EduCon 2027What Should Students Still Own in the Age of AI?
Generative AI has made an old educational question newly urgent: what parts of learning should remain unmistakably the student’s?
This conversation will not begin with a list of AI tools or policies. Instead, participants will examine classroom scenarios in which AI can brainstorm, explain, revise, code, calculate, research, or produce polished work. For each scenario, we will ask: What is the learning we actually value here? What should the learner still wrestle with? When does AI expand access or creativity, and when does it remove the intellectual work that produces growth?
Participants will bring perspectives from their own classrooms and schools. Small groups will sort scenarios along a continuum from “AI strengthens the learning” to “AI replaces the learning,” then challenge one another’s assumptions. We will identify tensions around feedback, student agency, assessment, accessibility, creativity, and academic integrity.
The group will then co-create a simple student ownership framework educators can adapt when designing assignments or talking with students about AI. The goal is not one universal rule. It is to leave with better questions, shared vocabulary, and a practical process for thoughtful decisions.
Conversational Practice
This session will be structured as a facilitated conversation rather than a lecture.
Participants will begin with a quick individual response to the question, “What should a student never outsource to AI?” Small groups will then receive classroom scenarios involving writing, research, mathematics, coding, feedback, brainstorming, and assessment. Groups will place each scenario along a continuum from “AI strengthens learning” to “AI replaces learning” and defend their decisions.
Groups will rotate and challenge another group’s conclusions. We will then identify areas of agreement, disagreement, and uncertainty. During the final portion, participants will collaboratively build a Student Ownership Framework containing questions educators and students can use when deciding whether and how AI belongs in a learning experience. The finished framework will be shared after the session so the conversation produces a resource that can continue evolving beyond EduCon.
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