How These Teachers Use AI in Their Daily Work

The Young Women’s Leadership School of Astoria is one of six Young Women’s Leadership Schools in NYC.

By Lauraine Langreo
Originally published by Education Week on February 14, 2025

Yana Garbarg, an English teacher at the Young Women’s Leadership School of Astoria, an all-girls public secondary school in the Queens borough of New York, was hesitant to try generative AI at first, because of its ethical implications and her fear of “automation bias”—thinking that suggestions or work from AI are inherently better than what humans can do.

Now, Garbarg reads all her students’ essays to get an overall sense of their “glows and grows.” Then, she puts students’ writing into a generative AI tool—in this case, MagicSchool.AI—and instructs it to write feedback based on a set of criteria and her thoughts.

AI has made her feedback become “more like a narrative” for her students, which is better than “some ugly red markings” on their papers, Garbarg said. The technology has also made her feedback more timely and more comprehensive.

Before using AI, Garbarg still identified “glows and grows” for students, but she didn’t have time to pull out examples from their own writing to support her feedback.

“[AI] just helps create less burnout for teachers and makes your job feel more manageable,” said Garbarg.