The TEACH Framework.
A memorable, five-step decision model teachers can hold in one hand. Not a tool list — a way to decide when and why AI earns a place in a lesson, and when professional judgment should keep it out.
Target the learning outcome before anything else.
Evaluate what students should do themselves.
Apply AI purposefully, where it earns its place.
Check accuracy and bias before it reaches students.
Human reflection and assessment close the loop.
Why a framework, not a tool list
Tools change every term. A framework gives a school something durable: a shared language for the decisions teachers are already making alone, in the margins of their day. When a department adopts TEACH, planning conversations shift from “which app?” to “what is the outcome, and does AI help or interfere with the evidence of that learning?”
How each step works
T — Target the learning outcome
Begin with the standard, competency, or skill the lesson serves. If the outcome is unclear, no tool will rescue the lesson. Naming the target first keeps AI in service of learning, not the other way around.
E — Evaluate what students should do themselves
Ask which parts of the work build the skill you're actually assessing. If the struggle is the point — drafting, reasoning, retrieving — protect it. AI can scaffold around the struggle, not replace it.
A — Apply AI purposefully
Where AI genuinely helps — brainstorming, generating variations, producing scaffolds, translating, levelling text — use it with intent. Apply it to a purpose, not as a default.
C — Check accuracy and bias
AI hallucinates and carries bias. Before anything reaches students, a teacher reviews for accuracy, fairness, and fit. Checking is non-negotiable, not a final flourish.
H — Human reflection and assessment
The teacher closes the loop: reflection, conferencing, and assessment that draw on professional judgment. The human stays at the centre of the grade, the feedback, and the relationship.
A teacher planning a Grade 10 Spanish unit uses Target to name the communicative outcome, Evaluate to keep oral practice student-led, Apply to generate differentiated reading passages, Check to vet translations and cultural accuracy, and Human to assess through conversation and a rubric she designed herself.
Adopting TEACH in your school
Workshop 3 (Ethical Assessment) and Workshop 4 (Curriculum Design) both teach the framework in action. For department heads and administrators, Workshop 6 (AI Leadership) shows how to embed TEACH into policy and professional learning so it survives staff turnover.
A stable method in a rapidly changing field.
Learning comes first
Start with the outcome, not the tool.
Teachers remain responsible
Review, revise, and own every instructional decision.
Human thinking must remain visible
Protect the cognitive work students need to perform themselves.
Efficiency cannot lower expectations
Use AI to remove friction, not rigour.
Ethics is part of design
Address privacy, bias, accuracy, authorship, and access from the beginning.