How AI Supports Better Thinking on School Teams

What if your teaching team had one more teammate, one who could offer endless ideas, never got tired, and always responded instantly?

At GOA, we’ve been exploring how school teams - department teams, instructional leadership groups, PLCs - might use AI not just to generate ideas, but to improve the quality of their collaborative thinking.

That’s how some school teams are starting to think about AI: not just as a tool, but as another colleague or partner. In a recent conversation between GOA colleagues, the idea emerged that teams can intentionally use AI to expand creative thinking, surface new directions, and energize meetings.

But the more we unpacked this, the clearer it became that the value of AI in this context isn’t just about speed or convenience. It’s about thinking more deeply with AI as a partner. Used intentionally, AI can enhance key processes we know are critical to productive adult learning and decision-making. 

As one GOA team member put it, this works best when teams commit to it: “Whatever we’re brainstorming, whatever we’re talking about, we see what AI generates to see what ideas might be introduced or refined.” When that becomes a norm - AI as a regular thought partner - the collaboration shifts. It’s no longer about who has the best idea, but about how the group, with AI in the mix, pushes ideas further together.

Below, we share four ways that school teams can use AI to support how they think together, backed by principles from neuroscience and cognitive science. 

Imagine a PLC discussing how to redesign an assessment. One team member proposes a prompt, and another drops it into an AI tool. Within seconds, the team can react to what the AI suggests. Maybe it names a strategy they hadn’t thought of or models a new way to structure feedback. In that moment, AI becomes a “third voice” in the room—a neutral, depersonalized perspective that helps the group move past sticking points or surface blind spots. Used this way, AI serves as a metacognitive prompt: What does this perspective reveal that we didn’t consider? 

Cognitive Principle: Metacognitive scaffolding refers to structured prompts or external supports that help individuals and groups monitor, reflect on, and regulate their thinking processes. These scaffolds prompt teams to step outside the content of a discussion and evaluate how they are reasoning, deciding, and interpreting.

This principle invites educators to slow down, test assumptions, and refine their thinking, especially in moments when conversation loops or stalls.

During curriculum planning, a team asks AI to generate a visual mind map or outline of how their units build toward key competencies. They then use that draft as a shared object to critique, restructure, and deepen their collective understanding of learning progression. AI accelerates the process of creating the mental models - so that teams can engage in analysis, not just creation. 

Cognitive Principle: Distributed cognition suggests that thinking doesn’t only happen in our heads; it happens through interaction with tools, people, and shared representations. Making ideas visible helps teams examine, align, and refine their thinking.

A leadership team designing a new professional learning sequence asks AI to draft several formats for session overviews, schedules, or email announcements. This offloads surface-level tasks, freeing the team to focus on alignment with strategic goals and teacher needs. Offloading low-level tasks protects cognitive space for strategic thinking, leading to better instructional and organizational design.

Cognitive Principle: Cognitive Load Theory shows that working memory is limited. By reducing extraneous load (e.g., figuring out how to phrase things, format documents, or generate options), teams can spend more time in germane load, constructing meaning, evaluating trade-offs, and refining ideas.

During strategic planning, a team asks AI: “What would a critic say about this initiative?” or “What unintended consequences might we be missing?” They use the AI-generated pushback to pressure-test their thinking. By generating plausible critiques or alternative framings, AI introduces friction that helps teams slow down, examine assumptions, and build more resilient plans.

Cognitive Principle: Confirmation bias leads teams to seek ideas that reinforce their existing beliefs. AI can serve as a source of counterfactuals, offering divergent perspectives that challenge assumptions and invite broader reflection.

When used intentionally, AI can do more than make work faster - it can make group thinking better. The most powerful use of AI on school teams may not be in what it produces, but in how it changes the shape of collaboration. By supporting the brain's natural limitations and strengths, AI can help teams externalize thought, reduce unnecessary cognitive burden, challenge assumptions, and more quickly see what matters.

As schools navigate increasing complexity, AI offers a new kind of support: not as a shortcut, but as a thought partner.

For more, see:

• Iterating With AI: What To Do When You Are Stuck
• Elevating AI Strategies in Schools: Navigating the Next Wave of Innovation
• 2025 Education Trends and Predictions: Pathways, Curiosity, and Co-Creation in a Blended World

GOA is a nonprofit learning organization that reimagines learning to empower students and educators worldwide. In partnership with our global network of 150 schools, we provide interactive, relationship-driven courses, expert resources, and innovative thinking that help to expand and elevate academic programs. Together, we help students and educators become open to the extraordinary.

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