Educators across Arizona are preparing students for a future that’s anything but predictable. Career paths are less linear, technology is reshaping even small and rural economies, and students will likely move between college, work, service, and entrepreneurship over their lifetime.

The State 48 Graduate Profile is Arizona’s attempt to respond to that reality. Rather than adding new requirements, it offers a shared blueprint for what a graduate should be ready for - no matter where they live or what comes next .

For teachers, the Profile isn’t about doing more. It’s about being more intentional with the work already happening in classrooms.

What the Profile is really saying...

At its core, the State 48 Graduate Profile shifts the definition of success:

Most schools across our region rely on Google Classroom and Google tools, so the updates Google announced today at BETT 2026 are likely to touch a significant number of our classrooms. At a high level, Google is weaving Gemini (their AI assistant) more thoughtfully into Classroom, assignments, feedback, and student learning tools. The goal is to provide practical support, improve accessibility, and offer better insight into learning — while also navigating important ethical considerations around student AI use.

Before diving in, one important assumption:

👉 For our youngest learners (especially K–2), this is not about giving students direct access to AI tools or independent use of Google Classroom.

Instead, these updates are best viewed as teacher-facing supports that may — or may not — fit existing classroom practices. With that, here are some highlights of the new tools and functionality we'll be seeing:

K–5 (Especially K–2): AI as a Teacher Tool

Even without student…

After sharing Alex Kotran’s thoughtful letter to teens about AI and jobs, it felt only right to shine a spotlight on our younger learners, too. 🎉

Enter Amanda Bickstaff from AI for Education, who recently sat down with none other than Ruff Ruffman for a fun, kid-friendly conversation about AI literacy. 🐾🤖

If you’re a K–5 educator, this one’s a total win: approachable, engaging, and perfectly pitched for curious elementary minds. You and your students are going to love it!

If your students have been exploring AI with Day of AI or another curriculum, here’s a fun little tool to bring those conversations to life in a fresh way: AI Trivia Time from Day of AI USA! It’s a short trivia game built for classes that already know a bit about Artificial Intelligence and are ready to show what they know.

👉 Play it here: https://www.dayofaiusa.org/game\

How it works (quick + classroom-ready): Choose a grade band (K–6 or 7–12), create a team name, and select a topic. Read the trivia questions aloud, talk them through as a class, and submit your answers together. Built-in explanations help students dig into the why behind each question, and there’s even a monthly leaderboard with prizes!

This is a true plug-and-play option for busy classrooms. No long setup or extended time block needed. It works well as a quick warm-up, a post-unit check-in, or a low-stakes way…

I recently listened to this episode of the Math and Other Things podcast titled Why Math Identity Matters, featuring guest Liesl McConchie, and it was exactly what I needed going into the new year. The episode highlights compelling scientific reasons why our emotional relationship with math is deeply connected to our academic relationship with it.

What impacted me most was the conversation around the 41-minute mark, where Liesl discusses how teacher belief in students has a surprisingly large effect on student success. In other words, a teacher’s own math identity and attitude toward teaching math cannot be ignored. Liesl shares, “You can make up for almost three years of academic growth just by believing that all of our students can learn math. Go find me an intervention program that can do that.”

That idea is easy to agree with and much harder to consistently practice. One simple way I plan to…

Let’s name the reality: AI can feel daunting!! New tools appear weekly, expectations feel unclear, and many educators are left wondering where to even start - on top of everything else already on your plate. The good news is you don’t need to chase every new platform to support students well.

A recent Forbes article by Mark C. Perna does a great job cutting through the noise by focusing on the AI Skills That Actually Create a Competitive Advantage- and they’re far more human than technical.

Read the article: https://www.forbes.com/sites/markcperna/2025/12/10/the-top-5-ai-skills-to-build-your-personal-competitive-advantage/

The short, educator-friendly takeaway:

• Help students think with AI, not copy from it (compare, critique, improve).

Does your New Year’s resolution involve bringing more phenomena-based learning into your classroom? If so, check out the new phenomena videos from the Carolina Knowledge Center! Each clip is under one minute and perfect for sparking curiosity.

Phenomena are simply “observable, naturally occurring events that are everywhere.” These short clips give students something concrete to wonder about and serve as excellent launchpads for NGSS-aligned, three-dimensional learning.

🧑🏽‍🏫 Teacher Tips

• Use them as quick warm-ups or transitions. Play a video when you have an unexpected 5–10 minutes. Students can jump right into noticing and wondering without any prep.

• Align videos with your current unit. Pick a phenomenon connected to the ideas you're teaching—motion, weather, matter, ecosystems, light, etc.

• Let student questions drive the learning. After watching, ask: “What did you notice? What do you wonder?” Chart student ideas, then revisit and build on them throughout the lesson or unit.

AI isn’t coming — it’s here, and it’s reshaping how we work, learn, and build careers. Two recent pieces — Alex Kotran’s “A Letter to Teens About AI and Jobs” and Mark Perna’s “The Top 5 AI Skills to Build Your Personal Competitive Advantage” — offer a powerful, practical roadmap for helping high school students navigate this future.

🧠 1. This Isn’t a Distant Future — It’s Now

Alex Kotran emphasizes that AI is already disrupting the job market and will only increase in impact as teens enter the workforce. Rather than sugarcoating it, he points out that we don’t know exactly what jobs will look like, but we do know that the old playbook of “study this major → secure a safe job” doesn’t apply anymore — and that uncertainty is a signal, not a barrier. alexkotran.substack.com

➡️ Message to students: It’s less about picking the “right job” and more about building the…

A new federal workforce plan, America's Talent Strategy: Building the Workforce for the Golden Age, released, and even though it lives at the national level, the ideas inside it land directly in our classrooms. The theme running through the entire document is simple: students need relevant, hands-on learning and clear connections to the world they’re entering.

Here’s the quick breakdown - what this plan is really about, what it means for our work, and where it may lead.

1. What the plan is trying to address

Businesses across the country are struggling to find skilled workers, and AI is reshaping nearly every career field. The federal response emphasizes: