Now that there is AI on the scene, a new type of innovation is coming into play to change schooling America’s students. Yes, schooling is about to change, not just they paradigm of how classrooms are run or teaching methods, culture, or themed models like “Tech High School,” “STEM School,” “Fine Arts School,” and other mostly themes rather than a complete shift in the structure/form/model/method of how schooling is executed.

The new innovation on the horizon will redefine the way we think of schools in terms of:

• School Structure (ownership is public or private)
• School Form (configuration of space use, time-use and resources)
• School Model (instructional delivery framework)
• Teaching Method (teacher’s role, techniques and strategies)

All of these definitions will shift as schooling flips how leadership is done to become a technology enterprise with direct delivery of extreme learning personalization first and secondly distributes on-demand human teaching whether on-campus, online or some hybrid. The convergence of all the types of AI will create this, not just Generative AI in the hands of teachers or learners. This will be considered “flipped leadership” because currently the top-level administrators think of their human organizational chart, the campus buildings, the flow of students in linear schedules with full control over subjects and progression by grades with metrics that are fed back to States and the Federal level on long-ago established patterns.

The real shift with AI will change the entire foundation of what we think of as a school or a teacher. What is this vague new structure/form/model/method shift going to be?

Well, it won’t be more of the same. The point at which an inevitable metamorphosis into a something else in structure/form/model/method will explode upwards for a century-turner type new Age will be when Generative AI, Time AI, Recommendations-Engine AI, Agentic AI and other forms of AI converge. Until then, AI will be applied ad hoc as other edtech has already done to the existing overall schooling reality.

The drivers for a metamorphosis happening will be both the epic lack of teachers and the continued and accelerating decline of the traditional schooling model as the one parents and students opt into. In the absence of the new structure/form/model/method already existing, the entire education is groping in the dark toward it anyway, disaggregating into homeschooling and micro-schooling as it seeks the new thing without knowing what it is.

Before explaining what the definitions will probably shift to and why, here is a recap on what’s been tried before for arenas of innovation in schools.

Arenas of Schooling Innovation Already Tried

Learning Counsel Research’s 2023 Digital Transition Survey asked schools and districts to respond as to which schooling strategy innovations they had tried. Respondents could check every category. The survey had 4,912 Responders, 28 percent urban, 39 percent suburban, 17 percent rural and 16 percent other, including online schools and combo districts.

Note upfront that none of these arenas of innovation have worked to turn the tide very significantly for traditional schools. They are still failing, seeing turnover, seeing their market slip away to homeschooling, online schools, and many new alternatives.

The things tried by schools included changing curriculum, which might mean they’ve tried a different curriculum resource (courseware, textbook, any sort of program like a focus on literacy or STEM). The frenzy of focus in this area continued through 2024 and is expected with 2025 surveys.

Culture innovation is normally a new administration-led theme like:

Belonging & Inclusion; Safe, Seen, Supported; Thrive Together; Kindness Counts; Leading with Integrity; Respect. Responsibility. Resilience.; Stronger Together; Partnership for Success; Learner First; Your Future, Your Voice; Show Up for Success; Voices of Many; Unity in Diversity; Future Ready Culture; Innovators of Tomorrow; Learning Without Limits.

Other programs address cultural issues such as high absenteeism, school violence prevention, managing conflict and tension, accommodating different world views.

Adding staff has helped with implementation supports, specifically for Individual Education Plans (IEPs) which in many places nearly every student has, making teachers’ jobs untenable. Dropping to four-day school weeks and dedicating open flex time for students who need to use those hours for catching up has also been a trend.

Schools have attempted to redefine both teaching and student roles, but only within the context of the existing traditional schooling structure of whole-group teaching and learning by grade batches. The overall structure has continued to be thought of as only the alternatives of public, private or online, and many districts have added an online and/or alternative program of learning as a separate track from their campus learning.

Some schools have done interesting things with how they are segmenting by grades or age, sometimes offering placement by competency or interest to students in various ways, yet still within the traditional factory model of schooling.

Less than 20 percent have offered a course versus class orientation, and those were all predominantly online programs or schools with mostly teacher-less structure for courses.

Many schools and districts in the past several years have hired public relations and marketing staff due to steep drops in enrollment.

The AI Convergence

When speaking about AI, it’s important to see how it will impact the future by not thinking of it as a “tool” that will only be used by teachers and students, a sort of quantum chatbot.

There are many other types of AI, and theoretically they will converge to create a new reality. Yes, I am authoring another article on what that timeline looks like and where it leads, so stay tuned.

Meanwhile, here are the redefinitions for school and district leaders, anybody, really, to understand for the future. These definitions allow the real schooling shift to accommodate the forthcoming AI convergence. In particular, Time AI will cause flex-grouped instruction and dynamic pacing for each individual student in sequenced study programs that the AI takes care of socially intersecting with other students and live teaching in asynchronous schedules.

These are the four ways schooling has been defined in the past, with the old thinking and definitions versus the new. These definitions take into account the fact that AI will converge the various “types” into a new holistic reality.