Private AI Coaching Gives Colorado Teachers Room to Reflect (via CPR News)

A recent feature from Colorado Public Radio explores how two Colorado school districts, Adams 12 Five Star Schools and St. Vrain Valley School District, are using AI-powered coaching to give teachers a private, low-pressure way to improve their practice.

Reporter Jenny Brundin profiles teachers and administrators across both districts who are integrating AI Coach into professional development. The tool lets teachers record a lesson, upload the video, and work through a guided self-reflection conversation with an AI coach. No one else watches the video. No one else reads the feedback. That privacy, according to the educators interviewed, is what makes it work.

Key takeaways from the article:

1. Privacy removes the performance pressure of traditional observations. Melissa Borfitz, a 24-year-old computer science teacher at Thornton High School in Adams 12, described AI Coach as less stressful than in-person evaluation. “The really nice thing about this AI coach is that when I take a video of myself, only I get to watch it and so, it’s very private and that makes me a lot less nervous about teaching in front of someone,” she said. For a third-year teacher still building confidence, that low-stakes environment is the difference between going through the motions and actually examining her practice.
2. Self-reflection leads to concrete classroom changes. After reviewing her video, Borfitz noticed she tended to circulate on only one side of her classroom, causing students to cluster on the other side. She changed that. She also discovered she wasn’t speaking as fast as she thought. The AI prompted her to set a specific goal: finding a better way to hold students accountable beyond walking the room. “I’ve gotten better at my job, woo-hoo!” she said.
3. AI coaching supplements human coaches rather than replacing them. Rebecca Bergstrom, Adams 12’s induction coordinator, said the district sees AI Coach as a way to prime teachers for deeper work with human coaches. “It really allows our coaches to come along at the right time, and say, ‘OK, so you selected this goal and you’re kind of thinking about it, going about it in this way, let me help you with that a little bit.’” she said. Adams 12 is in the first year of a three-year pilot, with new teachers required to complete two AI coaching sessions per year.
4. Veteran teachers in St. Vrain Valley gravitated to AI Coach. Diane Lauer, St. Vrain’s chief academic officer, said the district expected new teachers to be the primary audience. Instead, veteran teachers gravitated to the tool, often using it to experiment with new approaches. “They can take a lot more risks when it’s 100 percent private,” Lauer said. “They’re really able to use it as an imaginary friend, partner, coach.” St. Vrain also uses AI Coach for new math curriculum training and state literacy requirements.
5. The tool has real limitations, and the districts know it. Seventh-grade English teacher Cleveland Smith, who piloted the tool in St. Vrain, said he wanted it to analyze his video directly, like tracking student engagement in real time. It didn’t. Instead, it prompted self-reflection. “For me, it didn’t seem like the tool was where I wanted it to be in order to make it worth my time,” he said. But both districts position the tool as a supplement, not a substitute. “What makes a human coach wonderful is you can have a relationship with that person,” Smith added.

How AI Coach works

Teachers record a video of their lesson and upload it to the platform. AI Coach scans the recording and guides the teacher through a structured self-reflection: identifying skills to work on, reviewing time-stamped moments from the video, setting goals, and creating an action plan. The entire process is private. No administrator, coach, or colleague sees the video or the conversation.

In Adams 12, the tool costs $1,980 annually for up to 20 teachers and $4,990 for up to 100 teachers. In St. Vrain, teachers rated as effective or highly effective can submit an AI Coach session report as part of their formal self-evaluation.

The coverage from CPR also notes that an EdWeek Research Center survey found more than half of teachers are comfortable with AI-assisted coaching, and that research on teachers watching themselves on video shows clear benefits for professional growth. As Lauer put it: “Even when you have a human come in, they bring in their own bias. You hear their feedback, but you don’t see yourself teach.”

Read the full article, “Can AI replace human coaches when it comes to teaching teachers? Not quite.”.

To learn how AI Coach supports private, on-demand teacher reflection, visit the AI Coach page.