As the technology for artificial intelligence becomes increasingly available in the classroom, teachers are responding with mixed reactions to the use of AI in education. While many educators recognize the potential of AI for accelerating the learning process, many believe that students will become too dependent on it and never learn to think for themselves or even develop personal responsibility.
To some educators, AI provides a welcome assist in efficiency for teachers while enhancing students’ understanding. Abigail Cooksey, assistant principal at Salida High School, observed that AI can be particularly useful in helping students overcome challenging works of reading and giving constructive feedback on essays.
Cooksey specifically expressed her concern with the fact that students already use AI to write complete essays without rereading or even checking relevance to an assignment. “My concern is less the fact that AI wrote the essay and more the fact that students aren’t proofreading or building upon it,” she said.
“I think AI can summarize readings and give you really good feedback on an essay; there’s a lot of really great uses for AI,” Benjamin Long, the English teacher at Salida highschool, said. He said AI can supplement traditional learning tools by helping students organize information, especially for students who may struggle with reading comprehension or with formal communication.
AI has also proven useful to teachers themselves. Long said he uses it in teaching almost daily, praising how it simplifies lesson planning for him. To him, AI is a way to cut down the time he spends at work so that more time can be devoted to the needs of his students. He did, however, raise a word of caution when he warned, “AI should accelerate learning and not replace it.” While AI has its conveniences, educators are also worried that this is becoming a double-edged sword and may bring down student engagement with class materials while failing to give students critical thinking opportunities.
Cooksey said that lately in a class where a student was supposed to compare the landscape of Canada with the home landscape, students went off and used AI, making the comparison between Canada and Macedonia–an out-of-date and irrelevant reference. This, according to Cooksey, proves the danger of trusting the machines blindly without understanding or engaging them in contents that might lead to misconceptions and invalid learning.
While teachers recognize AI as a very useful tool, they do manage to put a greater emphasis on the need for its careful and balanced integration into education. Many teachers say that AI can fill certain gaps, AI can be super useful in helping students express themselves with much more clarity and style, yet it is not meant to replace an active, engaging participation of students in the process of learning.
Other educators, like Cooksey and Long, report: AI can be used thoughtfully–it has to be used with due supervision–so that it really enhances education. This was summed up by Cooksey: “AI has its place, but we can’t let it take away from the skills students need to develop independently.”
Meanwhile, as AI continues to make its way into the classrooms, it can stay a tool that enhances learning rather than one that replaces it. The idea, they said, is to strike a balance with AI so that children would not only read and learn from books but also be able to think critically and participate in education.