essay about ai in education

Artificial Intelligence and Its Impact on Education Essay

Introduction, ai’s impact on education, the impact of ai on teachers, the impact of ai on students, reference list.

Rooted in computer science, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is defined by the development of digital systems that can perform tasks, which are dependent on human intelligence (Rexford, 2018). Interest in the adoption of AI in the education sector started in the 1980s when researchers were exploring the possibilities of adopting robotic technologies in learning (Mikropoulos, 2018).

Their mission was to help learners to study conveniently and efficiently. Today, some of the events and impact of AI on the education sector are concentrated in the fields of online learning, task automation, and personalization learning (Chen, Chen and Lin, 2020). The COVID-19 pandemic is a recent news event that has drawn attention to AI and its role in facilitating online learning among other virtual educational programs. This paper seeks to find out the possible impact of artificial intelligence on the education sector from the perspectives of teachers and learners.

Technology has transformed the education sector in unique ways and AI is no exception. As highlighted above, AI is a relatively new area of technological development, which has attracted global interest in academic and teaching circles. Increased awareness of the benefits of AI in the education sector and the integration of high-performance computing systems in administrative work have accelerated the pace of transformation in the field (Fengchun et al. , 2021). This change has affected different facets of learning to the extent that government agencies and companies are looking to replicate the same success in their respective fields (IBM, 2020). However, while the advantages of AI are widely reported in the corporate scene, few people understand its impact on the interactions between students and teachers. This research gap can be filled by understanding the impact of AI on the education sector, as a holistic ecosystem of learning.

As these gaps in education are minimized, AI is contributing to the growth of the education sector. Particularly, it has increased the number of online learning platforms using big data intelligence systems (Chen, Chen and Lin, 2020). This outcome has been achieved by exploiting opportunities in big data analysis to enhance educational outcomes (IBM, 2020). Overall, the positive contributions that AI has had to the education sector mean that it has expanded opportunities for growth and development in the education sector (Rexford, 2018). Therefore, teachers are likely to benefit from increased opportunities for learning and growth that would emerge from the adoption of AI in the education system.

The impact of AI on teachers can be estimated by examining its effects on the learning environment. Some of the positive outcomes that teachers have associated with AI adoption include increased work efficiency, expanded opportunities for career growth, and an improved rate of innovation adoption (Chen, Chen and Lin, 2020). These benefits are achievable because AI makes it possible to automate learning activities. This process gives teachers the freedom to complete supplementary tasks that support their core activities. At the same time, the freedom they enjoy may be used to enhance creativity and innovation in their teaching practice. Despite the positive outcomes of AI adoption in learning, it undermines the relevance of teachers as educators (Fengchun et al., 2021). This concern is shared among educators because the increased reliance on robotics and automation through AI adoption has created conditions for learning to occur without human input. Therefore, there is a risk that teacher participation may be replaced by machine input.

Performance Evaluation emerges as a critical area where teachers can benefit from AI adoption. This outcome is feasible because AI empowers teachers to monitor the behaviors of their learners and the differences in their scores over a specific time (Mikropoulos, 2018). This comparative analysis is achievable using advanced data management techniques in AI-backed performance appraisal systems (Fengchun et al., 2021). Researchers have used these systems to enhance adaptive group formation programs where groups of students are formed based on a balance of the strengths and weaknesses of the members (Live Tiles, 2021). The information collected using AI-backed data analysis techniques can be recalibrated to capture different types of data. For example, teachers have used AI to understand students’ learning patterns and the correlation between these configurations with the individual understanding of learning concepts (Rexford, 2018). Furthermore, advanced biometric techniques in AI have made it possible for teachers to assess their student’s learning attentiveness.

Overall, the contributions of AI to the teaching practice empower teachers to redesign their learning programs to fill the gaps identified in the performance assessments. Employing the capabilities of AI in their teaching programs has also made it possible to personalize their curriculums to empower students to learn more effectively (Live Tiles, 2021). Nonetheless, the benefits of AI to teachers could be undermined by the possibility of job losses due to the replacement of human labor with machines and robots (Gulson et al. , 2018). These fears are yet to materialize but indications suggest that AI adoption may elevate the importance of machines above those of human beings in learning.

The benefits of AI to teachers can be replicated in student learning because learners are recipients of the teaching strategies adopted by teachers. In this regard, AI has created unique benefits for different groups of learners based on the supportive role it plays in the education sector (Fengchun et al., 2021). For example, it has created conditions necessary for the use of virtual reality in learning. This development has created an opportunity for students to learn at their pace (Live Tiles, 2021). Allowing students to learn at their pace has enhanced their learning experiences because of varied learning speeds. The creation of virtual reality using AI learning has played a significant role in promoting equality in learning by adapting to different learning needs (Live Tiles, 2021). For example, it has helped students to better track their performances at home and identify areas of improvement in the process. In this regard, the adoption of AI in learning has allowed for the customization of learning styles to improve students’ attention and involvement in learning.

AI also benefits students by personalizing education activities to suit different learning styles and competencies. In this analysis, AI holds the promise to develop personalized learning at scale by customizing tools and features of learning in contemporary education systems (du Boulay, 2016). Personalized learning offers several benefits to students, including a reduction in learning time, increased levels of engagement with teachers, improved knowledge retention, and increased motivation to study (Fengchun et al., 2021). The presence of these benefits means that AI enriches students’ learning experiences. Furthermore, AI shares the promise of expanding educational opportunities for people who would have otherwise been unable to access learning opportunities. For example, disabled people are unable to access the same quality of education as ordinary students do. Today, technology has made it possible for these underserved learners to access education services.

Based on the findings highlighted above, AI has made it possible to customize education services to suit the needs of unique groups of learners. By extension, AI has made it possible for teachers to select the most appropriate teaching methods to use for these student groups (du Boulay, 2016). Teachers have reported positive outcomes of using AI to meet the needs of these underserved learners (Fengchun et al., 2021). For example, through online learning, some of them have learned to be more patient and tolerant when interacting with disabled students (Fengchun et al., 2021). AI has also made it possible to integrate the educational and curriculum development plans of disabled and mainstream students, thereby standardizing the education outcomes across the divide. Broadly, these statements indicate that the expansion of opportunities via AI adoption has increased access to education services for underserved groups of learners.

Overall, AI holds the promise to solve most educational challenges that affect the world today. UNESCO (2021) affirms this statement by saying that AI can address most problems in learning through innovation. Therefore, there is hope that the adoption of new technology would accelerate the process of streamlining the education sector. This outcome could be achieved by improving the design of AI learning programs to make them more effective in meeting student and teachers’ needs. This contribution to learning will help to maximize the positive impact and minimize the negative effects of AI on both parties.

The findings of this study demonstrate that the application of AI in education has a largely positive impact on students and teachers. The positive effects are summarized as follows: improved access to education for underserved populations improved teaching practices/instructional learning, and enhanced enthusiasm for students to stay in school. Despite the existence of these positive views, negative outcomes have also been highlighted in this paper. They include the potential for job losses, an increase in education inequalities, and the high cost of installing AI systems. These concerns are relevant to the adoption of AI in the education sector but the benefits of integration outweigh them. Therefore, there should be more support given to educational institutions that intend to adopt AI. Overall, this study demonstrates that AI is beneficial to the education sector. It will improve the quality of teaching, help students to understand knowledge quickly, and spread knowledge via the expansion of educational opportunities.

Chen, L., Chen, P. and Lin, Z. (2020) ‘Artificial intelligence in education: a review’, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Access , 8(1), pp. 75264-75278.

du Boulay, B. (2016) Artificial intelligence as an effective classroom assistant. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Intelligent Systems , 31(6), pp.76–81.

Fengchun, M. et al. (2021) AI and education: a guide for policymakers . Paris: UNESCO Publishing.

Gulson, K . et al. (2018) Education, work and Australian society in an AI world . Web.

IBM. (2020) Artificial intelligence . Web.

Live Tiles. (2021) 15 pros and 6 cons of artificial intelligence in the classroom . Web.

Mikropoulos, T. A. (2018) Research on e-Learning and ICT in education: technological, pedagogical and instructional perspectives . New York, NY: Springer.

Rexford, J. (2018) The role of education in AI (and vice versa). Web.

Seo, K. et al. (2021) The impact of artificial intelligence on learner–instructor interaction in online learning. International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education , 18(54), pp. 1-12.

UNESCO. (2021) Artificial intelligence in education . Web.

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Embracing Artificial Intelligence in the Classroom

• Posted July 20, 2023
• By Elizabeth M. Ross
• Learning Design and Instruction
• Teachers and Teaching
• Technology and Media

Although there is a huge amount of interest in generative artificial intelligence (AI) in the consumer world, particularly since the release of OpenAI’s free ChatGPT program last November, in the hallowed halls of academia the response has been more wary. Concerns abound about academic integrity. There are also worries about how AI-generated content can be biased , inaccurate, and sometimes contain entirely false information, dubbed “hallucinations.”  

The cautious response is to be expected according to Houman Harouni , lecturer on education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education and a former elementary and high school teacher. He has compassion for educators trying to grapple with a rapidly shifting world shaped by machine learning.

“Technology creates a shock,” he explains. “This shock is sometimes of a magnitude that we cannot even understand it, in the same way that we still haven't absorbed the sharp shock of the mobile phone.”

Harouni has long wrestled with the impact of cutting-edge technology on education, including experimenting in his own classroom , and is convinced that when it comes to teaching  “the medium is part of the message.” He believes that getting school students and those in higher ed to engage with virtual worlds is essential. 

“Where we want to get to is a place where you’re dancing with it, dancing with robots,” he says.

If the idea of waltzing with a robot creates apprehension for educators, Harouni has some advice:

1) Stop pretending that it doesn’t exist

Educators must “help the next generation face the reality of the world and develop instruments and ways of navigating this reality with integrity,” Harouni says. Students are well aware that technologies such as ChatGPT exist and are already experimenting with them on their own, but they need guidance about how to use them responsibly.

Teacher education and professional development programs should not ignore generative artificial intelligence either. 

2) Use AI alongside your students

Engage with generative AI tools with your students in person, when possible. Otherwise, share AI-generated responses to questions during class time and ask students to consider them or have students experiment with the technology at home, document their experiences, and share them with the class. 

3) Teach students how to ask the ChatGPT tool questions 

“The educator's job is to understand what opportunities are left open beside the technology,” Harouni says. 

Teach students to do what artificial intelligence cannot do. For example, unlike robots, we can ask ourselves questions and that is what students need to be trained in: to know how to ask questions and to learn how to critique their own questions, frameworks, and the answers generated by AI, he says. 

Students can start with topics and questions that they are interested in and ask ChatGPT for answers, he suggests. The knack is then getting them excited about asking follow-up questions. Harouni uses a personal experience with his 10-year-old stepdaughter and his newborn baby to illustrate his point. When his stepdaughter asked him why he kept telling her to be careful with the baby, Harouni turned to ChatGPT to help her to get to the bottom of her question. 

“My creativity as the teacher or the parent at that moment is to say, ‘What is it that you're really trying to ask? What is it that you really want to know?’”

While ChatGPT churned out a “whole bunch of answers about the fragility of the baby,” with some patience, Harouni helped his stepdaughter discover the question that she truly wanted to ask which was what she could safely do with the new baby. “At the moment that the exploration [with AI] ends with the answer, you know that your work as a teacher begins,” he explains.

4) Use generative AI tools to spark the imagination 

One frequent concern about generative artificial intelligence is that students will use it to cheat and avoid the hard work of thinking for themselves, but Harouni says that tools like ChatGPT should really challenge teachers and professors to reassess the assignments they give their students. 

“You have to stop thinking that you can teach exactly the way you used to teach when the basic medium has changed,” he explains. If students can turn to ChatGPT or other AI language models for quick and easy answers then there is a problem with the lesson, Harouni believes.

“We have to create assignments that push [students] to the point where they have to question what is the framework that is being used here and what would it mean for me to radically change this framework,” he says.

Harouni recently wrote about how he used ChatGPT to spur higher-level thinking among his students at HGSE when he presented them with a challenging case study that had no easy solutions. The students’ initial responses were no better than the chatbot’s ideas. Instead “it was after ChatGPT reflected to the students their failure of imagination that they could begin to think of options that they, or any automatic language scrawler, would not have readily reached for,” he explained in a co-authored article for Wired .  

Additional Resources:

• "ChatGPT Is Unoriginal — and Exactly What Humans Need" by Houman Harouni and Dana Karout
• Harvard EdCast: Educating in a World of Artificial Intelligence
• Students: AI is Part of Your World
• Sal Khan on Innovations in the Classroom

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