Getting Started with AI in the Classroom

Trying to decide whether you could use artificial intelligence in your music classroom? Unsure what AI in education looks like?

At its most basic level, artificial intelligence is just a computer that can act intelligently. Many technologies that we use every day use AI, from voice assistants like Siri and Alexa to music recommendations on Spotify or Pandora. (Learn more about AI)

Why use artificial intelligence in the classroom?

"Person plays the guitar outdoors under trees" is licensed by Rahul Pandit under the Burst Photo License

Individualized Instruction

Artificial intelligence technologies can help provide students with more individual feedback than a teacher has time to give. It can also provide immediate feedback on student work. Student learning can be more personalized and flexible with AI (Holmes et al., 2016).

Children standing around a laptop excitedly

"Rural Bangladesh - Kids, Computers, and Macs" is licensed by Shawn under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

Student Motivation

Using AI in your classroom can increase students' interest in learning music (Zhang & Wong, 2019). Technology is widely believed to help motivate students to learn (NAfME, 2014). Use of technology can also increase student practice time (Rogers, 2018).

"Woman teaching group" is licensed by Nicole De Khors under the Burst Photo License

Increased Effectiveness

Learning analytics from AI technologies can be used to help educators find out how to teach more effectively (Holmes et al., 2016). Using technology can also allow teachers to devote more of their time and energy, in the long run, to the important aspects of teaching music that cannot come from a computer (Lang, 2017).

Like many people, you may have some concerns about artificial intelligence. While it has been around since the middle of the twentieth century, little has been done so far to require AI to meet ethical standards or to inform the general population about the issues concerning AI. For more information about common concerns, read our Frequently Asked Questions and Protecting Student Privacy pages.

If you're ready to consider which technologies could be useful for your students, check out AI to Use in Your Classroom for lists of artificial intelligence technologies that address different topics. In addition to basic information about the technologies, it also provides sample lesson plans and other resources for getting started. If you need help downloading or editing lesson plans to use in your classroom, step-by-step instructions can be found here.

If you're looking to explore AI-composed music and share important computer-generated works with your students, you can head to our list of Music Composed with Artificial Intelligence.