AI in Action for Educators

Welcome back to AI in Action for Educators!

Today we’re digging into one of the most sensitive and important parts of teaching: student feedback. As teachers, we know feedback isn’t just about telling students what’s wrong. It’s about supporting growth, building trust, and helping them reflect on their work.

But we also know how much time it takes to give meaningful, personal feedback — especially when you have dozens or even hundreds of students.

That’s where Brisk, the free, FERPA-compliant AI tool built into Google Docs, can help ethically scale the feedback you already give.

Why Feedback Matters — and What Makes It ‘Good’

Good feedback is timely, specific, actionable, and focused on learning rather than judgment.
But doing that consistently? For every student? That’s hard.

That’s where AI can support us — not replace us — by giving us a starting point that we refine with our expertise.

But — and this is crucial — AI feedback must be filtered through the teacher’s judgment. You know your students: their voice, their context, their challenges. You are not handing over final feedback to a machine. Instead, you use AI to start the conversation, then refine those comments so they’re meaningful, specific, and true to your style.

That’s what “human-in-the-loop” means: AI helps with the workload, but you remain the decision-maker. You check tone, you correct inaccuracies, and you make sure the feedback is fair and useful.

Edutopia recently highlighted a teacher who used Brisk to generate the initial feedback for over 140 essays in just 30 minutes — feedback that was rubric-aligned, strengths-based, and growth-oriented.

She still reviewed and edited every comment, but AI let her scale what she already did well.

How Brisk Helps You Give Better Feedback

Brisk works right inside Google Docs. You highlight student writing and select: GIVE FEEDBACK.

Brisk’s feedback provides:

✨ Glows — what the student did well
✨ Grows — specific, actionable next steps

✨ Feedback aligned to a rubric

✨ Wonderings — questions that guide students to revise thoughtfully

The Edutopia teacher found this structure especially helpful.

Her students also said the AI feedback felt ‘less personal’ and therefore less intimidating — and they were more willing to go back and revise.

Speeding Up the Feedback Process

These tools speed up the feedback process, help structure comments and suggestions, are quick and useful for large numbers of students, and allow the teacher to remain the editor. Also, the paper and the comments remain inside of Google Docs, and their privacy is assured. Brisk is FERPA compliant.

Why the Human-in-the-Loop Matters

Of course, AI feedback is not perfect. Sometimes it’s generic.

Sometimes it misses deeper issues — like plot inconsistencies, organization problems, or unclear analysis.

Sometimes it says something slightly off.

This is why your professional judgment matters more than ever.

You review it.
You personalize it.
You ensure the feedback matches your classroom context and the goals of the lesson.

• AI feedback is a draft, not a finished product.
• Use AI to lighten your load, not replace your connection.

Ethical Use — Big Questions

Using AI for feedback raises important questions - and asking them makes us better educators.

There are real ethical considerations when using AI for feedback:

• Impersonal feedback: If we rely solely on AI, feedback can become generic and lose its relational power. Research shows teachers worry about losing that human touch.
  
• Over-reliance / de-skilling: Some studies indicate that if we lean too heavily on AI, we might weaken our own feedback muscles or hide behind technology.
  
• Transparency: Should students know when feedback is AI-generated? Many believe yes — because it builds trust.
  
• Bias & fairness: AI systems can reflect bias, so we must be vigilant, especially for students who might already be underserved.

Using AI ethically means keeping the teacher at the center — guiding, editing, and making the final call.”

Closing

In short: AI can help us give more feedback, more often — but it doesn’t replace the most important part: you. You bring insight, empathy, and judgment.

As you experiment with Brisk or other AI tools for feedback, I encourage you to reflect on how you're using your teacher voice.

Use AI to boost efficiency — But the heart of feedback — the connection, the encouragement, the nuance — that still comes from you.

Next week, we’ll explore how AI can spark creativity for both teachers and students. From generating lesson hooks to offering creative twists on assignments, tools like Brisk can help educators break out of ruts and inspire new thinking — without replacing the creativity that makes teaching an art.

Thanks for watching - and have a great week!