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From policy to practice: supporting the future of AI in education
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AI can be a powerful force for improving learning outcomes for everyone, yet many education leaders lack the clear policy guidelines needed for responsible implementation. To help bridge this gap, we recently hosted a series of AI Policy & Guidance Labs in six countries: Brazil, India, Malaysia, Mexico, Spain and Sweden.
We convened seasoned education policy experts with primary, secondary and higher education leaders to move from high-level vision to clear, actionable plans. By the end of these sessions, participants left with formal Position Statements and 12-month implementation roadmaps tailored to their unique needs. We worked with external experts to build an experience that was product-agnostic, so the policy plans could apply to the use of any generative AI platform or product.
Our focus within the AI Policy & Guidance Labs is to work alongside educators to use AI as a transformative tool for the specific challenges they face. Here’s what we learned from these sessions.
What educators shared with us
Over the course of these labs, participants gave us key insights that will shape how we support the education community moving forward:
- Frameworks are just the beginning: Guidelines matter, but the real breakthrough happens when education leaders have dedicated time and space to cross-pollinate ideas and solve problems together.
- There is power in shared language: One of the most significant hurdles in policy is the gap between technical terminology and pedagogical practice. By establishing a common vocabulary, teams were able to move past "vendor-speak" toward strategic ownership, ensuring that administrators, IT leaders and teachers were finally solving the same problems.
- Peer learning is necessary: Whether in Stockholm or Kuala Lumpur, teams were hungry for real-world case studies. Educators want to know how their colleagues around the world are navigating these changes without losing the "human" element of their systems. To support this, Google for Education has recently launched our Global Google Educator Group for primary and secondary educators and Google Faculty Groups for higher education faculty.
- Practitioners need to use AI as a partner: We heard clearly that for AI to succeed, it must be positioned as a partner to deepen an educator’s practice. Resources like our Google AI Educator Series are designed to support this expertise rather than attempting to replace human judgment.
- Educators must be in the lead: Teachers are not mere monitors of student AI usage: they need to be in the lead. Teachers decide when and how to use AI in the classroom, according to their school and national policies, and student needs. Teachers guide students in learning what AI is and is not, as well as how to use it safely and effectively. For example, when AI should not be used, and how to critically engage and build with AI, rather than using it to do the work for them.
How we’ll build for the future
Our goal is to take what we’ve learned from this pilot to create a scalable, "out-of-the-box" model that can support K-12 and higher education systems anywhere in the world. By acting as a pedagogical partner from the ministry level to the classroom, we can ensure that the transition to an AI-enabled future is safe, equitable, and — most importantly — driven by the educators who know their students best.
