Summer is here, and across the country, districts are planning their professional development calendars. If your district's summer PD lineup does not include meaningful AI training for teachers, you are wasting a critical opportunity.

I say this with love and with 28 years of experience sitting through summer PD sessions that ranged from transformative to torturous. I know what works. I know what does not. And most of what I am seeing districts plan for AI professional development falls squarely into the "does not" category.

The Problem with Most AI PD

Let me describe the typical AI professional development session I have observed over the past year. A district brings in a presenter - sometimes an outside consultant, sometimes a tech coach who got tapped because they "know about AI." The presenter shows a slide deck. They demo ChatGPT. They show some impressive examples. They mention the importance of academic integrity. Teachers leave with a handout and a vague sense that things are changing.

That is not professional development. That is a demonstration.

Real professional development changes practice. It gives teachers time to experiment, make mistakes, ask questions, and connect new tools to their existing expertise. A one-shot AI demo does none of those things.

What Effective AI PD Looks Like

After running dozens of workshops and training sessions over the past year and a half, I have identified the elements that actually move the needle for teachers.

Start with Teacher Needs, Not Tool Features

The biggest mistake I see in AI PD is starting with the technology. "Here is what ChatGPT can do. Here is what Gemini can do. Here is what Copilot can do." Teachers tune out because none of that connects to their Tuesday morning.

Instead, start with what teachers are already struggling with. Differentiation. Grading efficiency. Creating engaging materials for diverse learners. Parent communication. IEP documentation. Then show how AI tools can address those specific pain points. When a teacher sees AI draft three differentiated versions of a reading passage in 30 seconds, the lightbulb goes on in a way that no feature tour can match.

Hands-On Time Is Non-Negotiable

Teachers need to use the tools themselves, in the session, with support. Not watch someone else use them. Not follow along on a shared screen. They need their own devices, their own accounts, and their own time to experiment.

I build at least 60% hands-on time into every workshop I run. That might seem like a lot, but it is where the real learning happens. It is where teachers discover that AI sometimes makes things up. It is where they learn to write better prompts. It is where they start to see both the potential and the limitations.

Subject-Specific Applications Matter

A generic "AI for Teachers" workshop is better than nothing, but not by much. An ELA teacher and a math teacher and a PE teacher have fundamentally different needs and concerns. The ELA teacher is worried about students submitting AI-written essays. The math teacher wants to know if AI can generate practice problems aligned to specific standards. The PE teacher is wondering if any of this is even relevant to them (it is - think adaptive fitness plans, sport strategy analysis, and health education content).

The most effective AI PD I have delivered has been subject-specific or at least grade-band-specific. When teachers can see how AI applies to their particular context, engagement and follow-through increase dramatically.

Build in Follow-Up

A summer workshop without follow-up is a summer workshop that gets forgotten by October. The most effective PD programs I have seen include check-ins during the school year - monthly meetups, online communities, or coaching sessions where teachers can share what they have tried, troubleshoot what went wrong, and celebrate what worked.

This is where something like iTeachAI Academy comes in. I built the platform specifically to provide the kind of sustained, self-paced learning that a single summer workshop cannot deliver. Teachers can take a course over the summer and continue building their skills throughout the year.

A Sample Summer AI PD Framework

If I were designing a three-day summer AI institute for a district (and I have done exactly this), here is how I would structure it:

Day One: Foundations. What is AI? What can it do? What can it not do? Teachers use AI tools themselves to accomplish real tasks they already do. The goal is comfort and demystification, not mastery.

Day Two: Integration. Teachers work in subject-area or grade-level teams to design AI-enhanced lessons or assessments. They create at least one artifact they can use in the fall. Coaches circulate and support.

Day Three: Policy and Practice. Teams develop classroom-level AI use guidelines. They create a plan for the first month of school - how they will introduce AI to students, what norms they will establish, how they will handle academic integrity. They leave with something actionable.

Then, critically, schedule monthly follow-up sessions for the fall semester.

The Stakes Are Higher Than You Think

I keep coming back to the equity argument because it is the one that should keep administrators up at night. Districts that invest in quality AI PD this summer will have teachers who can guide students to use AI responsibly and effectively when school starts in August. Districts that skip it, or phone it in, will have teachers who are either ignoring AI or improvising.

The students who suffer most from that gap are the ones who always suffer most - students from communities where school is their primary point of access to technology and the adults who can contextualize it.

Summer is a gift of time. Let us use it wisely. Our teachers deserve AI professional development that respects their intelligence, builds on their expertise, and gives them genuine tools for a genuinely new challenge.

Janette Camacho, Ed.D., is the Founder and Chief Learning Architect at iTeachAI Academy (classes.iteachai.co). She is a Google for Education Certified Trainer and Coach, FETC 2024 Featured Presenter, Adobe Creative Educator, and Apple Teacher with 28+ years of K-12 classroom experience.