AI is coming to your kid's classroom, and teachers can't wait (2024)

Microsoft announced a partnership with online learning platform Khan Academy to offer teachers a free AI tool called Khanmigo for planning lessons, assignments, and tracking student performance.

Microsoft's billionaire founder, Bill Gates, has also been outspoken about his belief that AI "will enhance" education.

And despite worries — including whether students will use ChatGPT to cheat on their schoolwork — time-pressured education professionals appear to be positive about generative AI can to help teachers. One major reason: it can help them use their hours better.

Take Tierra Harris, a third-grade teacher based in Texas. Harris has taken full advantage of generative AI services this school year to access resources "in a matter of seconds."

Harris said she uses ChatGPT to help her craft letters to parents, respond to emails, and even create quizzes based on her current lesson plans — all the parts of teaching that don't involve standing in front of a room full of kids.

There's still a way to go before AI is fully integrated into public schools, but Harris, who asked BI not to name her place of work as her comments on AI are personal and not necessarily the school district's stance, said that she's also hopeful that she can soon send AI resources to parents who need assistance with helping them with homework.

"My principal has encouraged us to lean into it and not be afraid of the kids getting ahold of it," she said.

Curby Alexander, an associate education professor at Texas Christian University, said it's helped him teach his college-level students, too.

Alexander told BI that AI helps with brainstorming ideas and developing case studies — things he would've had to come up with on his own before —"without taking up a lot of class time."

His students are also learning from the imperfections of the technology, and sharpening their skills on how to spot where AI-generated content falls short.

AI can "blow the ceiling off" for students

Elsewhere, there are educators whose entire programs depend on AI.

MacKenzie Price is an advocate for disrupting the traditional eight-hour school day. Price cofounded 2hr Learning and Alpha School, a program where students learn academics for two hours using an AI tutor and spend the rest of the day developing life skills "like leadership and financial literacy and public speaking and grit," she told Business Insider.

She said that assigning academic tuition to AI lets kids have a more personalized experience and learn at their own level, avoiding lagging behind their classmates.

"It can literally raise the floor of what's possible for students, and then just blow the ceiling off and help students wherever they're at," she told BI.

Naturally, concerns about the safety and reliability of using AI in the classroom have arisen.

Beyond data worries, "educators recognize that AI can automatically produce output that is inappropriate or wrong. They are wary that the associations or automation created by AI may amplify unwanted biases," the US Department of Education said in a report published in May 2023. "They are well-aware of 'teachable moments' and pedagogical strategies that a human teacher can address but are undetected or misunderstood by AI models."

However, the report also pointed to the opportunities provided by AI, including helping adapt resources to students' needs, using AI speech recognition to increase the support available to students with disabilities, and helping teachers "extend the support they offer to individual students when they run out of time."

And though some teachers worry — like many other workers — that AI will take their jobs, "to the contrary, the Department firmly rejects the idea that AI could replace teachers," the report read.

The intersection of AI and education is seen as necessary — as necessary as teaching kids how to use AI if they want to be prepared for their adult life, according to 2hr Learning and Alpha School's Price.

Most importantly, it's seen as saving teachers' time on non-teaching work.

"Teachers in our country are overworked, they're underpaid, and they're underappreciated. They've been given this impossible task of trying to teach every single student," Price said.

Price believes AI could be the tool that finally changes that.