What Happens in the Living Lab?

WLA educators pilot AI-supported instructional strategies aligned to mastery-based learning, real-time feedback, and student agency.

These strategies are refined through cycles of observation, reflection, and iteration.

Participants in the DC AI Collaborative observe AI in action during real classes. Sessions include:

• Classroom visits

• Facilitated reflection with WLA teachers

• Analysis of instructional design decisions and outcomes

The focus is on learning from practice, not evaluating teachers.

The Living Lab hosts cross-school design studios where educators from WLA and partner schools work together to co-design AI-supported lessons, workflows, or policies.

In these sessions:

• Educators bring real instructional or operational challenges from their schools

• Teams prototype AI-supported approaches collaboratively

• Ideas are pressure-tested against equity, feasibility, and responsible-use principles

• Designs are refined based on classroom realities and community considerations

Design studios move the work from observation to collective creation, ensuring that solutions are shaped by multiple school contexts and not owned by a single site.

The Living Lab creates structured opportunities for policymakers and system leaders to learn directly from classrooms where AI is being used in real time.

Through guided visits and facilitated conversations, policymakers:

• Observe AI-supported instruction in practice

• Engage with educators and school leaders about implementation challenges and tradeoffs

• Learn how policy decisions around privacy, accountability, and technology procurement play out in real classrooms

• Ground future guidance and regulation in lived educational experience rather than abstraction

These experiences help bridge the gap between policy and practice, ensuring that emerging AI policies are informed by classroom realities and aligned with the needs of students, educators, and families.