Prompt to Try:

“Give me 3 ways to open a conversation with a teacher about chronic underperformance without sounding accusatory. Include language that centers on student impact.”

Tip: Use this after reviewing their recent data in private. Begin with shared goals, not accusations.

🧩 Engaging a Disengaged Staff Member (Team-Friendly)

Badge: 🔵 Team-Friendly

Scenario: A staff member has been unusually quiet in meetings and is falling behind on tasks.

AI Prompt to Try:

“Help me draft a few icebreaker phrases to re-engage a teammate who seems checked out lately, something warm but clear.” 

🧠 Navigating Resistance to Change (Needs Data)

Badge: 🟣 Needs Data

Scenario: Your campus is adopting a new grading policy [or replace with any perceived resistance to an initiative] and you’re facing pushback.

AI Prompt to Try:

“Generate 2-3 questions that could help me uncover why staff are resisting a new grading policy. Keep the tone curious and collaborative.”

Mini-Tip: Let curiosity guide you. These prompts are door-openers, not persuasion tactics.

🌱 Coaching for Growth (Fast Win)

Badge: 🟢 Fast Win

Scenario: You want to gently nudge a new AP to think more strategically about leading PLCs.

AI Prompt to Try:

“Write a leadership coaching question that encourages self-reflection in a new assistant principal who is overly focused on compliance, not strategy.”

🔧 Tools for Productivity

5 AI Tools to Boost Productivity for Education Leaders:

SchoolAI: A purpose-built AI assistant designed for educators. It helps create student simulations, generate newsletters, and even coach teachers with feedback suggestions.

Diffit: Instantly differentiates reading passages for multiple grade levels and languages. Perfect for principals working with diverse classrooms and inclusive instruction.

Goblin Tools: A suite of executive function supports—including task breakdowns, tone analyzers, and time estimators. Excellent for overloaded school leaders juggling priorities.

MagicSchool.ai: Built for educators, this tool writes emails, lesson plans, IEPs, and more. It streamlines repetitive tasks so leaders can focus on people over paperwork.

Claude.ai: A general-purpose AI assistant by Anthropic that provides deep thinking and context-aware responses. Great for drafting memos, analyzing feedback, or brainstorming policy ideas.

AI From the Education Field

Here are four compelling examples of campus and district leaders successfully using AI in education.

🎓 1. Ohio State University – AI Fluency for All

Ohio State University has mandated “AI Fluency” training for all incoming students, integrating AI skills across disciplines and training faculty to address generative AI ethically in assignments. University leaders emphasize that every student, regardless of major, should graduate prepared to work alongside AI tools.

📱 2. North Carolina A&T – AI Student Chatbot

North Carolina A&T launched a student-focused chatbot in October 2024 to support academic, engagement, wellness, and financial concerns. With 98% of eligible students opting in and 20,400 messages exchanged, it’s registering ~40% engagement, evidence it’s shaping campus support systems.

🏫 3. Westville School District – K‑12 AI Exploration

Westville School District partnered with ISTE and GM Foundation to pilot AI in classroom environments. Educators and students partnered on learning experiences that integrated AI explorations, sparking student imagination and engagement.

🧮 4. Sage Creek High (San Diego) – AI for Tutoring

At Sage Creek High School in San Diego, math teacher Jeff Simon incorporated AI tools that let students photograph problems and receive step-by-step explanations, essentially functioning as private tutors. This early exposure reinforces both utility and ethical AI use.

For Our Next Issue

📰 AI Edge #4: Prompt-Driven PD — Plan a Session in 10 Minutes or Less

I don’t know about the rest of you, but planning PD can be quite a chore. We will explore ways to make that a breeze!

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See you next time!!

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