The Impact of AI in Schools

"AI can amplify good teaching practices, and it can amplify bad teaching practices. It may be ethically neutral, but it will always be in the hands of people that aren't." -Diego Angel-Urdinola

AI, or Artificial Intelligence, is a type of advanced computer system designated for performing tasks using human intelligence. AI uses an enormous amount of data to handle tasks more efficiently. Data is also very important to AI since it uses it to figure out patterns, or gather improvement of performance in an accurate and more effective way. This begs the following question: how can AI affect students’s education and how teachers teach in a school environment?

What is AI's importance, its impact on schools, and the pros and cons of its use by students and teachers?

AI is very popular for enabling personalized learning and performing “expert” tutoring for students and teachers to use in school. However, it created challenges i.e. a cheat system, which led to severe consequences for students and even some teachers who “abused” it instead of creating more original course content. So, how does AI significantly impact schools? Here are the pros and cons for both students and teachers.

Pros for students

AI provides intellectual support to students in the form of resources. It provides beneficial and accessible support to students through personalized learning, which gives students more unique academic insight. AI also provides students with a form of online virtual tutoring for students, and will respond to the questions students have entered into any online AI system. AI can also reply to students by providing real-time feedback based on the student’s “prompts”. The more the system is used, the better it learns and increases AI’s positive learning experiences for students. “AI is the only way to bring a truly personalized learning experience to every student” (Khan The Edinburgh Reporter).

AI also has the ability to help students with problem solving, critical thinking and skills, to assist them in achieving success. There are also multiple computer apps that are attributed to AI that students can use such as online calculators, or something like ChatGPT, which can be useful for automated tutoring. AI can often give students “custom awards” for excellent performance and achieving learning goals.

Pros for teachers

AI is supportive to teachers for creating assignments and tasks. It can help teachers “speed up” the work process, which includes automatic grading tasks and even generating lesson plans for teachers to use. In an article from Brighter Thinking Blog, one can see how AI can be seen as a positive thing for teachers: "Using AI responsibly and with the right frame of mind to develop learning will enable us to produce the best lessons. Not to let AI take over, but to work alongside that emotional intelligence that we as teachers have.”

Furthermore, AI allows teachers to generate creative assignments and lessons for students so that they can focus on the main aspects of teaching.

Cons for students

Students can be tempted in a devastating way when it comes to using AI during the school day. For example, students can often use AI for cheating on assignments, like for essays and even math problems. Students will sometimes use an essay generated by AI then copy and paste it to the essay assignment, which is considered plagiarism. In an online article from Forbes.com that addresses AI plagiarism, the author was quoted as saying, “If a teacher’s concern is that students will “cheat” with ChatGPT, the answer is to give assignments that are personal and focused on thinking. We don’t have to teach students to follow a writing algorithm any more; there’s an app for that” (Forbes.com Stephengoforth).

Furthermore, when students use AI, it decreases motivation on critical thinking skills and social skills. Students are unable to use critical thinking and solving problems because all of these purposes for students were generated by AI at lightning speed. This is called Passive-Learning, where students are addicted to using AI for answers as AI is eligible to initiate instant solutions. When AI collects student data, what students don’t know is that it can often expose their personal information online. This would increase severe danger of privacy and the risk of security. Any types of sensitive data recorded by AI would lead to severe consequences and potential conflicts for students to encounter.

Cons for teachers

AI conflicts involving teachers present similar issues, but most consequences were different compared to students. Although AI would never replace teachers, it is likely that, one day, it could possibly reduce the amount of teachers to educate students. "The order that we cut teachers [due to AI] is way less of an issue to me than the fact we are cutting so many teachers" (Rademacher EdPost). Although it is highly unlikely, this quote shows that people in education are talking about the potential of it cutting teaching jobs. AI is focused on giving assistance to teachers rather than replacing jobs, “The future of AI is not about replacing humans, it’s about augmenting human capabilities” (Pichai Time.com). 

Another issue with teachers using AI in the classroom is accuracy in information. Sometimes AI generated lessons can contain misleading information, and answers or tasks may be inaccurate thus requiring teachers to review it. In order for AI to be used correctly by teachers, they need to be trained and supported to effectively use AI. Lastly, AI can also lead to the decline of critical thinking and social conversations between students and teachers because lessons would be automated and given to students without any real human interactions.

Conclusion

AI can have both positive or negative impacts that can affect many schools around the world. AI features an overall transformation to the school's educational perspectives by providing effective support for both students and teachers, but again, the technology needs to be used in the right way. Regarding AI, I leave you with the following quote to think about:

“I’m more frightened than interested by artificial intelligence – in fact, perhaps fright and interest are not far away from one another. Things can become real in your mind, you can be tricked, and you believe things you wouldn’t ordinarily. A world run by automatons doesn’t seem completely unrealistic anymore. It’s a bit chilling” -Gemma Whelan