Digital Learning Intern Exploring the Impact of AI on Education Policy

If there is any remaining doubt that AI tools are becoming common in the student experience, consider that an Every Learner Everywhere digital learning intern discovered us by asking ChatGPT for opportunities that would help her learn about education policy and research.

Taniyah Taitano is a sophomore at Spelman College in Atlanta majoring in political science and pursuing a secondary teaching certification, and she is a student government leader. She first started to think about the importance of digital learning last year, as part of the service-based Bonner Scholar program.  Taitano was assigned to work at an elementary school, and that prompted her to reconsider her earlier plans to become a lawyer.

At the school she saw firsthand how education policy can shape day-to-day instruction. “I had to ask myself,” she says, “‘Well, where do you want to make the most impact?’”

One answer, she felt, was in conducting research to find ways to improve education in the United States. She believes the use of AI in digital learning can be part of the answer.

Advancing AI and digital learning

Taitano understands not everyone working in education shares her opinion about the value of digital instruction and AI’s role in enhancing it. In 2024 she had a summer fellowship as a social studies instructor for middle school students in Norfolk, Virginia — her hometown — in an enrichment program where she had been a student herself.

During that fellowship, she was part of a conversation about AI in education, “and I think I was really the only one in the room who advocated for AI usage,” Taitano says.

“My thesis is that AI isn’t going anywhere, and technology is going to continue to advance. So, instead of shying away from it, we should have courses on digital learning and the appropriate ways to use AI.”

This year she will return for her second fellowship there, and she anticipates looking for ways AI tools can assist in providing instruction that meets state education standards.

Offering one-stop access to AI tools

As it happens, not only did AI help Taitano find an internship on education policy, it pointed her to one where AI would be a theme. Taitano and her fellow spring 2025 Every Learner interns are studying the use of AI in digital learning and developing a toolkit of resources that instructors and students can use to incorporate artificial intelligence products into their work. They are seeking a platform to provide information about and access to AI tools that educators can use in digital instruction and that students can use in their studies.

The work continues the efforts of previous cohorts of Every Learner interns who conducted research to explore what types of AI programs instructors and students are using.

Taitano hopes the resource she and the other Every Learner interns are developing will be an eye opener for other instructors who also are curious about ways to use AI but don’t know where to start. The goal, she says, is to produce a higher education-focused one-stop shop source of information about AI tools for digital learning.

The key to the toolkit’s success, Taitano says, is to make it useful enough to attract a large number of instructors and students to the platform. And that will require research to ensure the product is hitting the mark.

Spotlighting AI in education, careers

Taitano hasn’t completely ruled out her initial plan to become a lawyer, but her current plan is a career where she can conduct education policy and research. After graduating from Spelman in 2027 she wants to pursue graduate degrees and to work in higher education. She also wants to spend some time working in classrooms to stay abreast of issues affecting educators.

Her work with Every Learner is helping her prepare for those efforts while also advancing the effective use of AI in digital learning.

“Everything for me goes back to education,” Taitano says. “If I don’t understand it, I want to learn more about it. So, my hope is that the work we’re doing prompts more people who use this toolkit to do more research on digital learning and AI, that it enhances their experience as a teacher or as a student, and that it assists them on their academic or professional journey.”