Leveraging AI for Human-Centered Learning

Marlee Bunch is an interdisciplinary educator, author, and scholar. Her research examines the oral histories of Black female educators in Hattiesburg, Mississippi who taught between 1954 and 1970. She is the founder of the un/HUSH teaching framework and author of The Magnitude of Us and Unlearning the Hush. Brittany R. Collins is the Director of Education at Write the World, Inc., a nonprofit dedicated to closing opportunity gaps in writing education. She also works as an educational consultant and professional development facilitator focused on trauma-informed teaching, social-emotional learning, and literacy education.

• Introduction 1. What is AI, Anyway? An Overview for Educators Poetic Reflection: Grounded Generation 2. Applying AI to Human-Centered Pedagogy and Culturally Responsive Teaching Part I: Culturally Responsive Teaching Poetic Reflection: Hang Onto It 3. Applying AI to Human-Centered Pedagogy Part II: Social-Emotional Learning Poetic Reflection: Beside the Vending Machine 4. Using AI to Integrate Cultural Responsiveness and SEL into English Language Arts Poetic Reflection: How to Begin 5. Enhancing Equitable History through AI Poetic Benediction: Wait Here Epilogue: Looking Ahead Poetic Reflection: Gray Replaces White Appendices Afterword

“As we move forward, the content in this book offers the opportunity to embrace and think interdisciplinary in the content provided in teaching and learning. In doing so, students gain computational skills and become better problem solvers in an AI world. Rather than avoid or ban AI tools in the classroom, rich interactions, discussions and problem solving can lend themselves to address societal and community needs. These interactions can offer teachers and educators the opportunities to include issues of ethical and responsible AI uses in the classroom.”—Dr. Fay Cobb Payton, Special Advisor to the Chancellor for Inclusive Innovation, Director of the Institute for Data, Research and Innovation Science, Professor in the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, and Affiliated Faculty in the Rutgers New Jersey Medical School at Rutgers University–Newark, USA, from the foreword“This book provides educators with a thoughtful and practical framework for integrating AI tools into culturally responsive teaching and social-emotional learning (SEL). Importantly, his book goes beyond surface-level technology integration, addressing the equity issues tied to AI access, while offering concrete strategies to enhance middle and high school English Language Arts and History courses—highlighting both the perils and promises that this ubiquitous technology brings. This guide empowers teachers to use AI as a tool to deepen human connections, foster cross-cultural communication, and support emotional growth in the classroom, highlighting how AI can complement—not replace—the critical relational aspects of teaching. A highly recommended book for educators, pre-service teachers, and professional development experts seeking equity-oriented applications of AI in education.”—Jose Ramón Lizárraga, Assistant Professor of Learning Sciences and Human Development and Affiliated Faculty in the Department of Information Science at the University of Colorado Boulder, USA.“Leveraging AI for Human-Centered Learning offers educators a thoughtful roadmap for navigating the rise of artificial intelligence in the classroom without losing sight of what makes learning profoundly human. As schools embrace AI’s potential, this book ensures that students’ social-emotional growth and cultural identities remain at the heart of teaching. Through practical strategies and critical insights, Dr. Marlee S. Bunch and Brittany R. Collins empower educators to leverage AI tools in ways that deepen connection, foster equity and uphold the essential human elements of education in an ever-evolving digital landscape.” —Errol St. Clair Smith, Executive Producer of BAM Education Radio Network“What makes teachers so important is their adaptability. Through pandemics, new approaches, and a changing political landscape that warp classroom teaching (past and present), teachers have stuck it out. The teachers I have gotten to know at this stage in my life, as a high school senior, have shaped me in a multitude of ways. They’ve shown me the role of empathy, hard work, sticktoitiveness, irony, disillusionment, and honesty in learning inside and outside of the classroom. I or anyone else can’t surely determine what direction academia will go in with regard to AI, but I do know that as long as teachers such as Dr. Bunch and Ms. Collins, among many others, are as focused and passionate as before, students are in good hands. At least as long as evil robots don’t attack.”—Cameron Alleyne, student, from the afterword