The New AI, Part 14: AI and the Classrooms of the Future

Episode Topic: AI and the Classrooms of the Future

Navigate the evolving generational divide in our classrooms. Join Fr. Nate Wills, C.S.C., Ph.D. ’99, ’03 M.Ed., ’05 M.Div., as he explores the intersection of Catholic tradition and generative AI. Discover how to preserve the “productive struggle” of learning while leveraging technology for teacher empowerment. Explore why human flourishing remains our ultimate educational goal.

Featured Speakers:

• Fr. Nate Wills, C.S.C., Ph.D. '99, '03 M.Ed., '05 M.Div., University of Notre Dame

Read this episode's recap over on the University of Notre Dame's open online learning community platform, ThinkND: https://go.nd.edu/967cd2.

This podcast is a part of the ThinkND Series titled The New AI.

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Transcript

Podcast Welcome

graham-wolfe_1_03-17-2026_111925 0:10

Welcome everybody to the new AI Project podcast. My name is Graham Wolf. I'm a senior at the University of Notre Dame and the program director of the new AI projects Today we're excited to welcome Father Nate, a Holy Cross priest and faculty member at the University of Notre Dame. He's an associate professor of the practice at the Alliance for Catholic Education and has a background in both teaching and researching technology and K 12 environments. He's also the priest in residence of Keo Hall and the chaplain of the Notre Dame football team. We're thrilled to have you on to apply some of our research into AI's Sociotechnical impact to this fascinating topic. yeah, and it's a pleasure having you here. Is there anything else you'd like to add to that intro?

fr--nate-wills--csc--phd_1_03-17-2026_111925 0:46

No, I think you got it. Thanks so much, Graham. Appreciate it. I'm glad to be with you guys.

graham-wolfe_1_03-17-2026_111925 0:50

Awesome. Yeah, likewise. and on the, new AI project side, we've done some great work over the past three years of developing a team of what we call student experts who each write in their own domain of ai. So that's ranges from tech titans to AI at work, taming ai, AI and life and research revelations. So there's really something for everybody and. We encourage our listeners to check out the new AI project on LinkedIn after this podcast. and joining us from our team today is student expert Mary Claire Anderson, who's just some great, done some great work over the past two years researching what we call life and labor where she examines in many ways the ai, deployment impacts commerce and work and also day-to-day life. So I'll pass it over to you for your introduction. Mary Claire.

mary-claire-anderson_1_03-17-2026_111925 1:31

Yeah. Thanks so much Graham, and thank you Father Nate again for joining us today on the new AI Podcast. as Graham said, my name is Mary Claire Anderson, and I'm also a current senior here at Notre Dame. I write the life and labor column as again, Graham mentioned, and I've previously written some pieces on AI's impact at education at all levels from, you know, K through 12 as well as the college level, as well as some related subjects like the AI generational divide. So I'm super excited for today's conversation and to get your expert opinion on the subject matter.

fr--nate-wills--csc--phd_1_03-17-2026_111925 2:00

Thanks so much. Glad to be here.

graham-wolfe_1_03-17-2026_111925 2:03

Awesome. All right, so let's jump in. I think what would be most helpful upfront is just sort of, if you could maybe situate your, expertise or your experience within the K 12 world. Before we dive into all the many ways that AI is kind of shaking things up. where does your background lie? Like what, what most, what have you most focused on throughout your career, within the K 12 space? and, you know, what do you care about most?

Blended Learning Research

fr--nate-wills--csc--phd_1_03-17-2026_111925 2:25

Yeah, it really started, I mean, gosh, 20 years ago when I was teaching high school in Chicago. And, I ended up teaching some courses on technology. And it was really fascinating to see, why, students who are otherwise really kind of uninterested in school were like, really plugged in when it, you put'em in front of computers and something. And I, I was fascinated by this idea like, what's going on here? What's happening? You know, in their brains and their motivation. And so I went to grad school at the University of Wisconsin Madison, go Badgers. And, I, I did my doctorate in educational leadership and policy, and my focus was on technology policy in K 12 schools and was really interested in this idea of How is technology be used being used meaningfully in the classroom? And I was kind of frankly disappointed by the research that was out there. It was a lot of stuff like, it was a lot of oh, should, are iPads effective? And, you know, should we be using clickers in the classroom? And, you know, that, that type of thing that really focused on the device and not the learning process. At that same time, really interesting, programs and sites that were, trying to personalize learning. were emerging. You're using, algorithms to, you know, assess where a student is at, give them some kind of diagnostic, and then, deliver them content that was at their just right reading or math level. This was kind of created for. You know, e-learning or cyber schooling. Right. but a lot of teachers started using this in the context of the classroom. We call that a blended learning approach. Right. And I was like, that, that's interesting. That's helping teachers, that's helping students. And so I wrote my dissertation on a couple Catholic schools that were using a blended learning approach and my research in kinda academic. Space has really been focused on how do we empower teachers with really powerful tools of technology so that they can differentiate their instruction to meet the needs of every student. They can make targeted interventions and then make really helpful, you know, groupings or, just get a lot more data about where their students are at. because for years we've, we've told teachers like, Hey, it's really important for you to differentiate your instruction. And then giving them zero tools to be able to do that. besides like a couple like leveled readers in a classroom where they're like, well, I guess I'm a level three and he's a level four. Right. but I'm convinced that technology has a really, great potential, to meet the needs of a lot more learners, and to help them succeed in school.

graham-wolfe_1_03-17-2026_111925 4:50

Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense. in, in so much of what we talk about, in regards to AI in various deployment context, not even just education, is that like personalization level where it can kind of. devote attention that otherwise would be very difficult to find and allocate, devote attention to different reading levels, for example, but also like competency levels, for anybody trying to learn anything or trying to really implement anything, whether it's in, you know, the workplace, or even in the home or for, an older person trying to, trying to keep up with the times or trying to learn something or a less technolo, technologically literate person trying to do the same. So I think that's, something that, that's an, objective. plus for this technology, it's, it's, kind of infusing this additional capital into the system that allows for a really great degree of personalization. so yeah, it, it's interesting to hear that that's kind of something that's, in stride with many of the, the advancements that have happened in, in technology education well before ai.

fr--nate-wills--csc--phd_1_03-17-2026_111925 5:53

Yeah.

graham-wolfe_1_03-17-2026_111925 5:54

that's some really helpful context, I think. and just kind of building on top of that, I, I wanna ask, what do you see as sort of the biggest merits or demerits for AI in the classroom? I'd imagine, again, that level of personalization is really certainly exciting to somebody like you who's, who's had a focus on that for, for many years. but also there's, there's gotta be some kind of balance there between. sort of over individualizing the education or, or sort of overdoing it on that, on the, on the, technology front. So I, I'm curious, you know, what are some of the biggest upsides and downsides? Just again, in a really broad level.

fr--nate-wills--csc--phd_1_03-17-2026_111925 6:28

Yeah, I mean, your, and your question's an interesting one about AI in the classroom, right? and when I'm talking to, to a lot of teachers and, administrators at Catholic schools right now, I, what we're really talking about is how to make good decisions about what the role of AI is in the classroom. Is it more on the resource production side, right? Is it more for a teacher outside the classroom to say, okay, look, I I'm gonna have my students read this passage tomorrow, and I know not everybody is at a sixth grade reading level, so I'm gonna, you know, upload this to Gemini and have it write at a more sophisticated and less sophisticated reading level. That's a really tough thing for a teacher to do, right? but you know, some of these, large language models are able to do that very quickly. And pretty effectively. So, that's on the resource production side. On the actual, like using AI in the classroom, that is where things get a little trickier, because, The point of many of these, AI assistance, you know, or a large language of models, is to make things really efficient and quick. and you can see the context of how this is useful in, you know, business context, in, you know, the, in the, the, trying to build efficiencies. and learning isn't always about efficiency. In fact, it's really hard to learn a quick way. Like we're not like uploading. Concepts and skills to the matrix here, and just oh, I, I know kung fu, right? we, we can't do that. We, we can't build skills like that. If anybody, know, if you've ever, done something like learned a language, right? It takes a long time and it's hard and it's, it's clunky and actually making mistakes is part of it. and so we don't want to take the, what we would call educationally, the productive struggle. Out of, education. so I often will ask questions about, teachers using AI in the classroom. Is it really a value add? Is it really something where you couldn't otherwise do that? in, you know, without this, now there are some use cases where I've seen that, for example, you know, a, a teacher will say, wow, I've have my students have a conversation with Abraham Lincoln, you know, as a, you know, the, you know, a sign, a chat bot that I identity. And I'm like, okay, then that's, that's interesting. It's a little, it to me, that's a little gimmicky in a, in a sense. okay, well is that, is that core curriculum, right? Is that like core stuff? and I do think that there's quite a bit of danger in saying well, I just use AI to outline my paper, right? And offloaded the thinking, the cognitive load to, these, large language models. Which I think are really effective and efficient at doing some of this stuff. But my worry, the downside there is that, it can rob students of that opportunity to really struggle. Right. And nobody would say, I mean, I use analogies to this all the time, right? nobody would say that, you know, Tell telling a kid that, you know, they're the often people will use this idea of a forklift in a gym, right? Like a fork can lift in a gym, can lift a lot of weights, but like, all you're doing is this, right? You're not actually, you're, you're just pressing a lever. You're not doing anything with it. and so that's not helping you get stronger and people who are, you know, really serious about, you know, being, being an athlete or getting in shape. We will tell you that, that there aren't shortcuts, right? Like that you have to actually show up, you gotta do the work. And the same thing is true of learning. So that's a long answer to your question, but I, I think it's, my worry is that now there are some really interesting use cases in the classroom. Sorry, I should complete that thought. My worry is that people are going to take shortcuts, and, and not give themself the, the full opportunity to struggle with ideas before they've mastered those ideas. There are some really interesting use cases of, AI in the classroom and the, but these are more like, really specific, right? like I, I often talk to teachers about things like Conmigo, right? Where, Khan Academy trained, tech GPT to really be a tutor, right? And to be kind of on rails. It won't give the answer, it'll just act as a tutor and we'll give you, you know, examples or. it'll kind of guide you along your learning. and that's a really helpful use of ai, potentially in the classroom, but probably more helpfully like outside of school, for studying. which I think is a very helpful use case there. in the classroom though, I mean, I, I've seen very few products where I think, wow, that's, that's really awesome. One example of something that, that I think is pretty cool, is, is a program called Amira, where, It's giving students the opportunity, to do fluency testing in their reading by giving them novel passages and then listening to their, their fluency in reading. that's actually a really, hard thing for teachers to do. They can do this testing that's called dibbs testing, maybe a couple times a year. because it's really labor intensive that, that a teacher has to sit there and, and look at, you know. passage and mark things that a student struggles with, and AI can do that really well and give a lot of data points, about something like that. So that, to me, that is the potential of some of these things. but it's real specific. and, and I don't think we should just say, be like, yeah, let's deploy all this stuff.

Generational Divide

graham-wolfe_1_03-17-2026_111925 11:45

Yeah, that, that makes a lot of sense to me. and actually, fun fact, one of the first people we had, as a part of the series come on and talked to us was, Kristen Serbo, who is Chief learning expert, or Chief learning officer at Khan Academy. So she talked all about Riga as they were building it. So that's really cool. And I, I would agree that, I think, I think especially what came out of that conversation was like. It, it, it, there's this kind of scramble to just fill every gap that you could possibly identify in education with some kind of technology. but, you know, the, the ones that are gonna last, the products that are really gonna be helpful are those that are, you know, leave in that level of struggle and the labor intensive nature of learning. And I think that's proven true for the products you've identified there. It's, it's, you know, some niche learning cases, but you know, equally that kind of mirror the real. Organic struggle of learning. yeah, again, I'm just shocked at how much overlap there is between the stuff that we've been looking at in, in college and the workplace and K 12. So, this is really awesome. I think Mary Claire, I'll pass it over to you. Does anything stand out to you or are there any maybe overlaps you'd wanna get into some more with, with, some of your other research?

mary-claire-anderson_1_03-17-2026_111925 12:48

yeah, absolutely. As I kind of mentioned earlier, one of the pieces that I wrote earlier this semester was kind of about the idea of AI and this generational divide, where maybe there's some gaps between how. Students, for example, are perceiving this technology and how teachers, professors, administrators are, you know, perceiving it. similarly, like at home for example, you know, kids are oftentimes using these artificial technology platforms, but parents don't necessarily understand, you know, how these platforms work, how they can be used, how they can maybe be dangerous.

fr--nate-wills--csc--phd_1_03-17-2026_111925 13:18

So true.

mary-claire-anderson_1_03-17-2026_111925 13:18

curious, you know, throughout your research or throughout your time, you know, teaching in front of the classroom, have you

fr--nate-wills--csc--phd_1_03-17-2026_111925 13:23

Yeah.

mary-claire-anderson_1_03-17-2026_111925 13:24

any, major different differences or disconnects in how maybe a younger Gen Z student is perceiving in using this technology versus how professors either perceive it being used or how you know they're using it?

fr--nate-wills--csc--phd_1_03-17-2026_111925 13:36

Yeah, I think that's a really important point right now. I, I see this, all the time in terms of, students are using this pretty frequently, in their learning, in their kind of normal day-to-day workflow and. I mean, I, I see so many adults, so many well educated adults who are just like, I haven't touched it. I'm not, I don't mess with that. Right. think. To me. That's okay. I mean, I think, I've actually talked to a number of, of Catholic schools or diocese where, people will take a very principled stance and they're like, no, I will not use AI because of the resources that it's taking from the environment. And I'm like, oh, that's okay. That's your choice. I mean, that, I, to me, that's kind of like driving a car. There's some people who are like, you know, I'm not gonna drive a, a car because it supports, you know, regimes that I'm not comfortable with their treatment of women or things like that. Right? I'm like. You know, good on you. That's, that's beautiful to, you know, if you can ride your bike to places, that's great. similarly though, I don't think any of us have the luxury of just kind of opting out of, a basic literacy about ai just because it's become so completely integrated into so many things. The, just the ubiquity of. right now. I mean, I, I opened up Microsoft Word the other day and it was like the little copilot thing popped up. I was like, what is that? I didn't install that. that wasn't a thing. you know, many of us found that one day we were Googling something and the next day we, we found a little like AI summary, right? of us opted into that. It just kind of appears in the world. And I think, not that every parent or every. professor has to stay up on this stuff as much as we do. but, but at the same time, you've gotta be aware of this stuff because simply put, I mean, teachers are interested in how do I make sure that my kids are learning? do I make sure that they're understanding what I'm putting in front of them? And I would just argue to them that like a five paragraph essay is no longer a marker of understanding. Because for generations we've relied on that and said, you know, oh, you know, the, the, the way to really tell if my students know about the Great Gatsby is to give them a five paragraph essay where they're going to make a claim, they're going to cite evidence, and then they're gonna, you know, bring it home, right. and chat. GPT does that, you know, eats that for breakfast. it does it really effectively. and there's this whole, you know. cottage industry of humanizer out there where you can put something through, a large language model and then put it in a humanizer and it becomes not as detectable. Right. and I think, I think to get in the game for teachers and parents of playing like this, you know, build a better mousetrap game of saying well, I'm gonna catch students doing this, or I, I know. I know what, AI looks and sounds like, I think is, it's a foolish, place to, to be because, we've gotta transform our assessments. We've gotta think, rethink about going to be the real markers for understanding how can we actually understand those things Because the gap is, is pretty wide between people who understand the capacity and capability of these, large language models and the people who are. you know, just kind of like, oh, I don't, I don't really pay attention to it. and so I, I do think that there's a generational gap. part of it's usage and part of it's just interest. I, I think most, responsible parents and, Teachers, educators at this point, have to know some basics, so that they can help their, their kids out. So they can draw really, helpful lines to them and they can ensure that like their kids actually getting educated and they're not just, you know, just taking shortcuts to everything and, you know, and failing in educationally.

mary-claire-anderson_1_03-17-2026_111925 17:32

Yeah, absolutely. I think there was some really, really fascinating points in there. especially on just kind of this note of you know, changing learning outcomes and how we're evaluating learning outcomes, to make sure that students are actually learning. I feel like even in my classes here at Notre Dame, that's kind of a trend that I've noticed where it's like the resurgence of, you know, the Blue Book exam. where instead of your, you know, you're going home and writing an essay on your computer, you're sitting in a debar classroom for two and a half hours and you're writing, you know, handwritten essays in that little blue book. so I am kind of curious on a similar note, how has the ACE Network maybe adapted its policies or its practices, to, you know, just kind of deal with this AI deployment across, you know, education in K through 12 schools?

fr--nate-wills--csc--phd_1_03-17-2026_111925 18:14

Yeah, we're working with a lot of diocese and schools individually, to help craft their, their policy, to help them to understand, more about, to build that basic literacy that I talked about. and I think those are, for most schools, that's where they're at right now. It would be build literacy and then, look at policy. I don't think most diocese are kind of in this place where they're like, look, we're gonna give this comprehensive AI policy from the top down. I don't think most of'em wanna work at that level of granularity. I think they're more interested in saying, you know. here's, what's out there now from, from the perspective of ace. What we're really trying to do is a, a couple fronts we're, we're building on, that literacy to help teachers to understand what's out there in terms of generative ai, what they can expect, and how they should think about. Their own usage of it and students' use of it. But another big piece of it, and this has been a great joy and, and grace to be able to share to people is the church's teaching on, generative ai, which a lot of people are surprised to hear, oh, there's actually church documents about this. There, there have been a thoughtful conversation, for years on this, you know, before chat GPT was rolled out more widespread. you know, we were having this Rome call with a, a, a ton of leaders in this space. So it's been really interesting. To be able to help them understand what the church says about, generative ai, to, to help them to dig into, you know, the Pope's most, recent writings about this Pope Leo. previous to him, Pope Francis really took, on some of the, the i broader ideas there in his document, antique Nova. and, and there's just a lot of other, out there, and Ace really right now is trying to help, You know, at the, the level of a classroom to schools, to, diocese and archdiocese, to build that literacy and, and to help, help teachers in the classroom and, and to make their environments effective and safe for students. I.

mary-claire-anderson_1_03-17-2026_111925 20:13

Yeah, super interesting and obviously so important.

Teacher Skepticism and Low Tech

graham-wolfe_1_03-17-2026_111925 20:17

Yeah. Yeah, I think what I've, what I've kind of heard from these past two talking points, Or two things like Mary Claire was getting at, kind of the goals and the aims of an education, how that's changing. and that's possibly one of the solutions to this kind of generational divide is to kind of reorient ourselves to say, okay, this is here to stay. we need to refocus ourselves on the actual goal of an education and change our markets of that from a five paragraph as stated, something a little bit more robust, that's AI proof. But also what you're talking about here, which was sort of like the urgency assessment, where it's like there is a first step to approach this, like this big giant task. there's, there's a step one, like we don't just need to kind of all freak out into our own thing. like you said, like the first step is literacy, to kind of just build that out across, the, the country across the, our, our education system. So on on, on the, on sort of that topic of like urgency and threat assessment, how would you sort of respond to a teacher who is currently saying I'm so, you know, in over my head and I, I just, I kind of want to use this AI tool and. In a, in a, maybe like a less effortful way. Like I just want to use it to do the stuff I don't feel like doing and I just wanna throw it at my students and see what sticks. Like how would you sort of work with that kind of person and, and tell them maybe you know, where the priorities are. And like I said, kind of threat assessment. If, if you think about it that way or just, you know, in general, how would you, how would you work with a teacher if, if that was, sort of tasked to you?

Empowering Teachers Wisely

fr--nate-wills--csc--phd_1_03-17-2026_111925 21:45

Yeah, I don't, I don't meet a lot of teachers who are like, you know, I, I, I just don't want to do the work. I, I think, most of them are, are, are really deeply interested in what's best for their students. I do think every time you talk about technology in education, there's a pretty high ICH factor from a lot of teachers who are like, Ooh, I, mm, no thank you. I, I will not. in that just because they've been through so many innovations in education over the last 20, 30, 40 years. Right. And, and, and they've seen things come and go. They've seen okay, everything is gonna be MOOCs, right? Everything is going to be, you know, it's, you know, chatboards are gonna, you know, change everything. And they're like, no, they really didn't. so there's, there's, I think, a, a healthy skepticism about the use of technology in the classroom. I think, I think there's room for a lot of teacher approaches to technology in the classroom and it's, and I would say everyone needs to have that baseline literacy understanding that like what's cap, what, generative AI is capable of. Right. at the same time, there are, there's a lot of ways in which, I think you could happily as a teacher just go, no or low tech in your classroom and be fine. Be totally fine. and I, I think many schools have gotten into this idea that because we have devices. we have sunk costs in them, and so we gotta use them, and teachers, I better see those iPads out because we paid a ton of money and we convinced all of our, you know, the people at our auction that we needed this money. And so by God you better put'em in the classroom. And then they get afraid to tell students, put the devices away.

graham-wolfe_1_03-17-2026_111925 23:34

Right.

fr--nate-wills--csc--phd_1_03-17-2026_111925 23:34

this book right now, we're having a conversation. and so I, I think we've gotta be really. We, we've gotta empower teachers with this, ability to say, you know, this is helpful, this is, this, this practice is going to, you know, is an effective use of technology and this one is not. my own, program called Higher Powered Learning here at Notre Dame, that's what we do. We help teachers to understand what is, and useful and what's not. And the reason we're called higher powered learning is one, because we're in the context of Catholic schools, higher powered by God, right? and we believe that every child is created unique, uniquely in the image and likeness of God and deserves an education that's going to meet their unique needs. But also we want to empower teachers, with the data for, for personalization that we want to empower them. With, with powerful tools of technology to make their jobs more easier, more effective, but really to maximize their role as a, a teacher and one who's trying to meet those gaps. we're we're trying to make the classroom as small as possible to give that individual attention, and we can do that by. deploying tools of technology in some cases, effectively. And so, I don't know, I, I dunno if this gets to your question, Graham. but I, but I think it's gonna, it's really interesting, have teachers use technology in meaningful ways that's going to, engage students. and, and while helping them to, to, you know, work with small groups of students, I think I've seen this really effectively in a number of ways. The classrooms that I sat in that maybe you sat in too. for example, when we're doing math instruction was a lot of direct instruction where the teacher is lecturing and saying here's how to do this math problem. Now here's how to do this math problem. And I watched it and I was like, okay. And sometimes I understood and sometimes I didn't. That was how we used class time. Right? And then sometimes we did some practice problems. I've seen teachers use technology really interestingly there in doing something like flipped classroom, right? And saying if I'm gonna do direct instruction, I will let my students watch this as their homework, and that's what they're gonna do. They're gonna watch this classroom that way. I'm not sitting around shushing every kid and no, no, sit down. You know, put down that down, put him down, whatever. Right? they just watch it, you know, on their own time. They can watch it at 1.5 speed if they want to. they can reverse it and, you know, and, and watch it again if they didn't understand. And then at the end of it, I'm gonna give them one practice problem to say, if you understood this. And then, and interestingly, the, this teacher that I worked with gave another question that said, how confident are you? In your ability to do that problem again. based on their answer to that, the next day in class, she used their answer and and their confidence, as a way to do ability groupings. Right? And so she gave, she, she recognized herself like, look, I've gotta reteach this whole thing'cause nobody understood it. Total disaster. Right?

graham-wolfe_1_03-17-2026_111925 26:27

Hmm.

fr--nate-wills--csc--phd_1_03-17-2026_111925 26:28

I've gotta teach it in a different way.'cause people didn't understand what I, the, the approach I was taking, or I'm going to gonna work with a small group of students first to reinforce this, and then I'm gonna let the rest of them, keep working on some problems or do something else that's, an effective use of their time. So that's a, a, an interesting way. And those, that's an example of the type of things that we help to empower teachers with in our work.

mary-claire-anderson_1_03-17-2026_111925 26:54

On the similar theme of kind of empowering teachers. but something also that stuck out to me in that answer was when you said ensuring that you know, every student has access to education and how AI kind of has. You know, the ability to potentially help make that possible. you know, with these things like personalized learning with even, you know, AI powered tutors, and things like that, making things available to students, you know, once upon a time, tutors were hundreds of dollars an hour potentially, and now students can access it, you know, if they have an internet connection. so I think that, you know, there definitely is this one kind of side of things where AI tools can really democratize education and really make it more accessible. to all students. But on the other side, I think there is kind of, you know, a simultaneous, thread where, you know, these AI tools are obviously reach, reaching these well-resourced districts first, and there is kind of, you know, a technological infrastructure barrier as well as an AI literacy barrier, you know, needed to access and to use these AI platforms effectively. so I am curious, you know, in your experience and in your research. you worried at all that this technology is widening existing gaps, or do you think there is kind of this realistic path where you know it's doing the opposite and making education more accessible to students?

Motivation Matters Most

fr--nate-wills--csc--phd_1_03-17-2026_111925 28:06

That's such a great question. I mean, this is the, it's the difference between the potential and the reality of some of these tools, right? The potential is there for access and, and, and, Pope Francis talks about this in, in both in his, comments to the G seven Summit when he did that in 2024 and, in, the document Antiqua Nova, he really talked about the advantage of access right? In an unprecedented way. And I think I totally agree with that. the, that, that, that's the dream, right? that students will use this in a really effective way. think we've probably put our eggs in that basket with the rise of the internet, right? And said there's gonna be this thing where you have access to all the knowledge in the world, and it's gonna be amazing. And we're like, wow, that's great. Turns out it's a dumpster fire of you know, everybody just. know, putting whatever they think out in their, in the world. It's not that, that overgeneralization, but, it's maybe not like the democratization of knowledge that we thought it might be. Right. in some ways, yes. Awesome. but I do think, what is missing there, in, in, in just giving access is motivation. Like you can't always motivate students, for example. So Khan Academy did a, did something that, was kind of mind blowing to me at the time. They put an entire test prep course for, is it the SATI think it's SAT on their, on Con Khan Academy. They did this years ago. And they're like, look, test prep is now free. When I was a, a high schooler, that was like a$3,000 course right. Then I could afford to do that. but like now it's free. Does that mean every student is using it? Absolutely not. Nope. They're not. And they have the data to back that up. and just because something's out there doesn't mean people are going to use it or use it properly. And so I do think, I worry about your exact question about that, that gap widening, between students who are, are just kind of like, eh, school's not for me. and, and they, they wouldn't be motivated in, in the first place to look up, you know, the, these powerful tools or to use them correctly. And then the ones who are being guided in really thoughtful ways, to maximize their learning, maximize their education. and, and, and I think people are really good at motivating. and I think that's why we've gotta really, you know, keep teachers in the loop on this stuff even when, AI tutors get better, right? I think we've gotta make sure that like teachers are there, because they're great motivators, and they're, they're great at just really seeing kids where they're at and holding high expectations for them and encouraging them along the way. So, I, I think I, I'm worried about that as well. And, Yeah, I don't know that there's a simple solution to that, Mary Claire.'cause I think it's, it's something that I, that I do worry about.

graham-wolfe_1_03-17-2026_111925 31:03

Yeah, I think that makes sense. Excuse me. I think that makes sense. And there's sort of. Two different ways that that gap can, manifest. Like you say, the motivation side, but also the resources side. it's, it's, you know, becoming easier and easier as those like barriers to entry kind of lower for a person to kind of jump into these really powerful technologies. And like you say, for the SAT example, it's never been easier, but, at the end of the day, if there's no initiative, you know, what does it matter that the barrier is lower? so yeah, I think that's a really interesting problem and one that. A lot of people would like to just kind of say it's, it, we, we won, we finished because the barrier is lower. But you know, there's still that kind of motivational barrier. yeah, I think that's super interesting and not something we've considered before. I'm gonna jump in really quick on a non conversations just to kind of guide things. Are we good with, in the last sort of five to 10 minutes here, take a look at, I want to kind of land on the idea, like the ideal, if we were to nail this, what would it look like? Kind of question. But before that, I think there's one other thing we could talk about, which you kind of got at, at your last question, which could be a good transition. like how does this compare to other disruptors from the past? Like what can we learn from the internet or other things I have done here at Wikipedia and COVID, like how can we like comp that to like other big moments of pause. does that sound good? Like we do that and then we land on like ideal.

fr--nate-wills--csc--phd_1_03-17-2026_111925 32:30

Yeah. Yeah, I think so. I think I got it.

graham-wolfe_1_03-17-2026_111925 32:33

You too.

mary-claire-anderson_1_03-17-2026_111925 32:34

Yeah, that's perfect.

graham-wolfe_1_03-17-2026_111925 32:35

Okay. Do you wanna ask that question about disruptors?

mary-claire-anderson_1_03-17-2026_111925 32:37

Yeah,

graham-wolfe_1_03-17-2026_111925 32:38

Okay, cool. And then I'll kind of try and do a, like parting question at the end.

mary-claire-anderson_1_03-17-2026_111925 32:45

All right. Awesome.

graham-wolfe_1_03-17-2026_111925 32:45

Cool. Yeah, go ahead and jump in Mary.

mary-claire-anderson_1_03-17-2026_111925 32:48

Perfect. so I think, you know, when we hear about artificial intelligence, you know, whether it's in the news, in the classroom, you know, just the word ai, it's often described as kind of a disruptive force.

fr--nate-wills--csc--phd_1_03-17-2026_111925 32:59

Hmm.

mary-claire-anderson_1_03-17-2026_111925 33:00

and you know, there's this generative AI revolution that people talk about. I'm curious, how does AI's impact thus far in your experience, compare to some of these other, you know, major disruptors of the past, whether that be, for example, the internet. Or, you know, even COVID, and the rise of online learning and, you know, zoom school and things like that. and is there anything that we can learn from these past experiences as we kind of try to navigate this new generative AI revolution?

fr--nate-wills--csc--phd_1_03-17-2026_111925 33:26

I think we have to often ask ourselves what is gained and lost. we don't always have the luxury of saying, you know, okay, we're just gonna step away from this. you know, the, the toothpaste is outta the tube on this one. and, and I think, you know, Pope Leo has been, you know, very, intentional about saying that we can't, engage in technophobic practices, right? we, we shouldn't say oh, this is all terrible. We have to engage the world. We've gotta be a part of it. we have to ask ourselves what is gained and lost. I teach an undergrad course in, innovation in education, at Notre Dame. And one of the first things I do with my students is have them take out a piece of paper and they're all like scrambling, who's got paper? Right? and they have to write down on this a couple of different things. All the phone numbers they have memorized, some of the two of the street names of streets around Notre Dame. What is Notre Dame's area code? What is Notre Dame's zip code? What time zone is Chicago in, right? all of these things that have been sort of, how would you guys do on those? By the way?

graham-wolfe_1_03-17-2026_111925 34:29

I do. Okay.

fr--nate-wills--csc--phd_1_03-17-2026_111925 34:33

My

graham-wolfe_1_03-17-2026_111925 34:33

50.

Limits and Fundamentals

fr--nate-wills--csc--phd_1_03-17-2026_111925 34:33

a couple of'em, right? but in some ways those are like antiquated things, right? Because. You don't need to know. phone numbers. I don't know my mom's cell phone number. That's bad. but like I have all these me phones memorized from when I was a kid because we just had to, there was a time when I needed to know street names. There was a time when I needed to know how to write a check out, you know, and, and, you know, what the area code was in zip codes. you don't need to know some of these things anymore because technology, because of phones, right? Because of GPS, because of PayPal. all these things have made some of these, skills obsolete. And I don't think there's a, I don't think I am less of a person, because I don't have some of these things memorized. I don't think I'm, you know, I don't think students are like, oh, they're, they're less intelligent'cause they don't have, you know. digit phone numbers memorized. No, it's not, it's doesn't work like that, right? it was functional need at the time, but we do have to ask what's gained and lost. So, for example, of the things that many states moved away from was, curriculum rising Handwriting. Right. And saying you know, we don't need to do handwriting anymore'cause people are just typing stuff and we're, we're gonna teach'em typing instead. Right. We're gonna, we're going to have them do that. Well, turns out handwriting's actually really important. it's important in learning, how to, to, to read, right? Because you're making connections between your brain and your hand about the, the sounds and, and I mean all this stuff that you can ask, cognitive psychologist about. But the, the bottom line is they've, brought this back in the state of California as a mandate that kids have to learn how to hand right now. And I think a lot of teachers have brought this back because they said there's a value in this. in a time of generative ai, we've gotta ask ourselves like, what is gained and lost when we're using this technology? what can we, re curriculum eyes, and maybe that's gonna look like being lower no tech in classrooms. it might, you know, there's, there's a whole movement out there of Waldorf schools where kids are, you know, putting down the devices and knitting, right? and they're, they're learning some of these skills. Like that. there are, you know, at least 23 states so far that have banned cell phones in the classroom bell to bell, right? And that's, that movement has been kind of us retroactively being like, Hey, that was kind of a mistake to let kids use cell phones in the classroom, right? Because now we're recognizing that it has an impact on not just their learning, but on their, their mental state, right? and so all those things, to me. Talk about the fact that there are, there are consequences to this. and we've gotta be really aware of what the consequences are. We've gotta be really smart about, You know, thinking through, how are our students being affected by generative ai? And in some cases we're gonna have to, to, think of like, how, what, what do we need to walk back? How can we help them? And, and what's, what are useful limits on, on some of this technology as well? I often will use example of, my brother made a great rule with his, his kids as they're learning to drive that they can't use cruise control for a year. driving and I was like, that's super smart because you've gotta know how to like. You know, control your car. You can't put a kid in a car and say, you know, Hey, push, push the Tesla autopilot button and you'll learn how to drive. They won't, they're not gonna learn. Right? now there may come a day down the road when we're like, Hmm, teaching kids to drive. How quaint, how, you know, don't do that anymore because the robots drive us everywhere. Right. That may come. but at this point, I think we have to think about what are the limits. how can we maintain really robust smart kids who are are, Are discerning. They have a robust spiritual life. they think about discipline in their life and they think about, you know, some of these things that we, that we think are really important values and virtues, that don't always involve taking a shortcut. and because efficiency has become like this rallying cry of our world, but it isn't always the way to, deeper intellectual, or spiritual or physical growth.

Catholic Social Teaching Lens

graham-wolfe_1_03-17-2026_111925 38:44

Yeah. Yeah, I think that sounds right and I think I see a parallel there in when you, when you talk about kind of maintaining the fundamentals or the basics that we, have otherwise. Considered, you know, obsolete because of technology. handwriting is a great example and, and I love that question of what's gained and loss. I think it's a really tactical way of, kind of figuring out what matters and, and you know, where we need to, where we kinda overstepped. And I think we just had a conversation with, some, computer science professors here and, and elsewhere, where, you know, they're kind of, their field is kind of scrambling in a lot of ways, but those that are the most levelheaded are saying. Okay. But we still need to maintain our curriculum for those foundations courses where you are really just learning the basic syntax of coding, the basic packages, the basic, functions, et cetera. even though chat GT is better at that than anything, you know, if you do want to consider yourself a domain expert or somebody who's really well equipped to be a computer scientist, you need to know those fundamentals. Same way you were talking about cruise control and, you know, other, under fundamental other fundamentals like reading and handwriting and, and, and stuff. So, yeah, I think that's, that's, a really important foundation that a lot of, educators ought to, ought to maintain here. And it sounds like they kind of are. So that's, that's refreshing. and then, I, I think the last place that I kind of wanna take this conversation is where you kind of stuck the landing there at the end, which is, we have to make sure that, the things that are lost or gained are. In line with, the overall flourishing of the, of the student and of the person. Values and virtues, I think are, are, are the words you kind of used there. and in other conversations we've had, I've been surprised to find that, Catholic social teaching and its, and its breadth and depth has, is really pretty well equipped to answer those questions. and it sounds like that's what informs a lot of your work as well. So, if you could maybe just put to words a little bit more, about, you know, what you lean from, CST as it, as it pertains to this subject. You know, what are those dimensions of virtue and value that you see being gained or lost in this situation? yeah. How would you try and articulate.

Flourishing and Farewell

fr--nate-wills--csc--phd_1_03-17-2026_111925 40:46

Yeah, there's so many, great parts of Catholic social teaching that are really important and, and bringing us balance right, and, and moving us beyond this question of what can AI do for me to, thinking more broadly of what is this impact on our, on our community, on our world, our environment, right? And how can we work together? to really be thoughtful about our approach here. you know, a a, a key part of, Catholic social teaching and, and a key part of what we believe just in general is the dignity of the human person. And we have to keep that as paramount in the things that we're doing in, in helping kids to be educated. I think, I mean, everything flows from that for me as an educator, to say this is an important job because. Kids are important because, you know, you know, disciples of Christ that are really informed and intelligent and, and seeking their highest potential. that's important. That's a, that's a great goal to do. And I think we've, we can use some of these tools of technology to really enhance and to, to help, students, in their learning, to help them to grow, you know, to, to challenge them at their just right levels. but we've also gotta, you know, ask the bigger questions too, of wait a minute. How is the work that we're doing with this, impacting others? How can we help others to flourish by the ways in which we're using some of these tools? how can we solve some of the big problems of our world? and, and AI is going to be a transformative. In many of these ways that, you know, in, in terms of healthcare, right? in terms of, giving us ideas and new approaches to, to battling diseases and to building efficiency and, and to reducing our waste. I mean, I think I'm excited about those, the, the potential there. but we've gotta think really holistically about how, are these individual tools affecting. the kingdom of God affecting, us as people and helping us to grow. and what, what are the ways in which we can say, yes, this is really great and important and, and we've gotta engage us, and what are the ways in which we've gotta walk it back and say, you know what? Maybe it needs a little more work or maybe we need to just stick with, you know, the, the old fashioned way on some of these things as well. So I think there has to be a real balance there. And I think this is where, good discernment and great conversations like this, I think with, with smart people like you guys, I think is gonna be really helpful for us in, in trying to find solutions because it didn't gonna be old people like me. I think it's going to be, Folks like you are really gonna be thinking about, wait a minute, what impact is this gonna have on my kids and grandkids? And how can we, create helpful limits on some of these, these tools that, are getting, know, less and less limited? And, and, and how can we, use this for the greater flourishing of, of

graham-wolfe_1_03-17-2026_111925 43:50

Yeah, that's beautiful and very grounding, and thank you for sharing that. And, to both of you, Mary Claire, thanks for, for being on and, and sharing your expertise. And, father Nate, can't thank you enough.

fr--nate-wills--csc--phd_1_03-17-2026_111925 43:59

Yeah. Grateful for this time. Thanks. God bless you.

graham-wolfe_1_03-17-2026_111925 44:02

Thank you so much.

mary-claire-anderson_1_03-17-2026_111925 44:03

you.