08/14/2026
AI played an important role in the ACES Math Institute this week. But perhaps not in the way you might expect.
As ACES PDSI and ACES Center for Artificial Intelligence planned this four-day professional learning experience, we used AI as a planning partner to help us think through the needs of a particularly diverse group of educators.
Participants represented different grade levels, roles, experiences with Illustrative Mathematics, and levels of mathematical content knowledge. AI helped us consider those different perspectives, anticipate potential needs, refine learning experiences, develop scenarios around student thinking, and continually adjust our plans based on participant feedback throughout the week.
But when the institute began, we made an intentional choice: participants would not use AI.
They did the mathematics. They wrestled with problems. They examined student thinking and misconceptions. They worked with manipulatives and representations. They unpacked curriculum and assessments. They debated instructional decisions with colleagues. And they practiced facilitating mathematics themselves.
That distinction matters.
At the ACES Center for AI and ACES PDSI, our work isn't about finding as many opportunities as possible to use AI. It's about determining when AI adds value and when the learning requires us to protect the human thinking.
For this institute, AI helped us design a more responsive professional learning experience. But the cognitive work of learning mathematics, making sense of student thinking, collaborating with colleagues, and developing instructional judgment belonged to the educators in the room.
Perhaps one of the most important questions we can ask about AI in education isn't simply, “How can we use AI here?”
It's also:
“Who needs to do the thinking?”
Sometimes the answer should be AI.
Sometimes the answer should be us.
Knowing the difference is part of becoming AI literate.
