Designing AI to Support Teachers with Dr. Rachel Book and Charlie Thayer of Lincoln Learning Solutions

Dr. Rachel Book is an education leader at Lincoln Learning Solutions with over 20 years of experience in early childhood and student development. Charlie Thayer, Chief Academic Officer, brings 15+ years in online and blended learning, specializing in scalable, instructionally sound solutions.

💡 5 Things You’ll Learn in This Episode:

1. The difference between generic AI tools and purpose-built AI for education
2. How AI can extend teacher capacity without replacing human instruction
3. Practical AI use cases that support both teachers and students
4. Why AI guardrails, safety, and age-appropriate design matter
5. The risks of AI shortcuts and the importance of building AI literacy early

✨ Episode Highlights:
[00:03:15] Defining purpose-built AI vs. generic AI in education
[00:07:22] Real classroom AI use cases: data insights and teacher support
[00:09:48] AI for younger learners: voice, engagement, and curiosity
[00:12:20] What school leaders should look for in AI tools
[00:14:59] The biggest risks: AI replacing thinking and human interaction
[00:18:57] First reactions to Lincoln AI and the “wow” factor in classrooms
[00:20:29] How AI dashboards give teachers actionable insights
[00:21:50] Expanding teacher capacity through AI-driven visibility

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Dr. Rachel Book: You can find AI everywhere and it's responding. It's what isn't responding or how is it responding? So is it supporting that curiosity? Is it reinforcing sound instruction? To Charlie's point, is it helping the child to think or is it doing it for them? So what I fear for our littlest of learners is that they will mimic adults or others, siblings, things like that in their lives, and realize that it's a shortcut.

In ways that it shouldn't be, and in turn, not going to learn the, let's call it AI literacy, right? How to give it the right prompts. And that's something that we're really intentional with providing students with not only the tool. But ways to utilize the tool.

[00:00:48] Alex Sarlin: Welcome to EdTech Insiders, the top podcast covering the education technology industry from funding rounds to impact to AI developments across early childhood, K 12 higher ed and work. You'll find it all here at EdTech Insiders. 

[00:01:04] Ben Kornell: Remember to subscribe to the pod, check out our newsletter, and also our event calendar and to go deeper.

Check out. EdTech Insiders Plus where you can get premium content access to our WhatsApp channel, early access to events and back channel 

insights from Alex and Ben. Hope you enjoyed today's pod.

Hello, EdTech insider listeners, we have a special podcast today. We have Dr. Rachel Book and Charlie Thayer from Lincoln Learning Solutions. Joining us today. Just a little bit of background before we jump in. With over 20 years in education, Dr. Book is passionate about meeting every student's needs. She holds a doctorate from USC Go Trojans and a BS in early childhood education, plus a master's in ED and school counseling at Lincoln Learning Solutions.

She leverages her expertise. To enhance students' cognitive, emotional, and social development. And then we also have a Chief Academic Officer, Charlie Thayer, a former social studies teacher myself as well. With 15 years in experience in education, Charlie specializes in online learning. His broad experience across teaching, development and administration helps him create efficient solutions to meet diverse educational needs.

At Lincoln Learning Solutions, he works to connect relevant tools. That support teachers and students in various educational settings. Welcome Dr. Book and Charlie, welcome to EdTech Insiders. 

[00:02:35] Dr. Rachel Book: Awesome. Hi Ben. Thank you so much. Excited to be here. 

[00:02:37] Ben Kornell: Before we dive in too far, some of our folks that are listening may not know what Lincoln Learning Solutions is or does.

Can one of you provide just an overview a little bit about Lincoln Learning? 

[00:02:49] Dr. Rachel Book: Sure I can start with that. Lincoln Learning Solutions has been around for a little over 20 years. We are in early kindergarten through grade 12, core and core elective digital curriculum provider, and most recently we've dipped our toe into the world of AI and added a new feature and new product called Lincoln AI, which sits both in our curriculum and outside of our curriculum for other users.

[00:03:15] Ben Kornell: Yeah. So our audience is super excited to hear about Lincoln AI and especially around AI and early childhood and elementary. Rachel, from your years of experience in that space, how do you distinguish between generic AI tools and purpose-built AI design specifically for learning and development? 

[00:03:33] Dr. Rachel Book: Yeah, so if you would've asked me when I was teaching second grade if I thought AI would be in my classroom.

It's been that long. It, I would've never thought so, but when I think about it right now, generic AI tools versus that purpose-built AI for learning. That's the biggest difference, is the intention of the AI tool that is built for the learning for the classroom. So in general, that generic AI, it's built to answer just about anything for anyone, anywhere.

It can be incredibly powerful, but it's not necessarily designed with the child development, the instructional goals, and the classroom realities in mind. So I guess I would say that it's the purpose-built AI for learning and how it starts at a very different place for our students. And it's designed around how the student actually learns, how the teachers actually teach and what is developmentally appropriate for our kiddos.

So I'm excited, and especially in those early elementary grades where all of that matters so much to have something that is that education based. 

[00:04:35] Ben Kornell: Yeah, I feel like we have a lot of these generic or big tech companies coming in with AI solutions, and it's such a blunt tool and it's not really built not only for the learner, but also for the educator and the learning environment.

Charlie, you specialize in online and blended environments. Where do you see this difference between AI, generic tools falling short and purpose-built AI solutions, delivering instructionally sound, pedagogy, and support? So 

[00:05:05] Charlie Thayer: I think a lot of the things that Rachel just mentioned, I could just grab 'em and pull them for my response here.

They're definitely relevant, but I think really the way I would respond to this is looking at generic tools. They're just not purpose built. I know Rachel just said that, but they're not purpose built, right. They're great for basic and broad tasks, and they definitely have their place right. Not taking anything away from those tools and where they exist and the things that they can offer us from a day-to-day kind of productivity standpoint.

But at its core, building instructional materials or building something that can augment what a teacher's doing in a classroom using a generic tools, it's generally gonna fall short because it's not taking into consideration all of those extra nuances that it really needs to. So I think in that way.

Seeking out and utilizing tools that have baked in pedagogy, they've baked in philosophies, they've baked in instructional design. They fine tuned what that tool is geared to do to a specific task or a specific set of tasks. And I think that will help you yield a much sounder, instructionally sound output at the end of that.

And then in addition to that, it's only going to help. Make the folks that are utilizing those tools more effective at the end of the day, if they're spending all their time kind of banging on a tool and hoping that it will perform a specific function for them, they're spinning their wheels, right?

Especially when we utilize generic tools. So I see that happening a lot. I see that happening where we're, Hey, we'll just hop on this generic tool and it can build an awesome lesson for us. Right. Awesome. Cool. That's great. What it's missing is a lot of that context that an intentionally designed tool can bring to the table and help you perform those specific tasks that you need to perform inside of a classroom.

I can draft an email all day long. Easy peasy, right? Maybe gimme a draft of 

[00:07:01] Ben Kornell: some examples, Charlie, just. I think our audience, this resonates, but also people are searching for use cases in AI and education that actually are the beneficial ones. What are some of the most impactful and realistic use cases that you've seen in the classroom?

Both for helping teachers, but also helping meet students where they are. 

[00:07:22] Charlie Thayer: So I think some of the most impactful use cases from my perspective have been the ability to furnish kind of a broader visibility to what's happening inside of a classroom, right? So extending reach of a teacher. And not only just extending reach, but extending the insight that they can have inside of their classroom, right?

So I can take these broad sets of information, this broad set of data, and help us kind of compartmentalize, help us understand, help us kind of see what can and cannot be observed inside of our classrooms in a way that. One human or a couple of humans inside a classroom really can't. There's a lot that happens behind the scenes or happens right under our noses as teachers inside of a classroom that maybe we can't see, especially in online environments, might be harder inside of a physical classroom, but I still think it's applicable when it comes to the ways in which we can.

Aggregate and visualize data that we might already have access to. I think a lot of things that teachers get bogged down with are a lot of clerical tasks that they're focused on on the day to day. AI can help move some of that out the way and then allow teachers to get at what they're doing. So visualizing trends inside of my classroom, or visualizing trends inside of a specific lesson that I've instructed, or something along those lines.

Those kinds of things are really critical for us to bring to the table and help the teacher get at what it is that they're trying to do inside the classroom much more quickly. 

[00:09:03] Ben Kornell: Yeah. I'm curious on the student use cases, I noticed that your products allow both text and voice chat. There's like a way, and you mentioned like in class and then these blended and online.

I think there's an assumption that online learning has been doing this for years, but in fact there's a lot of innovation happening in the online learning space and just the different modalities or being able to do extensions. Sounds really appealing. Rachel, given your pedagogic expertise, especially with younger learners, I could imagine like voice actually being a real unlock when having to type everything out could be a challenge.

Is that a use case that you're excited about? What are some other ones? Especially for our elementary learners with ai? 

[00:09:48] Dr. Rachel Book: Yeah, so it's definitely not, is the AI responding because it is, right? It's everywhere. You can find AI everywhere and it's responding. It's. What isn't responding or how is it responding?

So is it supporting that curiosity? Is it reinforcing sound instruction? To Charlie's point, is it helping the child to think or is it doing it for them? So what I fear for our littlest of learners is that they will mimic adults or others, siblings, things like that in their lives, and realize that it's a shortcut.

In ways that it shouldn't be, and in turn, not going to learn the, let's call it AI literacy, right? How to give it the right prompts. And that's something that we're really intentional with providing students with not only the tool, but ways to utilize the tool so we're not asking it. What we should name our kitten.

It's going to redirect you back to say, I love that you've got a kitten, so it will acknowledge, but we're not here to talk about your kitten. We're here to talk about language arts. Can we talk about nouns today? So it really has a great way of redirecting and keeping students engaged in a way that, again, to Charlie's point, a teacher might not be able to do for 24 or 30 or more students in a classroom.

So not that the teacher isn't available, and we absolutely 1000% are not replacing a teacher, we are being a support to a teacher where those students would have that extra support on the side to ask the questions, and really then in some cases. I feel like I saw the students that wouldn't raise their hand, or I could see the question in their eye when I was teaching.

That wouldn't raise their hand because they didn't want to be embarrassed if they thought their question was silly. With our Lincoln AI, that's not an option. No one else is. On the other end of it, it is just the AI, and they can feel confident in their questions because the responses from the AI are very positive, even if the student is incorrect.

[00:11:49] Ben Kornell: So as schools and districts look at your curriculum and course catalog and they're thinking about your program versus other programs, how should they think about the AI and just putting yourself in the shoes of school district leaders? There's all this controversy about when to use AI or when. From a leadership standpoint, how should they evaluate these types of products and how do you ensure that your product is positioned to optimize on the learning and not on those shortcuts that you mentioned?

[00:12:20] Dr. Rachel Book: Yeah, so that's a great question because we get that all the time. Why is yours better or why should we go with yours? I think in general, for a. Teacher administrator, someone to evaluate different AI opportunities. They have to ask a few questions. Is it grounded in curriculum standards and real instructional practice?

That is gonna be my number one across the board. Then we're looking, is it safe? So we have partnered with AWS and we have the safety guardrails on there through bedrock. Safe. It's private, it's age appropriate. So those are questions you need to know as well. Is it going to talk to my 8-year-old, like they're 18?

That's not safe. That's not a good idea. So we wanna ask those questions. And I think it, the final thing is, does it support the work of the teachers? So like I said, we're not replacing teachers, so how can this educational resource support my teachers through all of the things that I mentioned? Safety, curriculum, aligned, standard, aligned.

[00:13:19] Charlie Thayer: I think all of those things have been fully rooted in the design of our solution, right? Like those principles were there at the onset, and I think we've really tried to do our due diligence to make sure as we've been building those features out, as facets out that we've remained true to them as well.

To make sure that, you know, as we add a feature. We're still kind of revisiting those original principles, those original pieces, to make sure, you know, have we gotten too far away, have, have we inadvertently maybe replaced a feature that really needs to have some actionable intervention included in it.

Right. So kind of making sure that that, you know, we talk about human in the loop when utilizing AI for all the things, it's still keeping that teacher really in that driver's seat and just being, you know, that extension. It's a tool. It's just a tool that can help you be. Much more powerful inside your classroom.

Not necessarily more effective, because we don't wanna, you know, we're not about replacing, but extend that reach, optimize that visibility and things like that. 

[00:14:23] Ben Kornell: Yeah, I mean, you all have been pioneers in personalized learning and helping students, you know, reach their full potential. Are you excited about these new opportunities and gains and also what gives you the most concern?

As you know, Rachel, you kind of talked a little bit about some worst case in the world. What gives you concern as you see kids? Who really are inundated with all of these AI tools, how have you really thought about both the opportunities and upsides given your expertise, but also staying away from those risk factors?

[00:14:59] Dr. Rachel Book: Yeah. I think where we need to be most cautious is anytime that that technology starts replacing thinking, it starts replacing interaction or relationships you've read in the news where some children are talking to AI and feel that it's a real person. So we do a lot with our guardrails to ensure that.

Our avatars at some point will actually say, I'm not a real person. If you're feeling this way, let's go talk to a, an adult that you trust. So I'd say for myself, where I get the most nervous is that distance between what is real and what is not. For our youngest learners and even for some of those middle school's, a really weird age.

I have a middle schooler now, and it's, it's a really, they wanna be accepted so much. So I think that. For me, both personally and professionally, it's the, that very fine line between the reality and what, what isn't real on the other side of AI. 

[00:15:56] Ben Kornell: I mean, I think it's powerful that both of you are educators and have this deep experience.

It's also like a really great use case for Amazon Bedrock, which really is around like putting in guardrails and kind of training. And for those of you who can check it out online, you know your avatars. They're not trying to pretend like they're real people. It's like a tiger who can be fun, engaging, interactive, and help kids get unstuck or help them ask questions, but is not trying to distract from, uh, the actual like, learning experience.

I think it's a really, you know, Amazon should be like using this as a case study. When you show this to teachers, to students. Educators have been around a long time. What's their reaction been? Charlie, I'm curious what you've been seeing as chief academic officer. Are people surprised? Like what's the kind of general response been?

[00:16:52] Charlie Thayer: Yeah, so it all depends on who it is, right? So we have some folks that say, Hey, it's a tiger. Why is it a tiger? Right. And then we have other folks that are like, I love the idea of being able to utilize my mascot. And then, you know, for those first folks that say, why is a tiger? We say, well, you don't have to utilize a tiger.

That's, it's just an option. You know, we're really about kind of baking those options into folks. So that's just kind of the first, the first primer. But when we get into the interaction. Regardless of the avatar, if it's, you know, if it's Link or Tiger, if it's James or Lilly or whomever else we have involved in that experience.

Once you start getting into that experience, I think that's really where the wow factor starts to establish itself, because going through that very quick exercise. To have a dialogue with this avatar, to unpack what you're learning about in a given moment, and immediately start supporting or responding to the inquiry that that student has, whether they say, Hey, I know a whole bunch about this specific concept, or I know nothing.

Right? Link is able to meet you immediately and just kind of tune its responses based on. That, which is one of the things that I, I get most excited about. And it seems like that reception kind of permeates when we have folks observing the tool and, and utilizing the tool. And then when it goes beyond just kind of the interaction supporting with supplemental resources, being able to, uh, you know, assist a kiddo with their homework regardless of the medium.

Uh, that's one of my favorite things, right? I upload. Kind of a handwritten note, you know, a handwritten word problem or something. Link's able to take that, consume it accurately, read it, understand it, and provide guidance to the student as they're going through it. So it's just such a, an adaptable tool to be able to, you know, support learners, assist teachers and the reception.

Always love to see folks' faces when they kind of first see the experience. And walk through. You know, sometimes you get a chuckle when the tiger starts talking or something like that. But positive I think overall. 

[00:18:57] Dr. Rachel Book: Yeah. So Charlie, one thing to add, and Ben, it was something you mentioned earlier about like the differentiation.

You can talk to it, you can type Wow. The aha moments that I get are when Link actually procures. A game, a video, or an interactive learning object right in the chat for the students to interact with and engage with based on what questions they were asking. So if we're asking questions about fractions and it pulls from the repository a video on fractions, it will be age appropriate and engaging for that student.

So they're not just being talked at, they're getting hands-on different activities to do throughout their time. Working with Link. 

[00:19:36] Charlie Thayer: Really hitting that multimodal aspect. Right? Being able to score from all dimensions. 

[00:19:41] Ben Kornell: Yeah. I mean it's so interesting too because across, you know, you have like hundreds of courses and all of these learning objects.

You've got both the embedded AI that helps you when you're stuck in a lesson, but then you've got this overarching AI that really can kind of pull from the full library. I am curious about the role of the teacher and how you're seeing that shift. You have different, you know, Lincoln Learning is an innovator in terms of different learning environments.

So it can be online, it can be hybrid, it can be fully in person. What are the teacher shifts that you're noticing and seeing as they've been able to maybe redirect the student to get the help from their AI assistant rather than them? And what's that doing for teacher capacity to really support the learning journey.

[00:20:29] Dr. Rachel Book: Yeah, so I'll start this one. Charlie, if you don't mind. This makes me really excited. We have a teacher dashboard that the teachers are able to access that highlights what their students are asking. So there's a visual representation of the most asked questions. So that can redirect and guide the teacher on what to enhance more in the classroom, maybe what they need to revisit because more students are asking about it.

They can get the whole class overview or drill down into a student, and that really helps with that differentiation for the students. They can see what that individual student is asking, how many times they've asked it, when they've mastered it in activity, so that they can suggest that the students do go back on and utilize link more often if they're showing low activity.

I really think that it is empowering the teacher with more data. To more directly educate the students to give them more finite direction as to where the students might need help or even interest areas so that maybe they're not doing great in English and they're asking a whole lot of questions about this topic.

Maybe that's the next novel. You have them read something on that topic. So it is as much information as you wanna sit down and take from it to enhance the teaching experience for these students. 

[00:21:50] Charlie Thayer: Yeah, and I think it ultimately, it naturally increases capacity, right? At the end of the day, teachers are wearing so many different hats.

It helps to kind of blend those hats and maybe reduce some of those hats that they have to wear. So increasing that capacity, not necessarily to increase production, so to speak, but to. Help guide a teacher or make available to a teacher more meaningful interactions in the day-to-day, and be able to understand what those insights are.

I know we talked about it a few minutes ago. You know, the ability to have that macro visibility across your classroom, kind of along the same lines of giving the teacher the ability to, you know, just like Rachel said, here's a trend. Here's something I'm going to do. I can see that very quickly and very easily through that dashboard.

So I can take action on it right now and make that move. So I really see this as, you know, just an extension of the capacity, uh, of a teacher who is able to utilize this inside their educational setting. 

[00:22:53] Ben Kornell: Yeah, I love it for what it does for teachers. It really allows 'em to focus on the actual teaching and learning and really lightens the burden on the administrative side.

Charlie, it's like what you said at the opening, which is really like the extendability of that teacher across ecosystem. Well, this is a super fascinating conversation and you know, Lincoln, I can understand why Lincoln learning AI has won the, the awards that it's won. And many people don't realize that you all are a nonprofit.

Is that right? 

[00:23:23] Dr. Rachel Book: We are correct. 

[00:23:24] Ben Kornell: It's just also such a great example of really cutting edge innovation from a nonprofit leader. For those of our audience that wanna follow up and learn more, what's the best way for them to find out more about Lincoln Learning? 

[00:23:38] Dr. Rachel Book: Yeah, so I think the easiest way is probably checking out our website@lincolnlearning.org or our emails.

It's just first initial, last name. At Lincoln Learning solutions.org. So that's for Charlie and myself. 

[00:23:51] Ben Kornell: Awesome, and just note that we'll also have links in the podcast notes with both the website as well as some links to video demos so that you all can check it out if you're listening. Well, Dr. Book, thank you so much for joining us.

Charlie Thayer, thank you for joining us, and thank you EdTech Insider listeners for following along. We'll talk to you all next week. We've got our AI and efficacy webinar coming up. And we hope you'll all join us live to really hear about some of these use cases that Dr. Book and Charlie were talking about and the research and efficacy studies behind them.

Thanks so much for joining. 

[00:24:30] Alex Sarlin: Thanks for listening to this episode of EdTech Insiders. If you liked the podcast, remember to rate it and share it with others in the EdTech community. For those who want even more, EdTech Insider, subscribe to the Free EdTech Insiders Newsletter on substack.