AICE Certified Educator Badge

Dimension 3
Pedagogical: Instructional Enhancement

  • P1 = Designing better lessons with AI.
  • P2 = Embedding AI into the learning experience.
  • P3 = Leveraging AI to grow professionally and fulfill broader responsibilities.

 

Dimension

P1. Pedagogical Design

P2. Instructional Integration

P3. Professional Optimization

Primary Focus

Designing lessons with AI to improve sequencing, modality choice, and alignment with learning objectives.

Embedding AI directly into lesson planning, delivery, and assessment to enhance student learning experiences and outcomes.

Using AI to improve professional growth, meet evaluation goals, and balance multiple professional responsibilities.

Main Domain

Instructional planning

Instructional execution

Professional practice

When It Happens

Pre-instruction – during lesson design and preparation.

During and after instruction – in real-time teaching, assessment, and follow-up.

Ongoing across the school year – within PLC, evaluation, and broader responsibilities.

Teacher’s Role

Designer – structures learning experiences using AI insights.

Facilitator – integrates AI into student classroom experiences and assessments.

Professional learner & contributor – leverages AI to grow, demonstrate, and balance professional competencies.

Student Interaction with AI

Usually indirect – AI informs teacher’s plan.

Direct – students engage with AI outputs or tools in the learning process.

Indirect – benefits are seen in improved instruction, feedback, and teacher performance.

Outputs

Standards-aligned lesson plans, sequences, and instructional modalities.

AI-enhanced activities, personalized teaching strategies, AI-assisted assessments.

PD artifacts, evaluation evidence, improved workload management, goal-aligned practices.

Indicators of Success

Lesson design is coherent, rigorous, engaging, and pedagogical sound before delivery.

Student engagement and learning improve due to in-class AI use.

Teacher’s professional impact and balance improve, meeting evaluation and development goals.

 

To achieve P1. Pedagogical Design in the AICE framework, educators need to leverage AI as a thinking partner in shaping the how and when of teaching, not just the what (accomplished in Content Dimension). AI should support educators better understand and implement pedagogical frameworks or institutional initiatives. This means collaborating with AI to design lessons that are well-sequenced, instructionally coherent, and pedagogically aligned. 

1. Instructional Sequencing

  • Plan logical learning progressions: Use AI to suggest step-by-step content flow from prior knowledge to new concepts, including scaffolding and gradual release.
  • Anticipate learning obstacles: Prompt AI to identify likely misconceptions and propose preemptive supports or alternative explanations.
  • Integrate formative checkpoints: Build in AI-suggested opportunities for quick checks and feedback loops throughout the lesson sequence.

2. Ensure Content Rigor and Incorporate Evaluation

  • Check for standards alignment: Use AI to verify that activities map directly to curricular standards and skill benchmarks.
  • Ensure cognitive rigor: Have AI recommend adjustments to different cognitive levels. Incorporate established pedagogical frameworks for task difficulty targets, such as Bloom’s Taxonomy or Depth of Knowledge.
  • Embed success criteria: Use AI to co-develop clear, measurable outcomes that guide both instruction and assessment.
  • Practice pedagogy and initiative: Build paths into the lesson plan and instruction with AI to effectively and timely incorporate established pedagogical frameworks or institutional initiatives.

3. Improving Engagingness

  • Refine lesson flow for engagement: Ask AI to suggest hooks, transitions, and pacing strategies that keep students engaged.
  • Incorporate real-world connections: Use AI to bring in authentic examples, case studies, or current events to make learning relevant.
  • Design differentiated materials: Use AI to adapt instructional strategies for varied reading levels, language proficiencies, and learning styles.
  • Match teaching methods to objectives: Simulate or evaluate the lesson using AI to identify whether it is best taught via direct instruction, inquiry, group work, or other formats.
  • Incorporate multimodal elements: Have AI generate visuals, actionable engaging plans, or role-play scripts to suit different learning styles.

 

To achieve P2. Instructional Integration in the AICE framework, educators need to move beyond simply using AI tools and instead weave them into the fabric of their teaching cycle so they directly enhance student learning experiences and outcomes. 

1. Instructional Delivery with AI

  • Incorporate multimodal resources: Leverage AI to generate slides, podcasts, or visuals that complement instructional delivery.
  • Integrate AI into live teaching moments: For example, using AI to generate real-time examples, explanations, or formative checks during class if needed.
  • Facilitate student–AI interactions: Structure activities where students use AI to preview materials, simulate scenarios, prepare tests, or analyze problems, while keeping teacher facilitation central.
  • Embed AI in collaborative learning: Use AI as a shared workspace for group research, project planning, or feedback cycles.

2. Assessment with AI

  • Create and align assessments: Use AI-embedded platforms to draft and/or distribute rubrics, quiz questions, or performance tasks that are tied to instructional goals.
  • Provide timely, targeted feedback: Use AI for initial grading and feedback, or introduce students to using AI for preliminary feedback (ensure E2 model responsive usage first), then refine the results with teacher judgment to maintain accuracy and fairness.
  • Track and respond to learning patterns: Use AI-generated analytics to identify trends and adjust ongoing instruction.

3. Continuous Reflection and Improvement

  • Review AI’s instructional impact: Regularly evaluate whether AI-enhanced lessons improve engagement and mastery compared to traditional approaches.
  • Iterate based on student feedback: Adjust AI integration strategies in response to student engagement data, work samples, and direct input.
  • Stay current with AI capabilities: Engage in ongoing professional learning to explore emerging AI tools and pedagogical uses.

 

To achieve P3. Professional Optimization in the AICE framework, educators need to treat AI not just as a teaching tool, but as a professional growth accelerator, using it to strengthen their performance, meet evaluation criteria, and balance the wide spectrum of responsibilities they carry.

1. Advancing Professional Learning Outcomes

  • Self-directed learning with AI: Use AI to explore new instructional strategies, stay updated on research, or rehearse teaching approaches.
  • Reflective practice: Prompt AI to help analyze classroom scenarios, student data, or lesson outcomes for continuous improvement.
  • Skill expansion: Use AI to learn unfamiliar content, tech tools, or pedagogical models relevant to your role.

2. Improving Evaluation Performance

  • Align work to evaluation frameworks: Use AI to cross-check lesson plans quality (e.g., AI Review), assessments, and instructional strategies against evaluation rubrics (e.g., Danielson, Marzano, CEL 5D+).
  • Document and showcase evidence: Have AI help compile artifacts, summaries, and data visualizations for performance reviews.
  • Prepare for observations: Use AI to interpret received observation feedback and anticipate upcoming observation focus areas and refine plans accordingly.

3. Fulfilling a Balanced Set of Professional Obligations

  • Disciplinary: Stay current in subject-matter expertise with AI-assisted research and content updates.
  • Individual: Use AI to improve individual student support, feedback quality, and responsiveness.
  • Institutional: Meet administrative deadlines and reporting requirements faster with AI-generated summaries, templates, or data reports.
  • Societal: Leverage AI to facilitate timely and effective communication with families and communities, incorporating culturally responsive practices, address gaps, and connect education to real-world context.

4. Maintaining Balance

  • Streamline routine work: Use AI to reduce time spent on repetitive tasks (e.g., formatting) so more energy can go to student interaction and reflection.
  • Set boundaries and priorities: Apply AI to help manage workload distribution across teaching, assessment, PD, and service commitments.