Should Artificial Intelligence be Used in Classrooms?
By: Ashley Weng
Image by Dexway
In the past years, artificial intelligence has grown to be one of the most significant technological advancements in modern society. AI proves itself to be beneficial in many ways, but there are many disagreements about whether or not students should be allowed to use it for schoolwork. Although there are several obvious negatives when this topic comes to mind, like cheating and lack of creativity, AI can actually be helpful towards students' education. If used correctly, AI can greatly improve student’s learning habits and academic performance.
Organization
An important struggle that students will have to master throughout their lives is properly managing their time. Luckily, there are several helpful AI websites that can help with just that. A student can simply ask a program to create an effective schedule that will best help them to manage their schoolwork and their extracurriculars. An example of this would be a website called GoblinTools, which offers several tools to help a student succeed, especially if they struggle with a learning disability or another condition that hinders the learning process. Their mission is to create “a collection of small, simple, single-task tools, mostly designed to help neurodivergent people with tasks they find overwhelming or difficult”(GoblinTools). It uses AI tools to help break down complicated items into easier, more digestible information for the student to utilize. Thanks to this website and several others that utilize artificial intelligence, students are more effectively able to manage their time. Time management is not only necessary throughout school, but also throughout the rest of their lives. Artificial intelligence can help to instill this organizational habit in the student so that they can achieve the most out of each and every day.
An AI created schedule using the website Venngage, with templates that can be altered to the users liking. Image by Venngage.
Individualized Learning
In a large class, a teacher has to keep track of several student’s, oftentimes not knowing their exact struggles in a certain topic or subject that is keeping them from academic growth. By using AI programs that provide practice problems matching the student’s curriculum, artificial intelligence can quickly recognize the issues a student has. It then goes on to give the student more practice problems matching the weaknesses they have, so they can improve on it and further their knowledge on the subject. AI programs have also developed to provide automatic assistance on the questions they struggle with, allowing hints that would help the user to gradually piece together the answer by themselves.
CK-12 provides AI assistance and hints during its lessons. Image by Emma Thompson on EITH
AI can also shape the information to be formatted in a way that best suits the student’s learning preferences. The student can easily ask for visuals that may help them if they are a visual learner, or practice problems if they are a tactile learner. Ross Luckin, a professor in University College London, says that, “The real power of artificial intelligence for education is in the way that we can use it to process vast amounts of data about learners, teachers, about teaching and learning interactions” (University of San Diego). AI can easily point out the struggles each student has, informing the teacher of what they can do to assist them in class.
Accessible Tutoring
Many well-known academic websites such as Khan Academy and Carnegie Learning utilize AI to improve a student’s understanding of a certain subject. For example, to help a student improve their math skills, artificial intelligence would spot their weaknesses in the subject to help them improve. It creates practice problems that mirror what the class is learning, making the information interactive and easier to digest. For example, “Ahura is an AI-powered learning assistant that tracks learning habits by observing attention and engagement” (Shonubi). In addition to this program, there are several other artificial intelligence based systems that are created to improve academic performance.
Carnegie Learning’s LiveHint AI helps a student to improve on their weaknesses in a subject. Image by Business Wire
Also, artificial intelligence can provide a student with immediate feedback and resolutions to their problems. Instead of waiting for a teacher to email back or reaching out to a parent or a friend who may not have a definite answer, AI can provide students with the quick information they need to understand the class material. And finally, kids and teenagers can have a more personalized guidance counselor that is easier to access. In a Ted Talk, the founder of Khan Academy, Sal Khan, speaks about how artificial intelligence could greatly improve education. He speaks about a highschool he went to where “the student to guidance counselor ratio was 200 or 300 to one” and that AI can be used to “give every student a guidance counselor, academic coach, career coach, [and] life coach…” (Khan). This means that with AI, each student would be much more monitored and guided towards a future that would be best fit for them. With every student having a personalized guidance counselor whose main focus is for the student to reach their full potential, kids could grow to be their best selves.
Conclusion:
To conclude, artificial intelligence can prove itself to be very beneficial towards a student's academic performance and general understanding of the material. When used correctly, AI can be very beneficial towards a student’s individualized learning, organizational skills, and can serve as an excellent, accessible tutor. Artificial intelligence has the tools to create an even better learning environment to benefit students worldwide. However, teachers and parents will need to monitor their kids to make sure they aren’t incorrectly using AI to cheat and worsen their knowledge of the subject. As a result, with careful collaboration between teachers and parents, AI can become a great tool for academics. It has the potential to transform education, opening possibilities for a smarter and brighter modern classroom.
References:
Administrator. (2025, January 14). 39 Examples of Artificial Intelligence in Education. University of San Diego Online Degrees. https://onlinedegrees.sandiego.edu/artificial-intelligence-education/
Yec. (2023, February 21). Council Post: AI in the Classroom: pros, cons and the role of EdTech companies. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/councils/theyec/2023/02/21/ai-in-the-classroom-pros-cons-and-the-role-of-edtech-companies/
Khan, S. (n.d.). How AI could save (not destroy) education [Video]. TED Talks. https://www.ted.com/talks/sal_khan_how_ai_could_save_not_destroy_education/transcript
About - GoblinTools. (n.d.). https://goblin.tools/About