By Tara Koehler and John Sammon,
AI is reshaping education, raising concerns about academic integrity while also presenting opportunities for deeper engagement. Learn how to integrate AI as a collaborative tool rather than a shortcut utilizing PBL to help students critically engage with AI, refine their ideas, and take ownership of their learning, ultimately fostering creativity, problem-solving, and responsible technology use.
The rise of generative AI tools has significantly reshaped education, leaving many educators concerned about maintaining academic integrity. Australian educator Leon Furze, highlighted in Marshall Memo 1053, has observed how effortlessly students can use AI to complete assignments, creating a sense of vulnerability among teachers. Furze states, “I have absolutely no way of knowing whether the work I’m seeing at the end is the student’s, or has been created partially or entirely with GenAI.” His suggestion? Revise assessments to make them resistant to AI misuse.
Building on Furze’s insights, we propose project-based learning as a robust framework for integrating AI as a collaborative tool rather than viewing it as a cheating threat. When students engage with AI meaningfully within PBL, they learn to use it as a tool for brainstorming, iterating, and refining their ideas. This shifts AI from being a shortcut into an empowering co-creator, allowing students to maintain ownership of their work while gaining skills that prepare them for a technology-rich world.
Our approach to AI in education emphasizes guidance over restriction. Rather than banning AI, we teach students how to collaborate with it thoughtfully. Students find great value in using AI to enhance creativity and problem-solving rather than merely treating it as an answer provider. One student said excitedly, “Wow, this is helping me to elevate my thinking!”
With this perspective, PBL becomes an ideal environment to encourage responsible and innovative AI use. By transforming AI into a supportive tool, we can help students leverage AI to foster deep engagement and personal investment in their projects.
Empowering Creativity and Ownership through Collaborative PBL
A powerful example of meaningful AI integration comes from an interdisciplinary PBL project involving sixth and third graders. Although the projects were rooted in science, they required extensive English Language Arts (ELA) work, making them perfect for AI-assisted collaboration. Sixth graders created "choose your own adventure" novels based on space systems, while third graders developed informational texts on ecosystem interdependencies. The completed works were donated to Maria Fareri Children's Healthcare Services at MidHudson Regional Hospital, providing young patients with a thoughtful and entertaining resource during treatment.
Throughout this project, students collaborated, conducted hands-on investigations, and explored literature and media resources. They used design thinking and even participated in virtual meetings with hospital stakeholders to better understand the needs of their audience. Initially, students gathered facts, generated ideas, and drafted their content independently. As the project progressed, however, they began working with AI tools such as SchoolAI and ChatGPT. Students used AI to brainstorm alternative storylines, clarify complex information, and refine their work, but they remained in control of the creative process.
They critically evaluated AI-generated suggestions, integrating ideas only when they aligned with their unique vision. AI was used as a tool for grammar and spelling checks and for refining sentences, but students did not simply accept AI’s suggestions without thought. Instead, they analyzed each recommendation, deciding whether it truly added value. This process reinforced their ownership of the writing process, allowing them to exercise critical thinking and creativity while ensuring that the final product was authentically theirs.
Bridging Knowledge and Communication with AI Support
In an active fifth-grade classroom, students embarked on a project to create scientific models explaining how matter cycles through ecosystems, intending to share their findings with the community through the Dutchess County Environmental Management Council. Their journey began by investigating the properties of matter—particles too small to see and the conservation of matter. As students grappled with these complex ideas, they turned to Brisk Tutor, an AI tool that provided guidance through moments of confusion. The AI encouraged them to connect their knowledge about invisible particles with real-world processes in ecosystems, helping them understand how gases like oxygen and carbon dioxide play crucial roles in sustaining life.
During small group discussions, students shared their newfound understanding that gases are forms of matter, which plants cycle through photosynthesis. These conversations naturally led to the role of sunlight in ecosystems, with students making connections between energy from the sun and the cycling of matter. One group excitedly concluded that solar energy powers everything, from the smallest particles to entire ecosystems, transforming their understanding of energy and matter.
Reflecting on the experience, students expressed amazement at how the AI had guided them through challenging concepts. One student remarked that Brisk Tutor’s reminders about the invisible particles helped clarify the cycling of matter, making the complex concept easier to understand. Their excitement and curiosity deepened as they prepared to explore ecosystems further, equipped with a new appreciation for the invisible processes sustaining life.
Student and AI Innovation in Renewable Energy Design
In another PBL experience, sixth-grade students embarked on a project called Powering the Future: Innovating Renewable Energy with Forces and Motion, where they refined renewable energy prototypes for Central Hudson, a local utility company. Each team developed original ideas for Solar, Wind, Hydroelectric, Geothermal, and Biomass energy solutions. They used Brisk Boost and SchoolAI to refine their designs further, balancing creative inspiration with real-world feasibility.
Students embraced the process with enthusiasm, using split screens on their Chromebooks to compare insights from both AI tools side by side. As they analyzed and synthesized the strengths of each tool’s output, the room buzzed with energy. One team, designing a biomass-powered system, appreciated AI feedback about using recycled materials, which they saw as a way to make their project more eco-friendly. Another team working on solar power enthusiastically discussed a suggestion to use motorized solar cells that would follow the sun’s path, maximizing energy capture.
Teachers observed as students discussed strategies, noting how one AI tool’s focus on energy efficiency complemented the other’s emphasis on real-world feasibility. As students collaborated, the teacher moved through the room, actively engaging in small-group conferences. They asked probing questions and encouraged students to articulate how specific AI-driven insights inspired changes in their designs. By participating in these targeted discussions, the teacher helped students dig deeper into the reasoning behind their adjustments, reinforcing the value of critical thinking and adaptive problem-solving. Engaging AI as a collaborative partner, students felt empowered to refine their designs and took pride in their work, knowing their projects were shaped by their own creativity, enhanced by the tools at their disposal.
As schools across the world continue to integrate AI into their curriculum, human-AI teaming is becoming more than a novel experiment—it is evolving into an essential skill set.
By embedding these human-AI teaming practices into each PBL phase, students gain the skills to navigate technology-rich environments with competence, creativity, and integrity.
Project-based learning lends itself to ethical and productive AI use in several ways. Here’s how PBL can help students collaborate with AI while preventing misuse:
PBL offers a way to reframe how AI is used in education. By incorporating AI meaningfully, students collaborate with AI to enhance their learning while showcasing critical thinking, creativity, and problem-solving skills. PBL shifts AI from being a threat to academic integrity to a valuable tool that enriches the learning experience.
With PBL, students are required to present, reflect, and defend their work. This integration of the human element ensures authenticity, allowing teachers to assess creativity, thought processes, and personal investment—qualities that AI cannot replicate. While AI can enhance learning, it cannot replace the genuine engagement and ownership demonstrated by students in a well-crafted PBL experience.
AI will undoubtedly continue to shape education, but we do not believe it has to be a battleground for academic integrity. By incorporating AI as a collaboration tool within PBL, we open doors to innovative and meaningful learning. Students can take pride in knowing they’ve created something uniquely their own, with AI serving as a supportive tool rather than a substitute for their efforts.
In this way, PBL doesn’t just prevent AI-enabled cheating—it embraces AI as a means to enhance learning, fostering a future where human creativity and technological innovation work together, hand in hand.
About the Authors:
John Sammon - STEAM Professional Development Specialist. I have been an educator for over two decades. My vision as a Professional Development Specialist is to inspire learning through inquiry and exploration. Through such actions, enact beliefs, and values in the people that I work with to grow beyond what was thought possible. I work with teachers and students to actively engage in the collective subjects known as STEAM. My intentions are to deepen understanding through authentic learning experiences, where children engage with fundamental questions about the world and how humans have investigated and found answers to those questions.
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Tara Koehler - STEAM Professional Development Specialist. I have been an educator for over 20 years. My vision as a Professional Development Specialist is to inspire teachers to incorporate 21st-century skills into their STEAM practices. Students learn best by "doing" rather than being told, with learning not being a one-size-fits-all. Students should be actively engaged in their learning. I work with teachers to create authentic learning experiences for their students that incorporate collaboration, communication, critical thinking, and creativity. Although I am a teacher, I am a forever student. I am always looking to grow as an educator.
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