Take It From Faculty Camp: Three Shifts Worth Bringing Into Your School Year

Earlier this month, GOA welcomed nearly 100 faculty from dozens of member schools around the world for our annual Faculty Camp. Like pre-planning meetings in schools all over the world, this week is about faculty collaboration, curiosity, and preparation for the year ahead. Across time zones and disciplines, our teachers traded ideas, piloted new tools, and established a growth goal that will carry them into their teaching practice this year. Our team shares what stood out to them from this camp experience, organized around three shifts shaping the year ahead.

AI was the unsurprising thread running through nearly every conversation at camp, but the conversation itself had shifted. Faculty were no longer questioning whether to use AI; they were discussing when it enhances learning and when it doesn’t, and where it can take on work that leaves them with more room for the human aspects of teaching. 

What was consistently heard across conversations was the need for intentional decision-making about when and where AI belongs. AI earns its place in our practice when it challenges us to think further, not simply faster, and when it makes more room and opportunity for human interaction, not less. Natalie Broderick, Associate Director of Instructional Practice, noted "a huge shift in attitude from asking…‘how do I make this AI-proof?’ to creating and sharing ways to encourage critical and responsible use." Broderick added that teachers have been framing AI as something meant to augment intelligence, not replace thinking, a distinction that is now shaping how GOA faculty are approaching their courses this year. 

Sarah Prosory, Associate Director of Learning Design, believes this is also reflective of how AI can enhance the student experience by enabling faculty to "lean more into connections with students virtually." We are seeing faculty move past compliance and into genuine curiosity and discernment, treating AI as an instructional design question rather than a policy problem. Our next steps with faculty professional development will continue to expand on and support this approach.

A second shift centers on how faculty are designing the student experience for deeper learning and connection, from strengthening relationships online to building a culture of engagement and collaboration in their global classroom. GOA's Chief Technology Officer Lucas Ames said, "Faculty are thinking intentionally about how to build community early, establish clear routines, and make purposeful use of new tools, including AI, in ways that enhance learning, not distract from it." This intention begins with course design, but it is the strength and development of a student’s relationships with the course content, their peers, and their teacher that define student success.

Ames also pointed to a shift he noticed in the conversations themselves, from talking about tools to talking about student impact. He shared that "the discussion became less about how to use a particular approach and more about why it would help students engage more deeply, collaborate more effectively, or feel a stronger sense of belonging." That reframe, from what a tool does to why it matters, is exactly the kind of thinking GOA's professional learning aims to cultivate.

The third shift isn't about tools or design at all. It is about the educators themselves, and the impact of what they built with one another over the course of the week. It is the connections across time zones, contributions across disciplines, and storytelling across experiences that help to shape and strengthen GOA’s global community of educators. And, the sense of community and belonging that evolved is what drives teacher growth, enhances the student experience, and reminds us all why we do what we do. 

As Sarah Prosory said, "During our faculty mixer, I was able to join small groups of teachers who were meeting for the first time. The joy they shared was felt, about starting something new together, and also the curiosity they had learning about each other's personal lives and teaching experiences…I love seeing how they connect and know they have the same care and connection with their students!" Whether veteran GOA faculty or first-timers, our teachers expressed excitement, optimism, and even a little nervousness about the year ahead, proof that this was less about experience passed down and more about a year we’d navigate together. 

GOA’s Faculty Camp ended on a high note, with our teachers energized and ready to move forward. Our job now is to build on and support that momentum throughout the year. What could this mean for your school and for your faculty heading back to school now? 

Here are three takeaways for your own team:

• Shift the conversation from what AI takes from us to what it can give back. As you head into this school year, consider redirecting your conversations, brainstorming, and exploration toward one question: how can AI help us enhance the human experience of school, for students and educators alike?
• Prioritize people. Make getting to know your students job one this year. Build community in your classroom first; the curriculum can wait a beat. Relationships are the foundation everything else gets built on.
• Extend that same care to your colleagues. Take the same community-building approach you have with students and extend that to your fellow teachers. Keep checking in with each other, keep learning from one another, and keep checking in on the joy of teaching itself. 

This year's classrooms will be shaped by teachers who are more curious, more connected, and more intentional than ever. That's the kind of energy that makes GOA's community thrive and the learning extraordinary.