A teacher in one of our courses shared a question they got from a student last week, “Can AI give better feedback on my writing than you can?” It was a gut-punch moment for the teacher. I knew what they meant—AI can analyze grammar, suggest improvements, and give feedback in a tone the student has chosen, but it can’t laugh or cry or become incensed or thoughtful as a response to their writing. It can’t give a person a human response. 

I’ve been wrestling with the right ways to bring AI literacy into classrooms while still holding humanness and human connections as the most important literacy that our students need. Many of us already worry about our students retreating further into screens, away from each other and perhaps away from us. 

This concern feels real to me. When I moved to a reading and writing workshop model years ago, what made it transformative wasn’t just the personalized learning—it was the relationships that grew in that space. The one-on-one conferences where students shared writing that revealed their thoughts and feelings. The small group discussions where peers helped each other find their voices. The community we built together. I don’t want that community diminished because AI can do all those things 1:1 now. 

So how do we use AI’s capabilities without losing these essential human connections? It starts with seeing these tools not as replacements for human interaction, but as helpers that can actually give us more time for meaningful connection. 

What Human Connection Offers using the CASEL Model 

The CASEL framework gives us a useful lens to think about what happens in our classroom communities that can’t be replicated by AI: 

• Self-awareness develops when classmates offer honest feedback that shows how your words affect others. An AI can provide writing suggestions, but it can’t truly be moved by a student’s story. 

• Self-management grows when students work through the natural friction of group projects—when they learn to handle frustration because there are real friendships at stake. When students disagree about their approach to an assignment, they’re building emotional skills through a genuinely human exchange. AI won’t teach students to manage the discomfort of disagreement; in fact, it’s designed to avoid it. 

• Social awareness expands when students hear different perspectives from real people with varied life experiences. AI can simulate responses, but it can’t feel or share lived experience. 

• Relationship skills develop through daily interactions—the give-and-take, the shared challenges, the collaborative problem-solving that happens in a busy classroom. These skills require reciprocity, something AI, which accommodates us without needing anything in return, simply can’t provide. 

• Responsible decision-making grows when students see the impact of their choices in real time. When a student chooses kindness and sees the difference it makes in a classmate’s day, they’re learning something profoundly human. 

AI might be able to assist with certain tasks, but it cannot (and should not) replace the real, messy, beautiful process of learning together. 

Practical Ways to Use AI to Strengthen Human Bonds 

Here are some everyday ways teachers might use AI to enhance human connection: 

Collaborative Prompt Design: Have students work together to design effective prompts for AI tools, then analyze the results as a group. The process of deciding what makes a good prompt and evaluating the outputs can lead to rich discussions about language, creativity, and communication. 

Perspective Exploration: Use AI to help students explore different viewpoints before diving into face-to-face discussions on complex topics. This preparation can make the subsequent human dialogue more thoughtful, nuanced, and empathetic. Tricia Friedman from Shifting Schools created this Conflict Simulator Bot for this use case (you can use it for difficult conversations you may need to have as well).

Rotation Stations: Set up learning stations where some students work with AI tools on skills practice while you meet with small groups or individual students. This approach ensures every student gets both personalized support and real human connection with you throughout the week. 

Private Reflection to Public Sharing: Use AI to help students reflect privately before bringing thoughts to group discussions. Private reflection often helps students articulate ideas they then feel ready to share with peers. 

Cross-Cultural Collaboration: Use AI translation and communication tools to connect your students with peers from different communities or countries (or allow classmates to speak to each other in their mother tongues). This facilitates human connections that might otherwise be impossible due to language or distance barriers. 

The Heart of Teaching 

As we bring these new tools into our classrooms, the question worth asking is simple: How can this technology give us more time for the moments that matter most—the ones when eyes meet in common experience, understanding happens, and connections grow? That’s where the beauty of teaching has always lived.