Opening: Leadership Challenges and AI as a Thought Partner (10 minutes)
Participants are welcomed into an interactive leadership learning experience focused on using AI to support reflection, problem-solving, and action planning.
Through discussion, reflection, and collaborative activities, attendees will identify a real leadership challenge from their own context that they will work on throughout the session.
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Reframing the Challenge (15 minutes)
Before jumping to solutions, participants will explore how AI can help leaders think more deeply about challenges they are facing.
Using a structured process, attendees will describe their context, examine assumptions, explore alternative perspectives, and identify questions that may lead to new insights.
Participants will engage in both individual reflection and peer conversation as they refine their understanding of the challenge they want to address.
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Exploring AI Tools and Leadership Workflows (15 minutes)
Participants will experience a variety of AI tools and approaches that can support leadership work, including planning, communication, reflection, and decision-making.
Rather than focusing on a single tool, the session will highlight how different AI environments can support different types of leadership tasks. Attendees will have opportunities to compare outputs, discuss strengths and limitations, and consider how AI can enhance—not replace—human judgment.
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Leadership Design Lab (30–35 minutes)
Participants will apply the process to a leadership challenge that matters to them.
Working independently and with peers, attendees will use AI to:
* Explore root causes and contributing factors
* Generate and refine possible solutions
* Surface blind spots and assumptions
* Develop actionable next steps
Facilitators will provide prompts, coaching, and examples while participants create a personalized leadership action plan that can be adapted to their own context.
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Community Showcase and Reflection (10 minutes)
Participants will contribute ideas, artifacts, and insights to a shared collaborative space, creating a collection of examples that everyone can learn from and revisit after the session.
Together, we'll identify common themes, surprising discoveries, and practical strategies that emerged across the room.
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Turning Ideas Into Action (5 minutes)
Participants will leave with a personalized AI-supported leadership action plan, practical prompts they can reuse, and strategies for evaluating AI outputs responsibly.
The session concludes with reflection on how AI can serve as a thought partner while keeping human expertise, relationships, and decision-making at the center of leadership practice.
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Engagement and Participation
This Idea Lab is designed as a hands-on experience. Participants will engage in reflection, peer discussion, live prompting, collaborative artifact creation, and shared documentation throughout the session. Activities occur every 5–10 minutes and are designed to balance individual thinking, collaborative learning, and practical application.
Outcomes
Participants will leave with:
* A personalized AI-supported leadership action plan
* Practical prompts and workflows they can adapt to future challenges
* Experience comparing different AI tools and approaches
* Strategies for evaluating AI outputs critically and responsibly
* Access to community-generated examples and resources created during the session
Attendees will leave with a personalized AI-supported leadership action plan focused on one of the five teacher-retention factors: culture, professional growth, mentorship, autonomy, or communication. Working in small groups, they’ll use AI tools to prototype a concrete workflow, communication strategy, or feedback system they can immediately adapt for their own schools. Each participant will walk away with a tangible, shareable artifact.
Buckman, D.G. (2021). The Influence of Principal Retention and Principal Turnover on Teacher Turnover. ERIC. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1342371.pdf
EdWeek. (2025). Want to Retain Teachers? Try These Strategies.
https://www.edweek.org/leadership/opinion-want-to-retain-teachers-try-these-strategies/2025/02
Learning Policy Institute. (2017). The Role of Principals in Addressing Teacher Shortages. https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/product/role-principals-addressing-teacher-shortages-brief
Moreland University. (2025). Teacher Retention Strategies. https://moreland.edu/resources/blog-insights/teacher-retention-strategies
PanoramaEd. (n.d.). Teacher Retention: 5 Effective Strategies. https://www.panoramaed.com/blog/teacher-retention-strategies
WJARR. (2024). Teacher Workload and Burnout Report. https://wjarr.com/sites/default/files/WJARR-2024-3507.pdf
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