By Brian Shaw
Classrooms and school systems are as complex today as they have ever been. Increasingly, students arrive at different starting lines; state and local standards can change annually; the mix of digital tools and assessments continues to expand; and expectations are high for educators to deliver rigorous, relevant learning that builds future ready‑ skills. Against this backdrop, it’s easy to dismiss AI as a mere distraction or fall for the hype and expect a magic wand that will erase these daily challenges.
At Discovery Education, we see it differently. K-12 education is in a moment rich with opportunity for student growth, nuanced with varied state standards and district priorities, and laden with technology that is rapidly impacting how teachers teach and students learn. There is no larger moment of ‘disruption’ than the integration of AI in the classroom. We believe AI is not only a tool or innovation, but rather a new ecosystem that schools, and their leaders, need to build knowledge and capacity to keep pace with the world around us.
The measure of innovation is utility; that’s what separates novelty from necessity. When AI is purpose built for instruction, a teacher ends the day with more time, clearer insights, and stronger connections with students; students end the day more engaged, more curious, and more confident. I believe that AI can support district priorities when viewed as an accelerant for the human craft of teaching. This belief is rooted in decades of partnering with educators. It shapes how we design, test, and implement emerging technologies across the Discovery Education portfolio, including AI tools, immersive environments, and the data systems that connect them.
True to our legacy for more than twenty years, we start with high-quality, standards-aligned content, and ready-to-use lessons that achieve both rigor and engagement. We add timesaving AI that respects teacher autonomy and meets learners where they are. We insist that data be actionable in the flow of instruction. And we invest in immersive experiences that allow students to apply abstract ideas. We back that with a commitment to responsible innovation, including professional learning and digital citizenship resources, helping educators and students benefit from the potential of new technologies safely.
That is the evolving K-12 classroom we are building toward: one where AI heightens educator impact, sharpens differentiation, and amplifies the moments that matter most—when instruction sticks and learning grows.
Intentional Innovation, By Design
District leaders are clear: AI implementation must be safe, vetted, and educator centric. Like those education leaders, each day we ask ourselves, “How does this help a teacher teach?”
Every design decision is rooted in this curiosity. AI is not a permission slip to deprioritize quality and safety standards. We’ve codified three non-negotiables that all AI in education technology should meet:
- High-quality content you can trust, paired with purposeful AI. Recommendations, assessments, and scaffolds must be grounded in vetted, age-appropriate content. When a teacher accesses a content recommendation or AI-generated assessment within Discovery Education solutions, they can trust that accuracy, academic rigor, and relevance underpin every interaction.
- Human in the loop, by default. Our AI tools incorporate human involvement and decision-making at every stage. Educators review, revise, and direct judgments. Technology should elevate decision-making for teachers, not replace it.
- Empower teachers by addressing their most important needs. AI enablement should ease the burden of routine, time-intensive tasks that bleed into educators’ evenings and weekends, instead enabling them to make thoughtful, informed decisions quickly. Teacher efficiency and strategic insights compound the positive effect they can have when building relationships that nurture learning.
Collectively, these principles guide innovation for measurable impact. We must focus technology on increasing teachers’ capacity to deliver Tier 1 instruction across their classroom and across their schools, without sacrificing judgment, creativity, or connection.
Real-Time Data to Improve Real-World Decisions
Teachers need clear insight that facilitates decision-making in a real classroom environment. On any given day, one group of students may be breezing through a set of standards, while another runs into an entirely different stumbling block. Educators don’t need more data to discover these realities; they need the right insight at the right moment to tailor teaching at scale.
Our aim is to ensure that every educator is empowered with data in their everyday workflows. Teachers shouldn’t have to chase data from disparate sources while teaching, planning, and assessing. That requires surfacing standard level‑ mastery patterns and understanding gap clusters in routine contexts. When insights arrive, whether before a small group rotation, during exit‑ ticket‑ review, or while assigning practice, the result is targeted action: a timely small group reteach, a supplemental practice set, a concept‑ building simulation, etc. The value of data is realized in these real-time, real-world moments that matter.
AI to Reclaim Every Teacher’s Day
Educators are very familiar with the reality of nights and weekends spent crafting high-quality‑ quizzes and performance tasks. It’s a heavy lift to align to standards, calibrate reading levels, and create multiple versions. Our approach to AI focuses on reclaiming that time while preserving professional judgment and contextual understanding.
One of the clearest examples of our ethos at work is AI TeacherTools | Assess. Available within Discovery Education Experience, the AI tool transforms the assessment workflow. With a few clicks, teachers can produce standards-aligned assessments adapted for reading levels, available in multiple languages, and ready to deploy with answer keys and rubrics. Then, teachers can review and refine as needed.
Because the underlying content is vetted and pedagogically sound, teachers can trust both the quality and fit. This is “time back” in action: minutes and hours reclaimed for formative feedback and responsive teaching. And because teachers remain in the loop, they can easily review, edit, and refine the output.
Crucially, the outputs also feed back into instruction. Assessment results can be viewed through a standards lens to identify specific next steps. The result is a virtuous cycle: rapid creation, informed teaching, and continuous calibration.
Immersive Learning, Embedded in Daily Instruction
The most transformative promise of technology isn’t efficiency; it’s deeper understanding. Immersive learning helps deliver on that promise with interactives, augmented and virtual reality, and more. Increasingly, educators are weaving immersive environments into routine instruction because they help students apply knowledge, not just encounter it.
When learners can explore a concept spatially, simulate real-world conditions, or step into a historical perspective, they build context and connections that traditional methods can’t always replicate. Immersive environments aid inquiry and strengthen comprehension. Crucially, they pair naturally with AI-enabled‑ scaffolds—leveled texts, language supports, guided prompts—so access and rigor rise together.
We’re seeing what’s possible in immersive learning by partnering with industry-leaders like Verizon to maximize innovation and reach while ensuring that the content is pedagogically sound. For example, we’re integrating hands-on, interactive experiences that leverage cutting-edge technologies to make abstract or inaccessible content concrete, memorable, and measurable. This isn’t technology for technology’s sake; it’s about learning experiences that traditional methods can’t replicate. Immersive learning underscores a central truth: immersive learning is a bridge. It connects classroom engagement to career awareness and standards mastery to real-world application.
The growth in immersive learning reflects what teachers tell us they need: engaging resources that fit naturally into daily instruction, uphold standards alignment, and move learning forward. The newest wave of immersive content makes relevance effortless across subjects, from primary source analysis that deepens historical understanding, to variable testing that strengthens scientific reasoning, to scenario-based career exploration that connects learning to life beyond school. When immersive environments are paired with targeted AI assistance, they can transform lessons into experiences, thus raising engagement, accelerating comprehension, and helping every student see themselves as capable learners.
The New Digital Literacy
As AI becomes part of the tools and workflows students and teachers rely on digital literacy expands from “safe use” to sound judgment. Students must evaluate information, understand how algorithms shape what they see, and recognize when technology should complement thinking rather than replace it. AI literacy is now foundational: asking better questions, interpreting outputs critically, and spotting bias or limitations.
Educators face a parallel challenge. Many recognize AI’s potential but want credible, practical guidance and job-embedded professional learning to apply it responsibly. Our focus is to help schools build digital confidence: students who can navigate a complex digital world, educators prepared to lead in an evolving landscape, and systems that adopt new tools responsibly while keeping teaching and learning at the center.
This is why Discovery Education invests in initiatives that build the habits, mindsets, and competencies required for the future. Through our Digital Citizenship Initiative, which strengthens students’ critical thinking, and large-scale professional learning collaborations, such as our work with IBM, we help school communities develop the knowledge and capacity to integrate AI with intention.
At this moment of profound change, digital literacy is no longer a supplemental skill set. It is the foundation of modern learning, and the key to ensuring that AI enhances, rather than disrupts, the human heart of education.
Responsible Innovation, Grounded in What Works
We practice what we preach. At Discovery Education, we are integrating AI tools into our own technology stack to help us respond to educators’ needs through faster innovation. By maintaining a commitment to responsible innovation, we’re ensuring that every new feature and solution earns its place in the classroom.
Emerging innovations must be purpose-built and trustworthy. That means there needs to be:
- teacher agency
- vetted, age-appropriate, and trustworthy content
- explicit alignment to standards and district priorities
- transparent guardrails so educators know what a tool is doing and where professional judgment is indispensable
- a safety-first approach to privacy and security
- continuous‑improvement loop informed by classroom feedback
These are all non-negotiable for implementation in K-12 schools and districts.
For edtech leaders, responsible innovation also requires a commitment to clear teaching and learning gains. When technology is paired with teacher expertise, the results are transformative. For example, in Osceola County, educators using DreamBox Math reported nearly 200% ROI and significant gains on Florida Standards Assessments. Similarly, a large Arizona district found that students using DreamBox Math at higher frequencies performed better on end-of-year math assessments across multiple subgroups, demonstrating the power of adaptive learning tools. From these specific examples, there are three key principles to responsible, results-oriented implementation:
- Simplicity and fit. Tools that integrate cleanly into existing ecosystems and routines, so the best experience is the least disruptive one.
- Evidence and efficacy. Valid measures that show AI moves mastery, engagement, and equity across contexts and student populations.
- Capacity building. Ongoing, job-embedded professional learning that builds the knowledge to adopt AI with integrity and confidence.
Done well, emerging technologies come arrive in classrooms faster than before, helping teachers see more, reach more, and achieve more for every learner.
A Future Built with and for Educators
As new technologies reshape the possibilities of teaching and learning, the path forward must be grounded in what has always mattered most: the expertise, creativity, and humanity of educators. Technology alone cannot solve the challenges of modern classrooms. However, technology designed with intention, anchored in trusted content, and informed by district priorities can meaningfully lighten burdens, sharpen instructional impact, and expand what students believe is possible.
At Discovery Education, we are committed to building that future in partnership with school systems across the country. Our vision is clear:
- AI should amplify the work of teachers, not overwhelm it.
- AI should elevate students’ curiosity, not replace their thinking.
- AI should make teacher workflows more efficient, not more complex.
The next chapter of K-12 teaching and learning will not be defined by tools, but by trust. Edtech leaders must earn educator trust with innovations that respect their judgment, strengthen instructional rigor, and keep students at the center. When we build responsibly, listen deeply, and focus relentlessly on real classroom needs, technology fosters powerful teaching and joyful learning.
About the author
Brian Shaw is the Chief Executive Officer of Discovery Education, where he oversees the creation and implementation of the company’s award-winning, state-of-the-art digital services.
Prior to his current role, Brian served as Discovery Education’s Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer. Brian joined Discovery Education from Red Ventures, a Charlotte, North Carolina-based, technology-enabled portfolio of digital companies, where he led numerous strategic finance initiatives and managed M&A transactions.
Brian holds both a Bachelor of Science in Management Information Systems and a Master of Science in Accountancy from Wake Forest University. Along with his wife, daughter, and son, he makes his home in Charlotte, North Carolina.
