2025 - CIDDL

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Using Artificial Intelligence (AI) to Support Students with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders (EBD)

Students with EBD often face challenges in emotional regulation, maintaining attention, and social interactions. These are factors that influence both academic and behavioral outcomes. Teachers are turning to innovative tools to address these needs, and artificial intelligence (AI) offers one of the most promising pathways. AI can assist with early identification of emotional changes, individualized feedback, and real-time behavioral support.

Let's Talk AI and Special Education with Host Joe Sabado.

CIDDL Office Hours: The Future of AI Integration

CIDDL’s most recent Office Hours featured Joe Sabado, Deputy CIO at UC Santa Barbara and an influential practitioner-scholar in AI governance and digital leadership (Please check his website, Campus AI Exchange, and our blog post about it). With more than 30 years of experience supporting students and building institutional systems, he offered a powerful and human-centered perspective on the future of AI adoption in higher education, emphasizing responsibility and stakeholder engagement.

CIDDL Office Hours: Smarter Data Analytics with AI

During this CIDDL Office Hours session, Cheryl Lemke, President and CEO of the Metiri Group, a consulting firm dedicated to advancing effective uses of technology in education, walked participants through a practical, seven-step workflow for using generative AI to analyze open-ended student and educator responses. The session highlighted how AI can streamline thematic analysis, accelerate reporting, and support evidence-based decision-making, while still relying on human judgment to ensure accuracy and fairness.

student raising their hand in a classroom

Artificial Intelligence and Executive Functioning: Enhancing Attention, Self-Regulation, and Planning in the Classroom

Executive functioning (EF) refers to the set of cognitive and emotional processes that allow learners to plan, focus attention, remember instructions, and regulate behavior (Diamond, 2013). These skills are essential for achieving academic goals and developing independence. Many students, particularly those with disabilities or emotional and behavioral needs, struggle with EF skills such as working memory, planning, and inhibition. These challenges can make it difficult to maintain focus, organize tasks, and control impulses, hindering learning and engagement.

Future of Teacher Preparation in the Age of AI: CIDDL at TED 2025

This past week, the CIDDL team joined teacher educators from across the country at the Council for Exceptional Children’s Teacher Education Division (CEC TED) conference in Kansas City, MO. Even in the conference’s main keynote by Dr. Mary Brownell, focusing on the history and future of teacher preparation, AI surfaced as a central theme shaping how we prepare tomorrow’s educators. Across sessions, conversations made clear that AI is not a distant horizon but a present reality reshaping instructional design, professional learning, and the broader education landscape. CIDDL contributed to this conversation through three presentations and a keynote panel discussion where CIDDL PI Dr. James Basham served as a panelist on how to prepare special educators in a time of rapid technological change. Here are some key themes that emerged from the CIDDL sessions.

Special Education Teachers’ Use of Generative AI

The brief begins with context on the background of AI integration in education, focusing on special education teachers’ early adoption of generative AI tools. Audiences will learn about the current usage patterns among special educators, the factors that influence their decision to use (or not use) AI tools, and the practical implications for professional learning and teacher preparation. Drawing on Naatz and Ruppar’s (2025) exploratory survey, this brief highlights actionable insights for designing ethical, effective, and inclusive AI training that reflects the realities of classroom implementation and supports teachers of students with extensive support needs.

A group of young adults smile and work together over tech devices and coffee.

Rethinking How Students Interact With AI: Toward Human-Centered Learning

Artificial intelligence (AI) has become a buzzword across education, with its potential for personalized learning, real-time feedback, and data-driven insights. However, as the conversation progresses, one crucial question remains: how are students actually interacting with AI in classrooms, and for whom are these systems truly designed? In our recently published article, Exploring Artificial Intelligence Integration and Student–AI Interaction in K-12 Education: A Scoping Review (published in the Journal of Computer Assisted Learning), we examined 70 empirical studies conducted over the past decade to map how AI is being integrated across school levels, subjects, and student populations. What we found tells a hopeful yet cautionary story about the future of AI in education.

Countdown to TED 2025: Getting Ready Together

This year, the Teacher Education Division (TED) of the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) will be meeting in Kansas City, right in CIDDL’s backyard! The CIDDL team is excited to share its upcoming sessions, engage with colleagues from across the country, and continue conversations about innovation, accessibility, and the future of educator preparation in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). This CIDDL Office Hours offered a sneak peek into what to expect at TED 2025 and how attendees can make the most of their time at the conference.

A group of professionals talk through a presentation, What is AI Literacy. They all are using tech devices.

Teaching AI Literacy: Efforts, Challenges, and Emerging Practices

AI literacy has rapidly become a cornerstone for preparing learners to thrive in a technology-driven world. As Ng and colleagues (2021) argued, AI literacy consists of four interrelated domains—know and understand, use and apply, evaluate, and ethics—reflecting both conceptual and behavioral dimensions of human–AI interaction. This framework positions AI literacy not as a technical specialization but as a foundational cognitive and ethical competency.

Campus AI Exchange: A Growing Hub for Responsible AI in Higher Education

Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming education in many ways. It can provide personalized learning experiences, timely feedback, scaffolding, and enhanced accessibility for all learners. Postsecondary students, in particular, have been among the most active adopters of AI because of the complexity of their academic tasks and their ready access to technology (Nie et al., 2025). At the same time, many faculty members remain cautious. Concerns often center on the risk of overreliance, in which students may bypass opportunities to practice critical thinking and problem-solving (Gerlich, 2025; León-Domínguez, 2024). Questions of academic integrity add further tension, as higher education has long emphasized originality and honesty in student work. In response, universities across the United States and beyond are developing policies and guidelines to promote responsible AI use while protecting student learning.
One emerging resource that brings these efforts together is the Campus AI Exchange. This platform curates institutional strategies, policies, and tools to help campuses navigate the challenges and opportunities of AI.

Year: 2025