Reading, writing and arithmetic \u2014 and AI.<\/p>\n
The modern educational toolkit, of both teachers and students, now includes the use of artificial intelligence. Experts and teachers from coast-to-coast told OSV News AI is poised to transform Catholic education.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the Catholic school space, where we\u2019re at right now is trying to build AI literacy among our teachers, and our students, and our parents,\u201d shared Father Nate Wills, a priest of the Congregation of the Holy Cross and director of Higher-Powered Learning, an initiative of the University of Notre Dame\u2019s Alliance for Catholic Education.<\/p>\n
Professional development for teachers \u2014 introducing them to AI tools and their use \u2014 is typically a critical first step.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s really important for teachers to know what\u2019s out there so that they both empower their students and transform their assessments,\u201d Wills said. \u201cIf a teacher was completely ignorant of the existence of calculators in the 1970s, that would just be silly, right?\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/ai-schools-vert.jpg\")
First-graders Connor Nguyen and Jasper Zhao work in a science, technology, engineering, and math program, or STEM, at Assumption of the Virgin Mary School in Pasadena, Calif. Jan. 15, 2025, in the aftermath of the Eaton Fire, which began Jan. 7. Experts and teachers from coast to coast told OSV News that artificial intelligence, AI, is poised to transform Catholic education. (OSV News photo\/Bob Roller)<\/p>\n
With that paradox firmly in mind, Higher-Powered Learning has hosted user-friendly seminars focusing on AI in the classroom; teacher training; AI policies and guidelines; and more. The initiative\u2019s website also features a wealth of resources and guidance.<\/p>\n
Still, it can all perhaps seem a bit overwhelming. \u201cThis feels,\u201d Wills admitted, \u201clike a quantum leap for a lot of people.\u201d<\/p>\n
RAND Corporation announced in April, 2024, that as of fall 2023, 18 percent of K-12 teachers reported using AI for teaching and another 15 percent have tried AI at least once.<\/p>\n
A place to start is the articulation of an AI policy \u2014 whether for students, employees, or in the classroom. Higher-Powered Learning offers adaptable policy templates, but also helps dioceses tailor them to their own needs and strategy.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the most important things about a document like this is, it\u2019s living,\u201d said Brad Snyder, associate superintendent of Educational Programs for Catholic Schools in the Diocese of Orange, Calif. \u201cBecause AI is doing nothing if not changing constantly. As a diocese, we\u2019ve been meeting for about a year-and-a-half in committees to create a guidance document for our parishes also. So I think we\u2019ve been trying to get ahead of the wave.\u201d<\/p>\n
Snyder sees a parallel with another major technological shift \u2014 the advent of the world wide web in the early 1990s.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would say it\u2019s almost akin to when we first started using the internet,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen we searched for things before, you\u2019d break out the card catalog, right? We don\u2019t do that anymore. And I think AI is going to propel us forward in a similar manner.\u201d<\/p>\n
And rapidly, too.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just taking off,\u201d Snyder said. \u201cAnd the next couple years is going to be really transformational in what it can do \u2014 and therefore, we have to be informed on how we\u2019re going to use it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Educators are keenly aware that AI has the potential to be not just an asset, but a substitute \u2014 the oft-heard suspicion that students will use it to generate an assignment instead of doing it themselves.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the things we really try to work with \u2014 with our teachers and our principals \u2014 is you need to monitor, but you need to make sure you mentor,\u201d Snyder said. \u201cWe want to make sure we\u2019re supporting students using it correctly, and in a way that benefits them.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHere\u2019s the issue: Students are going to use AI,\u201d he continued. \u201cYou might as well be able to show them how to use it in a manner that\u2019s going to support them, and not hurt them. I think that\u2019s critical.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nor is AI meant to \u201creplace\u201d anything, Snyder said.<\/p>\n
\u201cCatholic education is what? It\u2019s a community, right? It\u2019s relationship building. It\u2019s the whole child,\u201d he emphasized. \u201cTechnology can\u2019t replace that \u2014 and we don\u2019t want it to. But if it can help make me more effective, reach my students at their level more efficiently, and move them forward in their skill development \u2014 that\u2019s the mentorship of using AI.\u201d<\/p>\n
So what can AI do, for teachers and students?<\/p>\n
\u201cLike Pope Leo said, this is a sea change,\u201d declared Steve Tortorello, director of Partnerships and Special Projects for Catholic Schools in the Archdiocese of Chicago. Echoing Snyder, he added, \u201cThis is not a new app. This is not a new program. This is like when the internet came out \u2014 that\u2019s the level of change that this is.\u201d<\/p>\n
As to its potential, \u201cI talk about how AI can be both the most supercharged teacher\u2019s assistant you could ever imagine,\u201d explained Tortorello, \u201cand a thought partner, like the teacher across the hall.\u201d<\/p>\n
He gave a practical example.<\/p>\n
\u201cSay you\u2019re working with seventh graders on picking out adjectives in a sentence. And you\u2019ve already done the exercise in the book and you think, \u2018Wow, my kids need more practice.\u2019 Well, guess what,\u201d said Tortorello. \u201cAI can make you more practice materials,\u201d \u2014 and here Tortorello snapped his fingers \u2014 \u201cthat quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added, \u201cAnd it can make it on whatever topic your kids are interested in. Do they love Taylor Swift and Minecraft? Well, now you\u2019ve just made 10 more practice sentences on Taylor Swift and Minecraft, and they\u2019re doing that while they\u2019re figuring out learning adjectives.\u201d<\/p>\n
Not only are students more engaged \u2014 teachers save time.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I was teaching seventh grade English \u2014 which I\u2019ve done before \u2014 and I had to make that extra adjective worksheet, it might take me 45 minutes to come up with different ideas,\u201d Tortorello said. \u201cNow, I can tell Chat GPT, \u2018Make me an adjective worksheet at this reading level\u2019 \u2014 boom \u2014 and it does it in 10 seconds.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another example Tortorello cited is AI\u2019s ability to customize, or in educational terms \u201cdifferentiate,\u201d student materials.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I\u2019m teaching fifth grade Reading, and I know in my fifth grade class I\u2019ve got 20 kids \u2014 and 10 of them read at fifth grade level, and five read way above the fifth grade level, and five read below the fifth grade level \u2014 I used to give them one article,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd the quick kids would be done in five minutes. The average kids would take 10 minutes. The kids who struggle might take 20 minutes. They might not comprehend it. Well, now I can rerun that article at three different reading levels,\u201d Tortorello said. \u201cEvery kid can read it at the same time, at the level that best challenges them. This unlocks a ton of things I can do, as far as differentiations. And so to me, that\u2019s magic.\u201d<\/p>\n
There\u2019s still a human element, however.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou generate something with AI, you refine it with more questioning, and then you as the human edit it to make sure it\u2019s exactly what you want,\u201d he added. \u201cAnd so now that supercharged teacher\u2019s assistant can help you save countless hours.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those hours add up, and impact work-life balance.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not only about efficiency,\u201d Tortorello said. \u201cIt\u2019s about preventing burnout for our teachers.\u201d<\/p>\n
On July 8, OpenAI and Microsoft announced the bankrolling of new AI training for teachers. The American Federation of Teachers said it would use the $23 million \u2014 including $500,000 from the A.I. start-up Anthropic \u2014 to create a national training center.<\/p>\n
At Union Catholic High School in Scotch Plains, N.J., Assistant Principal Noreen Andrews \u2014 who, among her other duties, coordinates the school\u2019s Advanced Placement courses \u2014 remembers clearly when she realized AI was about to change her world.<\/p>\n
In November 2023, Andrews said, a colleague entered her office to announce that AP College Board student exam essay questions would now be written by AI.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I\u2019m like, \u2018Oh my God, you know, I\u2019m an AP teacher,\u201d recalled Andrews. \u201cDoes everybody recognize what\u2019s happening? Do you see what\u2019s happening?\u201d She wanted, Andrews said, \u201cto make sure that we were all understanding what had come into our world, and what was never going to leave us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Andrews quoted a now-favorite maxim: \u201c\u2018AI will not replace you. But people using AI will.’\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve talked about it amongst ourselves as educators \u2014 and when I\u2019m talking to parents and educating them about what we\u2019re doing with AI in education at our school, that\u2019s one of my first cards,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s mind-boggling, because we\u2019re at the beginning of this \u2014 but yet it\u2019s moving so fast that we\u2019re well past the beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n
Union Catholic took things step by step, explained Andrews, beginning with a robust program of teacher development.<\/p>\n
\u201cFirst it was the teachers \u2014 then it was making sure that teachers were putting it in the hands of the students and helping them,\u201d she explained. \u201cAnd now this year is very focused on AI literacy.\u201d<\/p>\n
In January, Union Catholic High School secured the Responsible Artificial Intelligence in Learning (RAIL) endorsement through the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools \u2014 a recognition of its commitment to promote responsible, ethical, and safe use of AI in education.<\/p>\n
RAIL-certified schools are a select group.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re one of 46 schools in the world,\u201d Andrews proudly shared.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not about making rules and trying to enforce rules to lock things down, but rather to teach our students how to be responsible with their devices; with AI; with the internet. That\u2019s our focus,\u201d Andrews said. \u201cThe most important thing we can do \u2014 as teachers, as educators \u2014 is to prepare our students to survive in this new world.\u201d<\/p>\n
Read More Schools<\/p>\n
Copyright \u00a9 2025 OSV News<\/p>\n
![\"Print\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/printer_famfamfam.gif\" "\\"Print\\"")
<\/a>\u00a0Print<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Reading, writing and arithmetic \u2014 and AI. The modern educational toolkit, of both teachers and students, now includes…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":55291,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[182,181,507,74],"class_list":["post-55290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55290\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}