AI for Deeper Learning
Competency Framework
- Strands
- 6
- Competencies
- 34
- Indicators
- 340
Every competency has two sides
What adults do
The specific strategies, adult moves and pedagogical approaches educators put into play. These are the inputs: the actions a team believes will catalyze deeper learning. They stay loose and adaptable, because context varies.
“Structuring student discussions.” “Positioning AI as a comparison tool rather than a primary source.”
What learners show
Research-based, observable behaviors from the people the goal serves, usually students and sometimes staff. These are qualitative leading indicators: the evidence that a practice is actually moving someone toward the bigger goal.
“Students comparing AI output with their own thinking.” “Students trying again after a mistake.”
Practices define what you tried. Signs confirm whether it worked. An educator can run a sophisticated strategy, but without an observable change in learner behavior, the competency isn’t validated yet. Tracking the frequency of promising practices alongside a steady rise in observed success signs is how sideby maps professional growth — and how micro-credentials get earned rather than assigned.
Flip any card to see its pair of indicators: one promising practice, one success sign. The full bank holds five of each per competency — 340 in all — and keeps evolving as the technology does.
Professional Habits of Learning & Innovation
The educator’s own practice: a clear why, real goals, honest experiments, and the colleagues you bring with you.
Fostering Critical Thinking & Problem Solving with AI
Learn to interrogate AI output yourself — then design the tasks that make students do it too.
Designing Authentic, Real-World Learning with AI
Use AI to build projects worth doing: real contexts, real audiences, real problems students can act on.
Supporting All Students to Meet Academic Standards with AI
Differentiation, curriculum, feedback, assessment, equity and privacy — the academic core, done responsibly.
Developing Students’ Communication Effectiveness with AI
Drafting, multimodal work, attribution and collaboration — keeping the student’s voice in the room.
Fostering Students’ Learning Skills & Mindsets with AI
Goals, metacognition, responsibility, ethics and productive struggle — the habits that outlast any tool.
The set educators actually pick from
Promising practices
Adult moves educators commit to and track in their small wins.
- Codifying a clear, shared purpose for AI in education
- Positioning AI as collaborator to preserve student (or staff) thinking & ownership
- Creating experiences requiring human capabilities AI lacks (empathy, life experience, moral judgment, etc.)
- Designing AI-supported experiences building on students’ cultural knowledge
- Using AI to design tasks requiring students to vet source reliability
- Using AI to design open-ended tasks requiring original thinking
- Using AI to design collaborative projects or tasks
- Designing real-world AI projects requiring students to address a community need
- Creating AI-generated scaffolds/differentiation strategies ensuring cognitive demand
- Providing AI-assisted formative feedback to students or staff
- Providing self-assessments to gauge understanding or AI interaction (when applicable)
- Using AI to surface patterns about students’ (or staff’s) learning & experiences
- Developing AI operational efficiencies to increase time engaging with students/staff
- Experimenting with creative, novel ways to leverage AI for deeper learning
Success signs
What educators look for in the people they serve. Tagged to the deeper learning competency each one signals.
- Students voluntarily asking questions or engaging in learning activitiesLearning Skills & Mindsets
- Students trying new approaches or retrying when stuckLearning Skills & Mindsets
- Students expressing pride in workLearning Skills & Mindsets
- Students questioning a source’s validityThinking Critically
- Students supporting conclusions with evidence-based reasoningThinking Critically
- Students contributing positively in group workCommunicating & Collaborating
- Students explaining ideas clearly to audiencesCommunicating & Collaborating
- Students weighing several approaches before choosingApplying Learning
- Students applying concepts to new situationsApplying Learning
- Students accurately describing progress toward a goalMastering Academic Standards
- Students revising work or actions from feedbackMastering Academic Standards
- Staff demonstrating increased collective efficacy around AI and deeper learningProfessional Habits
- Staff connecting AI ideas and decisions to a shared purposeProfessional Habits
Built on the field’s best thinking
UNESCO
AI Competency Framework for Teachers
Hewlett Foundation
Deeper Learning Competencies
High Tech High
Deeper Learning Competencies
PSEL
Professional Standards for Educational Leaders
colleague.ai AICE
AI Competencies for Educators
aiEDU
Educator Readiness Framework
TeachAI
With EC, OECD and code.org frameworks for AI learning
This framework is evolving as AI evolves and shifts what this technology can mean for deeper learning and education.