When OpenAI released ChatGPT in November 2022, that was the AI assistant that everyone was talking about. (At least after we realized it existed … and once we were able to remember the letters “GPT”.)
Then came Google Bard (which is now called Gemini) … and Microsoft Bing (which is now called Copilot).
OpenAI was the new name with the trendy product — ChatGPT. Google and Microsoft were established players.
Around the same time, Anthropic released its AI assistant — Claude. For lots of folks, it flew under the radar. It wasn’t the trendy product everyone was talking about (ChatGPT). It wasn’t a household name for a tech company (Google and Microsoft).
But as time has gone on, more and more people — including educators — are being drawn in to Claude as their go-to AI assistant tool.
Including me.
Now, Anthropic has released Claude for Teachers, an offer for teachers to get premium features for free for a full year. Let’s dig into it …
Why I use Claude — and what I use it for
In my position (providing tech/AI workshops to teachers and writing this newsletter), I keep premium accounts for three main AI tools — ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and Claude.
I use them for different things. Here are my personal observations from my use (which might be different from yours!) …
ChatGPT is a good all-around quick response AI tool. I LOVE that I can hit the little speaker icon at the bottom of a chat response to listen to it text-to-speech. (This is my favorite when I’m out jogging … I’ll voice type a prompt and listen to the response almost like a custom podcast.) Its image generator is really good right now, too.
Google Gemini connects really nicely to all of my Google services. It’s even integrated into tools like Docs, Slides, the Google Chrome web broswer, etc. Its image generator is really good right now, too. Plus, I can use it with my school Google account and get secure interactions that don’t train the AI model.
Claude seems to give the most insightful responses. It does the best job telling you when it doesn’t know something and when there’s nuance you need to pay attention to. Claude’s models, to me, seem to be a bit smarter than Google Gemini and ChatGPT. (But that’s just me.) It does not have an image generator, but it will make amazing designs with HTML that visually organize things. Plus, it’s really good at vibe coding a quick app.
What is Claude for Teachers?
Claude for Teachers is a version of Claude built specifically for verified K–12 educators in the United States.
Once verified, educators get access at no cost — and Anthropic says educators who sign up by June 30, 2027 receive a full year of access.
Right now it's an individual educator offering, not a school- or district-wide product. Anthropic has said a dedicated offering for schools and districts is coming soon.
The difference isn't just a special teacher-flavored chat window. Claude for Teachers connects Claude to:
Academic standards
Learning progressions
Evidence-based curricula
Teaching-specific AI skills
Classroom data workflows
K–12 education tools
Recurring tasks and automation
AI professional learning
How to set up Claude for Teachers
I’ve been using Claude for years, but I just set up my Claude for Teachers account on my school email this morning.
You can go here to learn more about Claude for Teachers and to start the verification process.
(FYI: When I did mine, I clicked “verify” and had to set up a new account with my school Google account. Then I had to go back and click the “verify” button AGAIN to actually start the verification process.)
Here’s how long it took me …
I started my verification at 9:28am.
I finished the verification process and submitted it at 9:36am.
It took me a few minutes to find a verification document. I used a pay stub with all of the sensitive information blacked out. A school ID or employment letter will work, too.
I was verified at 9:46am. It took 10 minutes to get access to the premium (and teacher-specific) features.
I finished filling out their teacher survey by 9:51am.
My set-up process took a little more than 20 minutes all together.
The settings page after my Claude for Teachers was set up.
8 things you can do with Claude for Teachers
In many ways, Claude is a lot like ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Microsoft Copilot and lots of the other AI assistants (aka “LLMs” or “large language models”). You can ask it to explain things to you, answer questions, write first drafts of text, and more. It can be a great teacher planning tool and instructional aid.
But the Claude-specific features? Here’s what makes it different …
1. Plan lessons from your actual state standards.
One of the biggest differences with Claude for Teachers is its connection to Learning Commons, a standards database that gives Claude access to academic standards across all 50 states.
Claude can also access the smaller learning competencies underneath a standard and the order in which students typically learn them. It actually works from the standards — and the learning progressions underneath them.
2. Build from evidence-based curriculum.
Claude for Teachers also connects to established curricular resources — Anthropic specifically highlights OpenSciEd and IM v.360 from Illustrative Mathematics.
That means you can use Claude to help plan instruction from existing, vetted curriculum instead of asking AI to invent a lesson from scratch every time.
3. Differentiate one lesson for multiple students.
Claude for Teachers includes a teaching skill built specifically for differentiation.
Give Claude a lesson and ask it to adapt the materials for students at different readiness levels. It can generate a differentiation plan along with personalized student-facing materials for different proficiency levels.
4. Analyze a whole folder of classroom data.
Claude for Teachers includes Claude Code and Cowork, which let Claude carry work forward across files and workflows instead of treating every conversation as a blank slate.
Anthropic describes a scenario where a teacher hands Claude a folder containing things like:
A student roster
Diagnostic results
Attendance information
Teacher notes
Other classroom data
Claude can analyze those materials together to help build a clearer picture of student needs. Imagine a workflow like this: Monday you upload diagnostic results, Tuesday you add your notes, Wednesday you add student work — and instead of starting over each time, Claude works across the whole collection.
That could help you spot:
Class-wide strengths
Common misconceptions
Students who need additional support
Potential instructional groups
Areas that need reteaching
Caution: Anthropic says Claude for Teachers data isn't used for model training, and that student information is protected by its K–12 Data Processing Addendum. But it’s a good practice to strip out any student personally identifying information (PII) before giving it to Claude.
5. Automate something you do every day
We have plenty of tasks that aren't hard but are tedious and time-consuming. If we do them over and over again, we might benefit from an automation. Exit-ticket analysis is a good example: collect them, read through them, figure out what students understand, spot misconceptions, decide what to do tomorrow.
Claude for Teachers can take some of that off your plate. Anthropic specifically describes using Cowork to schedule a recurring task that reviews the day's exit tickets, identifies what students mastered, and adapts the next day's instructional plan — automatically, in the background, before you even open your laptop the next morning.
6. Connect Claude to your edtech toolkit.
Claude connects with edtech tools you might already be using, like: ASSISTments, Brisk Teaching, Canva, Coteach, Diffit, Eedi, MagicSchool, Snorkl, and TeachFX.
The more these systems can talk to the tools you already use, the more useful the whole stack becomes.
7. Use teaching-specific AI skills.
Claude for Teachers comes with teaching skills, co-developed with Learning Commons around tasks that teachers have identified as important. They’ve been evaluated for rigor, pedagogical alignment, and classroom usability, and refined using feedback from real classroom teachers.
8. Learn AI fluency along the way.
Claude for Teachers also includes access to AI Fluency for PK–12 Teachers. The course is model-agnostic, practical, Creative Commons licensed, and built specifically for educators.
It covers questions like:
Which classroom tasks are appropriate for AI?
How should teachers work effectively with AI?
How can educators use AI responsibly?
How should teachers approach AI with students?
5 things you can try first
Once your verification goes through with Claude for Teachers, here’s where you might start …
Connect to your standards. Pick one upcoming unit and ask Claude to help you understand the learning progression behind the standard.
Build from your curriculum. Give Claude a lesson or resource you're already using and ask it to help you adapt — not replace — it.
Differentiate a lesson. Take something you're already teaching and create different levels of scaffolding while keeping the learning goal intact.
Analyze one set of student work. Try Claude with a collection of exit tickets or student work you're authorized to share, and ask: What patterns do you see that I might miss?
Automate one repetitive task. Find something you do every afternoon or every week, and ask: Could Claude handle part of this workflow for me?
