AI Tools for Teachers
Category

AI Grading and Feedback Tools

Feedback is the most personal part of teaching that AI touches in this directory, so the ground rule comes first: nothing here should assign a final grade without you. What these tools can honestly do is shorten the distance between a student submitting work and receiving useful comments — first-pass notes you review, rubric-aligned suggestions you approve, instant feedback during practice when you cannot be at thirty desks at once.

The time saving is real but narrower than marketing suggests. Auto-scored multiple-choice checks free minutes; thoughtful essay feedback still needs your judgment applied to a draft the machine produced. Teachers who report the biggest gains use these tools on the repetitive middle of the feedback load — the comprehension checks, the routine rubric rows — and reserve their own attention for the comments that change how a student thinks.

One more distinction worth making before the listings: feedback volume is not feedback quality. A tool that helps you return comments faster is only winning if the comments were worth returning. Everything below is judged by that standard — does it help you say the thing you were already going to say, sooner — and nothing here is judged by how futuristic it looks on a vendor's homepage.

Two policies to check before adopting anything in this category: whether your district or school permits AI assistance in grading at all, and whether parents were informed. Where the answer is unclear, use these tools on practice work first, graded work only after you have a clear green light.

How to read the privacy flags on every listing:
  • District-ready signal: the vendor publishes FERPA/COPPA compliance documentation — still verify your district's approval list.
  • Check first: consumer tool — do not enter student-identifiable information; confirm district policy before classroom use.
  • Teacher-only: safe for your own planning and drafts; keep all student data out.

Brisk Teaching

Feedback assistant inside Google Docs

What it does
A browser extension that works directly in Google Docs, Slides, and Forms: it drafts feedback comments on student writing, adjusts reading levels of texts, and builds questions from documents or videos you already use.
Best for
Google Workspace classrooms where written feedback on documents is the weekly grind and switching to a separate platform would never happen.
Time it saves
Comment drafting at scale — instead of writing similar guidance thirty times, you review and refine suggestions already anchored in each document.
Free tier
Free with paid upgrades for unlimited use across a term.
Privacy
District-ready signal: the vendor publishes FERPA/COPPA compliance documentation — still verify your district's approval list.
Skip it if
Your school runs on Microsoft or another ecosystem — its whole value is living inside Google — or your grading policy bars AI assistance. Feedback should also stay anchored to your rubric, not the tool's default tone.

Formative

Live assessment platform

What it does
A classroom assessment platform where students respond in real time and much of the scoring happens instantly; AI features help generate items and provide question-level insight while the lesson is still happening.
Best for
Teachers who act on checks for understanding mid-lesson and want to see who is lost now, not tomorrow morning.
Time it saves
Both ends at once — writing the check and scoring it — which collapses the usual build-grade-return loop into the class period.
Free tier
Free with paid upgrades for team and advanced-tracking features.
Privacy
District-ready signal: the vendor publishes FERPA/COPPA compliance documentation — still verify your district's approval list.
Skip it if
Your district already licenses a different assessment platform — duplicating it buys nothing — or your students lack reliable devices for live response.

Class Companion

Instant feedback on practice writing

What it does
Lets students attempt written answers to your prompts and receive immediate, criteria-based feedback while practicing, so revision happens in the moment; you set the assignment, rubric expectations, and how much feedback students see.
Best for
Writing-heavy courses where students need reps with guidance between your formal evaluations.
Time it saves
Redirects the practice-feedback cycle that would otherwise land on your desk — students get coached attempts without waiting a day for your red pen.
Free tier
Free with paid upgrades for institutional features.
Privacy
District-ready signal: the vendor publishes FERPA/COPPA compliance documentation — still verify your district's approval list.
Skip it if
The work in question is summative — keep machine feedback on practice, with your judgment on what counts. Review its feedback quality on your actual prompts early; it varies by subject and grade.

Grammarly

Writing polish for teacher-produced text

What it does
Checks grammar, clarity, and tone in your own writing as you type — feedback comments, report-card phrasing, emails to families — with rewrite suggestions when a sentence is fighting you.
Best for
Speeding up the volume of polished prose teachers produce about students, not grading student work itself.
Time it saves
The re-read-and-reword pass on routine professional writing, which quietly adds up across a week of comments and messages.
Free tier
Free tier with paid upgrades for style and tone depth.
Privacy
Check first: consumer tool — do not enter student-identifiable information; confirm district policy before classroom use.
Skip it if
You were imagining it as a student-facing grader — the consumer product is not that, and student writing should not flow through a personal account. Used on your own drafts describing students? Strip the names first.

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